Privacy Statement

Authors and Reviewers

Manuscripts must be reviewed respecting the authors’ confidentiality. By submitting their manuscripts for review, authors entrust editors with the results of their scientific work and creative effort, on which their reputation and career may depend. Reviewers also have rights to confidentiality, which must be respected by the editor.

Editors must not disclose information about manuscripts (including receipt, content, status in the reviewing process, criticism by reviewers, or decision) to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. This includes requests to use the materials for legal proceedings.

Editor must make clear to their reviewers that manuscripts sent for review are private property of the authors. Therefore, reviewers and members of the editorial staff must respect the authors’ rights by not publicly discussing the authors’ work or using their ideas before a manuscript is published. Reviewers are not allowed to make copies of the manuscripts for their files and are prohibited from sharing it with others, except with the editor’s permission. Reviewers should return or destroy copies of manuscripts after reviewing. Editor should not keep copies of rejected manuscripts.

Reviewer comments should not be published or otherwise publicized without permission of the reviewer, author, and editor.

Authors should consult the Autor Guidelines of the journal to which they have chosen to submit a manuscript to determine whether reviews are anonymous. When comments are not signed, reviewers’ identities must not be revealed to the author or anyone else without the reviewers’ permission.

Some journals publish reviewers’ comments with a manuscript. No such procedure should be adopted without consent of authors and reviewers. However, reviewers’ comments should be sent to other persons reviewing the same manuscript, which helps reviewers learn from the review process. Reviewers also may be notified of an editor’s decision to accept or reject a manuscript.