MSD Publications - Peer Review

MSD Publications’ publishing model departs from tradition but our peer-review process follows internationally accepted and well-established standards of double-blind review method. Research communities over the decades have experimented with several types of review practices in an attempt to improve ways to identify high-quality work while maintaining fairness and impartiality.

Review process is extremely important to ensure the quality and credibility of a journal, after much deliberation we decided that double-blind is the best approach to achieve our objectives. In this procedure, both the author’s and reviewers’ identities are hidden from each other. Concealing the author’s identity prevents any bias the reviewers may have due to the author’s prior reputation or lack thereof. Similarly, this arrangement prevents the authors from attempting in any way to influence the reviewers. Since both parties are anonymous the chances of conflicts of interest arising are much lower. It is widely agreed that double-blind method protects the interests of authors as well as reviewers since it focuses solely on the merit of a paper’s content.

The editor-in-chief chooses a team of reviewers in the respective field for each case while our editorial staff take additional steps to safeguard against any misconduct. Feedback provided by reviewers is relayed to the authors so they may address the issues raised and refine their work.

To preserve the integrity of our journals, all reviewers abide by the following rules.

• Remain fair, impartial and withhold bias in judgement
• Make decisions based on scientific merit
• Declare any conflicts of interest to the editorial office
• Always provide constructive comments or criticisms
• Maintain anonymity as required by the review policy