Review Policy

Peer Review Policy

The Peta Journal of Applied Sciences and Emerging Technologies (PJASET) applies a rigorous peer-review process to ensure that submitted manuscripts meet high standards of scientific quality, methodological soundness, originality, ethical integrity, and relevance to applied sciences, engineering, computing, and emerging technologies.

1
Purpose
PJASET uses peer review to ensure that submitted manuscripts meet appropriate standards of scholarly and scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical integrity, originality, and relevance to the journal's aims and scope.
2
Review Model

PJASET operates a double-blind peer-review process:

●
Authors do not know the identities of the reviewers.
●
Reviewers do not know the identities of the authors.
●
Authors must submit a blinded manuscript containing no author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, or other self-identifying information.
3
Editorial Screening

All submitted manuscripts undergo an initial editorial assessment to confirm:

●
Alignment with the journal's aims and scope
●
Basic scientific and scholarly quality and clarity
●
Compliance with manuscript formatting and ethical requirements
●
Similarity and plagiarism screening, where applicable
Manuscripts may be desk-rejected if they are clearly outside the journal's scope or do not meet the minimum scientific, scholarly, ethical, or presentation standards.
4
Reviewer Selection
●
Typically, two independent reviewers are assigned to each manuscript. A third reviewer may be invited when reports conflict or specialist expertise is required.
●
Reviewers are selected according to subject expertise, methodological competence, research experience, and their ability to provide fair and constructive evaluations.
●
PJASET encourages diversity in its reviewer pool and seeks to avoid excessive reliance on a limited number of reviewers.
5
Conflicts of Interest (COI)

Reviewers and editors must disclose potential conflicts of interest and decline participation where appropriate, including:

●
Recent collaboration, institutional affiliation, supervision, or close personal relationships with an author
●
Financial, political, professional, or other interests that could bias judgment
●
Direct competitive or adversarial relationships that could impair objectivity
6
Confidentiality
●
Manuscripts, reviewer reports, and editorial correspondence are confidential.
●
Reviewers must not share, cite, distribute, disclose, or use unpublished manuscript content for personal or professional advantage.
●
Reviewer identities remain protected under the double-blind review model unless explicitly disclosed by the reviewer and permitted by the journal.
7
Review Criteria

Reviewers are asked to assess manuscripts based on:

● Originality and contribution to scientific knowledge or professional practice
● Scientific or theoretical foundation and engagement with relevant literature
● Methodological rigor and appropriateness of experimental, computational, analytical, quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approaches
● Quality of evidence, analysis, validation, interpretation, and argumentation
● Ethical and responsible research practices
● Clarity, structure, figures, tables, and academic writing quality
● Significance and relevance to PJASET's readership
8
Editorial Decisions

Possible editorial outcomes include:

Accept
Minor Revisions
Limited changes required
Major Revisions
Substantive changes required
Reject
Does not meet journal standards
Revise & Resubmit
New submission after substantial reworking
Final decisions are made by the Editor or Editorial Team, informed by the reviewers' reports and the journal's editorial standards.
9
Revision and Author Response

Authors submitting a revised manuscript must provide:

●
A response letter addressing every reviewer and editor comment
●
A revised manuscript, preferably with tracked changes or a clear change log
If an author disagrees with a reviewer or editor comment, the author should respond respectfully and provide appropriate scientific or scholarly justification.
10
Reviewer Conduct and Quality

Reviews must be:

●
Respectful, objective, and evidence-based
●
Constructive and specific, with major and minor issues clearly distinguished
Prohibited conduct: personal attacks, discriminatory language, coercive citation demands, or requests unrelated to genuine scholarly improvement.
11
Use of AI Tools

To protect confidentiality and the integrity of the review process:

●
Reviewers must not upload manuscript content to external AI tools or services that store data or use submitted material for training.
●
Limited AI assistance for language polishing of the review text may be used only where no confidential manuscript content is disclosed.
●
Any AI assistance that materially influences the conclusions of a review must be disclosed to the editor.
12
Research Integrity and Misconduct

PJASET may take appropriate action, including rejection, correction, retraction, or restrictions on future submissions, in cases involving:

●
Plagiarism or duplicate submission/publication
●
Fabrication or falsification of data or research results
●
Manipulated peer review or fabricated reviewer identities
●
Citation manipulation or undisclosed conflicts of interest
Suspected misconduct should be reported confidentially to the PJASET editorial office.
13
Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision within 14 days by submitting a clear written rationale based on:

●
A procedural error
●
A factual misunderstanding
●
Credible evidence of bias
Appeals are reviewed by a senior editor or an independent editorial member. The decision following the appeal is final.
14
Recordkeeping
PJASET retains relevant editorial and peer-review records securely for administrative, audit, quality-assurance, and research-integrity purposes. Access to such records is restricted to authorized editorial personnel.
Editorial Independence
Reviewer recommendations inform editorial decisions but do not determine them automatically. Final publication decisions remain the responsibility of the PJASET Editor or Editorial Team and are based on scientific quality, originality, relevance, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, and the journal's editorial standards.