Processing Overview
To contribute to improve clarity and transparency in our submission process, a new procedure is now in place.
A representative scheme is presented below followed by additional details:
Upon submission the Editorial Office and the Chief-editor execute a primary verification and decide if the material should be returned to authors (refusal or improvement for resubmission) or if it can proceed to reviewing.
Selecting the Executive Editor
The author might suggest the Executive Editor who will manage the process according with the area of expertise and the available Editor. However this will always be a decision of the Chief-editor who selects the Associate Editor that will provide this secondary verification going forward and chooses appropriate reviewers.
The process is doubled-blinded for authors and reviewers.
Peer review Policies
(adopted guidelines are based on existing COPE´s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors [see more here]).
Once submitted, the manuscript is assigned to one editor (executive) for assessment and decision upon the technical and scientific soundness of the manuscript and its acceptance for peer-reviewing. At the submission stage, authors may suggest potential reviewers, although these suggestions might not be followed.
We provide a secure access to the manuscript to reviewers and authors while maintaining total anonymity (personal as institutional) for all authors. Referees are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the referee. The review process is thus double blinded.
Decision
Decision is grounded on the Executive Editor opinion, based on reviewer reports (a minimum of two). The Editor-in-chief then decides:
- To accept outright;
- To request a minor revision, where authors revise their manuscript to address specific concerns;
- To request a major revision, where authors revise their manuscript to address significant concerns and potentially undertake additional work;
- To reject outright.
Revision
When referees or the Editor requests modifications to the manuscript, the author will be invited to submit a revision with a deadline indicated by the Editor. This process can be repeated until the reviewers see all their doubts adequately answered.
Authors must provide a point-by-point response to referees explaining how the manuscript has been changed. The revised manuscript may be revised by the original referees or not, at the Editor’s discretion. The revision is to be submitted at the online platform as a revision, using the indicated Tracking number previously provided, and not as a new manuscript.
Final submission and acceptance
When the manuscript is accepted for publication it signifies that no further editorial issues exist. The reception date stated on the paper is the date on which the original passed the first assessment for quality checks. The accepted date stated on the paper is the date on which the Editor sent the acceptance letter. After acceptance, authors are sent proofs of their manuscript. Only minor corrections (title, author list or scientific errors) will be permitted. All corrections must be approved by the publishing team. BBR reserves the right to make the final decision regarding matters of style and the size of figures.