The BDJ Peer Review Process
Policy: The BDJ's policy on peer review for scientific, practice and educational manuscripts is exactly the same. On submission, all papers undergo initial screening for suitability for the BDJ by the Editors. Suitable papers will be sent to at least two independent referees chosen by the Editor-in-Chief, and the reports from the referees are then considered by the Editor-in-Chief, who will make the final decision.
Confidentiality: the identity of the referees is kept confidential, the identity of the authors is not kept confidential. The existence and content of a manuscript under review is kept confidential within the offices of the BDJ and the referees. All referees are requested to respect that confidentiality.
Procedure: the peer review process in detail is as follows:
On receipt of the manuscript it is acknowledged by email and sent for initial screening for suitability for the Journal by the Editors. The corresponding authors of papers considered to be unsuitable for the BDJ after initial screening will be informed by email, to enable them to submit the paper to a more suitable publication with the minimum of delay. If the paper is considered to be suitable, two independent referees are chosen by the Editor-in-Chief. Author suggestions for referees in their fields are requested of all authors upon online submission.
Each referee is given a deadline for return of their report for the authors, and if applicable a separate report for the Editors.
If a referee has not returned the manuscript by the deadline then an email is sent requesting their report. In a very few cases referees ignore all attempts to obtain the report and we have no choice but to select a new referee.
Once the reports from the referees are available they are sent to the Editor-in-Chief, who may seek additional specialist advice if necessary, for example from a statistician. The Editor-in-Chief then writes to the author(s) by email enclosing the reports from the referees and the final decision taken. This decision will be one of four options:
- Acceptance without further modification
- Provisional acceptance with modifications as per the reports from the referees
- Possible acceptance if substantial changes are made (no promise of acceptance)
- Rejection
For papers requiring modification, once the modified manuscript is returned it is checked by the Editor-in-Chief. If further modifications are required the manuscript is returned to the author(s) with a letter and/or report explaining further changes.
Finally a letter of acceptance is sent to the authors, requesting all authors sign the copyright transfer form and at this stage submit any final material required.
