Open peer reviewing

Peer reviewing is essential to ensure the quality of publications by the Traffic Safety Research (TSR) journal.

The process starts with the handling editor screening the submitted manuscript to decide whether it is relevant for the journal and its quality is high enough to be considered for publication. If the manuscript is desk-rejected, the editor provides some motivation explaining the decision.

The manuscripts accepted for review are sent to at least two independent reviewers, experts in the field. Based on reviewers' recommendations, the editor decides whether the manuscript should be Accepted, Revised or Rejected. In case of doubts or contradicting reviews, the editor may approach an additional reviewer or overrun some of the recommendations. The reviewers' recommendations are sent to the authors together with the editor decision.

The authorship is not hidden from the reviewers during the entire review process.

To acknowledge the efforts being made, the TSR journal makes public the names of both the handling editor and the reviewers of the accepted papers. If a paper is published against the recommendation of a reviewer, his/her name is not disclosed. Neither are revealed the names of the reviewers of the papers that have been rejected.

The detailed instructions provided to the reviewers can be found here. The handling editor is considered to be a part of the reviewing process, thus the ethical guidelines for the reviewers (competing interests, confidentiality, accountability, etc.) apply to the editor to the same extent.

In case the authors suspect some misconduct during the reviewing process or disagree with the editor decision, they may lodge an appeal and request the situation to be investigated. Read more about the procedures for complaints and appeals here.