Review Process Policy

Informatics Management, Engineering and Information System Journal (IMEISJ) is committed to maintaining the quality, originality, scientific rigor, and integrity of published research. All research manuscripts submitted to the journal are subject to editorial assessment and peer review to ensure their relevance, methodological soundness, and contribution to the development of knowledge in management information systems, software engineering, accounting information systems, business information systems, business intelligence, business informatics management, and artificial intelligence applications supporting management information systems.

IMEISJ applies a double-blind peer-review process, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other throughout the review process. This approach is intended to promote impartial evaluation and minimize potential bias in editorial decisions.

1. Initial Editorial Screening

Upon submission, each manuscript undergoes an initial screening conducted by the editorial team or a designated editor.

The initial screening assesses the following aspects:

1. Scope and Relevance: The manuscript must fall within the focus and scope of IMEISJ.
2. Originality: The manuscript must present original scholarly work and comply with the journal’s plagiarism and publication ethics policies.
3. Technical Compliance: The manuscript must follow the official IMEISJ template, author guidelines, and required Microsoft Word file format.
4. Completeness: The manuscript must contain the required sections, including the title, abstract, keywords, main text, references, and other applicable declarations.
5. Scientific Quality: The manuscript must demonstrate a clearly defined research problem, appropriate methodology, coherent analysis, and potentially meaningful scientific or practical contributions.
6. Publication Ethics: The submission must comply with the journal’s requirements concerning authorship, conflicts of interest, research ethics, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence.

Manuscripts that do not meet the basic requirements may be returned to the authors for technical correction or rejected without external peer review.

Passing the initial screening does not guarantee acceptance or publication.

2. Assignment of Reviewers

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening may be assigned to qualified reviewers with relevant expertise in the subject area, research methodology, or technical approach of the submitted work.

IMEISJ seeks to obtain assessments from at least two independent reviewers for each research manuscript undergoing external peer review.

Reviewers are selected based on their academic or professional expertise, research experience, publication record where relevant, and ability to evaluate the manuscript objectively.

The editorial team seeks to ensure that reviewers have no significant conflicts of interest with the authors, their institutions, or the research under consideration.

If a suitable reviewer is unable to complete the assignment, the editor may appoint an alternative reviewer to ensure that the manuscript receives an adequate and relevant assessment.

3. Double-Blind Peer Review

IMEISJ applies a double-blind peer-review procedure to reduce potential bias arising from author identity, institutional affiliation, or professional relationships.

Authors are required to prepare manuscripts in a manner that does not unnecessarily reveal their identities in the review document. Identifying information should be provided through the appropriate submission fields or separate files, as specified in the journal’s author guidelines.

Reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors or disclose confidential information obtained during the review process.

Although reasonable measures are taken to preserve anonymity, the journal cannot guarantee that identities will never be inferred from the content, citations, or other contextual information in a manuscript.

4. Review Criteria

Reviewers are asked to evaluate manuscripts according to criteria appropriate to the manuscript type and research discipline.

The principal evaluation criteria include:

1. Relevance and Originality: The significance of the research problem and the originality of the contribution.
2. Literature Review: The adequacy, relevance, and critical use of previous research.
3. Research Methodology: The appropriateness, clarity, and rigor of the research design, methods, data collection, and analytical procedures.
4. Results and Discussion: The clarity of the findings, the adequacy of their interpretation, and the relationship between the results and the research objectives.
5. Scientific Contribution: The extent to which the manuscript advances knowledge, methods, applications, or understanding within the journal’s scope.
6. Technical Accuracy: The correctness and adequacy of technical explanations, models, algorithms, system designs, experiments, or analytical procedures, as applicable.
7. References and Citations: The relevance, accuracy, and adequacy of the cited literature.
8. Ethical Compliance: The appropriateness of research conduct, authorship declarations, conflict-of-interest disclosures, and other applicable ethical requirements.
9. Presentation and Clarity: The organization, readability, consistency, and completeness of the manuscript.

For system development and applied informatics research, reviewers may also assess system functionality, testing procedures, evaluation metrics, reproducibility, and the relevance of the proposed solution to the stated problem.

For research involving artificial intelligence or data-driven methods, reviewers may consider dataset suitability, experimental design, evaluation metrics, comparison with relevant baselines, and the validity of the conclusions.

5. Review Recommendations

After evaluating a manuscript, reviewers provide a written report and recommend one of the following editorial outcomes:

• Accept: The manuscript is suitable for publication without substantive revision, subject to final editorial checks.
• Minor Revision: The manuscript requires limited changes that do not substantially alter its principal contribution.
• Major Revision: The manuscript requires substantial improvements in its methodology, analysis, interpretation, presentation, or other important aspects.
• Reject: The manuscript does not meet the journal’s scientific, ethical, or editorial standards, or its deficiencies cannot reasonably be addressed through revision.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. The final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief or the editor authorized to handle the manuscript.

The editorial team may request further review when the reviewers’ recommendations differ substantially or when additional expertise is needed.

6. Revision and Author Response

When revisions are requested, authors must submit a revised manuscript within the deadline specified by the editorial team.

Authors are expected to provide a point-by-point response to reviewer comments, explaining how each concern has been addressed. If an author disagrees with a recommendation, the response should provide a clear scientific justification.

Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or assigned to other qualified reviewers, depending on the nature and extent of the revisions.

Failure to submit the required revision or provide an adequate response within the specified period may result in closure of the submission, subject to the journal’s communication and editorial procedures.

A revision request does not guarantee acceptance. The revised manuscript must satisfy the editor’s and, where applicable, the reviewers’ concerns before a final decision is made.

7. Editorial Decision

The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized editor after considering the review reports, the authors’ responses, the manuscript’s scientific quality, and the journal’s publication policies.

Editorial decisions may include acceptance, a further revision request, or rejection.

Editors are responsible for ensuring that decisions are based on scholarly merit, relevance to the journal’s scope, methodological rigor, research integrity, and the quality of the responses to reviewer comments.

Editors must not allow personal relationships, institutional affiliations, commercial interests, or other inappropriate considerations to compromise editorial independence.

Where an editor has a conflict of interest, the manuscript must be reassigned to an independent editor.

8. Review Confidentiality and Ethical Responsibilities

All manuscripts received for review are treated as confidential documents.

Reviewers must not share, reproduce, distribute, or use unpublished manuscript content for personal, academic, commercial, or professional advantage without appropriate authorization.

Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, respectful, and evidence-based assessments. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate.

Reviewers must promptly disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest and decline assignments when their impartiality may reasonably be compromised.

Editors must protect confidential editorial communications and ensure that manuscripts are handled only by authorized individuals involved in the publication process.

9. Use of Artificial Intelligence in Peer Review

IMEISJ requires reviewers to protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and associated editorial information.

Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscript content, unpublished data, or identifying information to external generative AI tools or services when doing so would violate confidentiality, data protection requirements, or the journal’s applicable policies.

Reviewers remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, confidentiality, and professional integrity of their review reports.

Any use of AI tools in the review process must comply with the journal’s applicable AI policy and must not replace the reviewer’s independent scholarly judgment.

10. Review Duration and Publication Schedule

IMEISJ seeks to process manuscripts efficiently while preserving the quality and integrity of peer review.

The duration of the review process may vary depending on the complexity of the manuscript, reviewer availability, the number of revision rounds, and the time required for authors to respond to editorial comments.

The journal aims to complete each stage of the editorial process within a reasonable period and communicates relevant decisions and deadlines through its OJS platform or official editorial correspondence.

IMEISJ publishes two regular issues annually, in June and December. Acceptance does not guarantee publication in a particular issue, as scheduling depends on the completion of the review process, editorial requirements, and production arrangements.

11. Appeals and Complaints

Authors who wish to appeal an editorial decision may submit a written request to the Editor-in-Chief or the designated editorial authority.

An appeal should identify the decision being challenged and provide substantive grounds, such as a material factual error, a significant misunderstanding of the manuscript, a procedural irregularity, or relevant information that was not adequately considered.

Disagreement with a decision alone does not guarantee reconsideration.

Appeals and complaints will be assessed impartially and in accordance with the journal’s editorial and publication ethics policies. Where the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, an independent editor or another appropriate authority will handle the matter.

12. Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

IMEISJ takes concerns regarding plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, duplicate publication, authorship misconduct, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and other forms of research misconduct seriously.

Suspected violations identified during peer review may lead to requests for clarification, additional documentation, suspension of editorial processing, or rejection of the manuscript, depending on the circumstances.

Concerns arising after publication will be handled in accordance with the journal’s policies on research misconduct, post-publication discussion, corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions.

13. Continuous Improvement

IMEISJ periodically reviews its peer-review procedures to maintain consistency, fairness, transparency, and scientific rigor.

The journal seeks to improve reviewer selection, editorial communication, review quality, and the efficiency of manuscript processing while preserving the independence and integrity of editorial decisions.

Through this review process, IMEISJ aims to publish reliable, relevant, and scientifically valuable research that contributes to the development of management information systems, software engineering, business information systems, business intelligence, and related fields.