Responsible peer review guidance for reviewers
Reviewer guidance focused on fair assessment, confidentiality, constructive feedback, ethical alerts, bias awareness, and responsible use of AI in review workflows.
Learning topics in this section
Each topic is written for practical use, with emphasis on transparency, responsible authorship, accurate attribution, publication ethics, and open access publishing standards.
Guidance is prepared to support ethical publishing practice: clear journal information, transparent fees where applicable, responsible peer review, proper citation, licensing awareness, data integrity, and accountable AI use.
Reviewer Role and Eligibility
Reviewers should accept assignments only when they have relevant expertise, enough time, and no unmanaged conflict of interest with the authors, funders, institutions, or topic.
Confidentiality in Peer Review
Reviewers must not share manuscript files, discuss unpublished work, reuse ideas or data, or upload confidential content into external tools unless journal policy explicitly allows it.
Constructive Review Reports
A high-quality review is respectful, specific, evidence-based, and useful to both editors and authors, separating major scientific concerns from minor language or formatting issues.
Ethical Concerns in Manuscripts
Reviewers should alert editors to suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, missing ethics approval, data irregularities, image concerns, inappropriate citations, or undisclosed conflicts.
Bias and Fair Evaluation
Review should focus on the manuscript content, methods, evidence, and interpretation, avoiding bias related to nationality, institution, career stage, gender, language, or personal views.
Review Timelines
Reviewers should respond promptly to invitations, meet agreed deadlines where possible, and notify the editorial office early if more time is needed.
Responsible AI Use in Review
AI tools should not be used to process confidential manuscripts unless journal policy allows it; reviewers remain fully responsible for accuracy, confidentiality, and judgment.
Recommendation and Decision Support
Reviewer recommendations should explain whether the work is publishable, requires revision, or has fundamental concerns, while final decisions remain with editors.