Editorial Process

General information

Peer-review evaluation and publishing of articles submitted to EOR are managed electronically through the online system via e-mail correspondence. Corresponding authors will be notified by e-mail upon receipt of a new manuscript and will have further information regarding the editorial process. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to communicate with the other participants of the study about the submission of the manuscript, its content and authorship requirements.

Who makes the decisions ?

EOR Editorial Board oversees the manuscript evaluation process. The Editor-in-Chief is the only person who can officially accept a paper.

Initial examination

Editor-in-Chief and editorial assistants check the submission files to confirm the availability of the required documents. Please note that the Manuscript Submission Form, Copyright Transfer Agreement Form and Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form must be included in the original submission. Corresponding authors of incomplete submissions will be notified via e-mail. Editorial process cannot proceed until all relevant documents are signed and submitted electronically.

Careful manuscript preparation is the crucial part of peer-review process. Editorial assistants will evaluate the manuscript to ascertain conformity to the following standards: consistency to journal style, clear and concise writing, proper use of English grammar and spelling, technical quality, correct formatting of references and documentation of ethical conduct. All eligible manuscripts will also be scanned with anti-plagiarism software.

Manuscripts that fail to conform to journal expectations in any of the above mentioned issues will be returned to authors without review. This is a frequent cause of delay in the publication of articles and may even result in immediate rejection. All issues regarding the outline of the manuscript should be resolved before further evaluation. Manuscripts which pass the initial examination are presented to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-review

EOR operates a double-blind peer review system. Identities of the Editorial Board members who perform the initial examination and those of the reviewers who evaluate the manuscript remain unknown to the authors. All manuscripts are treated as privileged information. Editorial Board members and reviewers are instructed to exclude themselves from reviewing any manuscripts that might involve a conflict of interest.

Editorial Board requests the opinion of, at least, two independent expert reviewers. Those who accept the invitation are expected to provide written critical reviews of the submission within 21 days of receipt. If one of the reviewers gives a negative feedback while the other’s response is positive, Editor-in Chief or Editorial Board invites a third reviewer. Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board reserve the right to obtain reports from biostatistics experts of their choosing at any time during the process, who might also suggest corrections in the manuscript.

21 day time limit will apply for the correction of the manuscript, at the end of which the corresponding author must return a revised version of the documents. Changes should be highlighted in red in the revised manuscript to facilitate reading. Authors should also provide itemized, point-by-point responses to reviewers’ comments in a separate file. The manuscript will be automatically rejected if no answer has been received from the authors. If authors submit the revised paper after the time limit is reached, it will be treated as a new submission. Revised manuscripts will be re-evaluated by Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board and will be sent back to reviewers.

Acceptance for publication requires at least, but not limited to, final positive responses from two reviewers. In light of their recommendations, the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board members choose between the following options:

“accept submission”, “revisions required”, “resubmit for review” or “decline submission”.

“Accept submission” indicates that the manuscript can be published as is. If there are “revisions required”, all major changes in the manuscript must be confirmed by the reviewer who had originally suggested the revisions. In some cases, editorial team may think that your manuscript deserves re-evaluation after substantial changes which cannot be completed within reasonable time limits. Therefore, the editor may encourage authors to re-submit their manuscript by selecting “resubmit for review”. Such conditions include, but not limited to, increasing the sample size, performing more statistical tests or correcting multiple errors that impede understanding. Re-submitted manuscripts will be treated as new submissions. On the other hand, if the “decline submission” decision has been reached, your manuscript has been found unsuitable for publication and you cannot submit the same manuscript to this journal.

An e-mail notification that includes the formal letter of approval will be sent to the corresponding author. Rejection e-mail will include reviewers’ comments and suggestions. Accepted manuscripts will be forwarded to the publisher.

After acceptance

Production department transforms the manuscript files into an article and sends the galley proofs to the corresponding author via e-mail. All authors should carefully check the final PDF proof version of the article for minor punctuation or spelling errors, correct presentation and positioning of the tables, figures and their captions. Corrected page proofs should be returned via e-mail within 7 days of receipt. Major changes such as adding new paragraphs, changing the title or the name order of the authors and modifying visual elements will not be allowed at this stage.

Publication

Articles will normally appear in the order in which they were accepted as publication, however, Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board reserve the right to modify this schedule in the presence of critical scientific issues.

To speed up the process, articles will be first published online, followed by the print version of the journal. Both versions will have identical page numbers. Therefore, no change can be made in the article in between the online and in print publication steps.

DOI number

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number is a unique alphanumeric identifier assigned by a registration agency. Once it is assigned to an article, the DOI will never change, therefore, it is ideal for citing and linking electronic documents. Your article will be assigned a DOI number provided by the CrossRef registration agency, immediately after it is published online.

Changes to authorship

This statement concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts. Requests to add or remove an author or to rearrange the author names must be sent to the Editor-in-Chief from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript. This document must include: the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree on the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, written confirmation from the author being added or removed must be included. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Editor-in-Chief to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Production of the accepted manuscript is suspended until authorship has been agreed. The name and the order of the authors cannot be changed once the article is published online or in print.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their investigations during the editorial process or after publication of the article. Such materials include, but not limited to, original submission files, unedited versions of the printed and/or digital radiographs, unedited versions of the printed and/or digital photographs, histologic slides, original outputs from clinical and/or experimental diagnostic and/or interventional devices, original data sheets of statistical software and technical data sheets of any substance used in the research project. Authors should retain such materials for a reasonable period of time after the publication of their paper.

Correction, Retraction & Removal

A formal correction will be issued in the journal by the Editor-in-Chief, if only a small portion of otherwise reliable article is flawed in a way that does not severely affect the findings reported in it (such as mistakes in the spelling of a drug, miscalculation of a formula, mismatch between images and their captions or incorrect author list). Online articles will not be corrected directly. An erratum (for publishing error) or a corrigendum (for author error) will be published in the next issue of the journal.

Articles may be retracted by its authors or by the Editor-in-Chief under the advice of the scientific community. If authors are willing to retract an article before it is published (accepted or under review), requests must be sent to the Editor-in-Chief from the corresponding author of the manuscript. This document must include: the reason the article should be retracted and written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree on the retraction. Reasons for editorial retraction include, but not limited to, unreliable publications as a result of misconduct or honest error, redundant publication, major plagiarism, copyright infringement and unethical research. A formal retraction announcement written by the Editor-in-Chief will be published in the print edition of the journal. For online articles, the PDF pages remain with a watermark on each page to notify it is retracted.

In rare circumstances, an article can be completely removed from the online database. Such conditions include, but not limited to, defamation, infringement of legal rights, court orders and claims in the article that might pose serious health risks. Title and author names will remain in the web page while the text will be replaced by a notification indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.