for reviewers

For Reviewers
JMachEng's regulations and requirements are identified in the following documents:

• JMachEng's Review Form
• JMachEng's Ethical Standards
• JMachEng's Paper Outline

Rules for Reviewers
All article reviews done for the publisher are free of charge.
Under copyright law, most reviews will be considered to meet the requirements for an "original work of authorship," so the reviewer owns the copyright unless he or she assigns it to the publisher.
The reviewer must thoroughly familiarize himself with the reviewed work and make every effort to fairly and honestly assess its professional and cognitive value, independence and novelty, in accordance with the current state of the discipline of science he represents and the requirements (arising from the law, the contract and academic customs) for reviewers in the type of proceedings.
It is inadmissible to issue reviews consisting mainly of accusations, but culminating in a positive conclusion. similarly, reviews maintained in an emotional tone, openly biased, and especially malicious or composed of unsupported praise are unacceptable.
In order to meet the requirements of scientific accuracy and ensure the continuity of publishing, we kindly ask you to:

• make sure that a paper you have been asked to review is consistent with your field of interest and matches your expertise - do not hesitate to inform us that you feel unqualified to conduct a review;
• meet the requirements of a double-blind review;
• confirm there are no conflicts of interest;
• meet deadlines and make sure you have enough time to review a paper - in general you have three weeks to conduct a review;
• let us know - within one or two days - if you are able or not to complete a review.

Double-blind review
Papers are reviewed by two (or more) independent and anonymous reviewers. The identities of the author and referees are concealed.

Conflict of interest
To avoid a possible conflict of interest, a reviewer is not allowed to:

• work in the same organization as the author(s) of paper, e.g. university, research institute, etc.
• have previously collaborated with the author(s) on a paper
• have any professional, personal or financial relationship with the author(s).

If a reviewer is aware of any potential conflict of interest, they should inform the editor who has invited them to conduct a review.

Evaluation criteria
All submitted papers ought to be assessed in the following aspects:

• originality;
• structure and organisation
• reliability and accuracy of theoretical issues
• methodological rigor of presented research
• relevance, reliability and accuracy of empirical findings
• contribution of the research findings to knowledge and business practice
• quality of writing and language (e.g. punctuation errors, misspellings, spelling mistakes, colloquial language should be avoided)
• quality and legitimacy validity of tables and figures.

During the review process, we kindly ask you to:

• conduct your review objectively
• be critical, but justify your criticism
• try to be helpful to the author and provide comments and suggestions for the paper improvement
• be careful not to reveal your identity in the comments
• give us clear recommendations.

As a reviewer you are asked to fill in our review form.

Required paper structure
Papers submitted to the JMachEng should be divided into logical parts labeled as headlines including (see JMachEng’s Paper Template):

• Title
• Abstract (Aim/Purpose, Design/methodology/approach, Findings, Research implications/limitations, Originality/value/contribution)
• Keywords
• Main body (Introduction, Theoretical background, Research methods and procedure, Research findings and discussion, Conclusion)
• Acknowledgements
• References

Reviewer's checklist
Please consider the following points during the review process:

• Does the paper match the standards and scope of JMachEng?
• Does the outline of the paper adjust to the JMachEng's requirements?
• Is the paper innovative and original?
• Are the research questions/hypotheses clear and theoretically grounded?
• Are the research design, methodology and methods appropriate to the questions/hypotheses?
• Does the paper contribute to the existing knowledge?
• Does the paper expand and develop the existing theory and concepts?
• Are the methods described clearly, allowing other researchers to replicate research
• Are the methods appropriate for data analysis?
• Does the conclusion include theoretical and practical contributions and specify limitations of presented research?
• Does the conclusion indicate implications for researchers and practitioners?
• Does the conclusion indicate directions for future work?

Plagiarism
If you suspect plagiarism or self-plagiarism, please inform us immediately.

Confidentiality
Please remember, papers received for reviews must be treated as confidential documents.

Ethical standards
JMachEng holds the best standards of publication ethics. It is important for us to ensure that authors and reviewers follow these standards / act in accordance with these standards (available here).
The review procedure and policy are described in detail in the section Peer review.

Under copyright law, most reviews will be considered to meet the requirements for an "original work of authorship," so the reviewer owns the copyright unless he or she expressly transfers the copyright by written agreement to the publisher.
According to the adopted custom, reviews of manuscripts are done free of charge.