Peer Review Process

Article Management and Review Process

BRANDA: Journal of Community Service and Empowerment is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. Every paper submitted to BRANDA for publication is subject to peer review. The peer review in this journal is an evaluation of the submitted paper by two or more individuals of similar competence to the author. It aims to determine the academic paper's suitability for publication. The peer review method is employed to maintain standards of quality and provide credibility for the papers.

The peer review at BRANDA proceeds in 9 steps with the description as below:

1. Submission of Paper

The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is carried out via an online system supported by the Open Journal System (OJS). To facilitate authors, BRANDA temporarily also accepts paper submissions by email.

2. Editorial Office Assessment

The submitted paper is first assessed by the BRANDA editor. The editor checks whether it is suitable for the journal's focus and scope (community empowerment, field implementation, 3T issues, and action research methodologies). The paper's composition and arrangement are evaluated against the journal's Author Guidelines to ensure it includes the required sections and formatting. In addition, an assessment of the minimum required quality for publication begins at this step, including evaluating whether there are major methodological flaws in the community intervention. Every submitted paper that passes this step will be checked by Plagiarism Checker to measure the similarity index before being reviewed by reviewers.

3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief checks if the paper is appropriate for the journal, sufficiently original, impactful for community practice, and significant for publication. If not, the paper may be rejected without being reviewed any further.

4. Invitation to Reviewers

The handling editor sends invitations to individuals who he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers (also known as referees) based on expertise, closeness of research interest, and no conflict of interest consideration. The peer review process at BRANDA involves a community of experts qualified to perform impartial reviews. Impartiality is maintained by the double-blind peer review employed in this journal: the reviewer does not know the author's identity, and conversely, the author does not know the reviewer's identity.

5. Response to Invitations

Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then decide to accept or decline. In the invitation letter, the editor may ask the potential reviewer for the suggestion of an alternative reviewer when declining to review.

6. Review is Conducted

The reviewers allocate time to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewers may reject the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several more times, taking notes to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal with a recommendation to accept, reject, or request revision (major or minor) before reconsideration.

7. Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The Editor-in-Chief and handling editor consider all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely between both reviewers, the handling editor may invite an additional reviewer to obtain an extra opinion before making a decision.

8. The Decision is Communicated

The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. Reviewer comments are sent anonymously to the corresponding author to take the necessary actions and responses. At this point, reviewers are also sent an email letting them know the outcome of their review.

9. Final Steps

If accepted, the paper is sent to copy-editing and layout processing. If the article is returned to the author for revision, the handling editor will include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. The author should make corrections and revise the paper per the reviewers' instructions.

After revisions have been made, the author should resubmit the revised paper to the editor. Unless reviewers have opted out of further participation, they will review the revised version (for minor changes, follow-up review may be conducted by the handling editor). Once the editor is satisfied with the revised paper, it is accepted and published online as a freely downloadable PDF file.