1. Editorial Process (In Brief)

The editorial and peer review process is taken care of by team of experienced editorial members which includes Editorial manager, Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members who are well experienced in their specified fields. The roles of Editorial manager and editorial-in-chief is to assign manuscript to the editors. Editors are sought through invitations to organise and conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the expertise of Editors and the scope of the manuscript.

Manuscripts are forwarded for evaluation to the editors and external reviewers to check whether the research work presented in the manuscript (1) meets the quality standards. (2) Falls under the scope of the journal.

Editors may recommend the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by conducting peer review by themselves, based on their own knowledge and expertise, or by taking assistance and advice from other experts of the same field.

After thorough review of a manuscript by at list two experts, in addition to the review of the editor, the decision is relayed to the author. This may be:

• Accept without changes.
• Revision required
• Reject

If revisions are required, then the author is expected to revise the manuscript as per reviewers’ comments within the specified time line and resubmit the manuscript for second round of review.

2. Selection of Reviewer

Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, have the full right when it comes to choosing the right reviewer for a manuscript considering the knowledge and area of expertise of the reviewer.

Before sending the manuscript to the reviewer Larix seeks consent from the potential reviewer about their willingness and ability to review.

3.Roles and responsibilities of Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members

Editors have many responsibilities towards the Authors, peer reviewers. Among which some important responsibilities are:

• To provide guidelines to the authors for submission of manuscript.
• To provide clear statement of the journal policies to the author.
• To treat all the authors with fairness, transparency, and honesty.
• To protect the confidentiality of every author’s work.
• To establish and define policies on conflict of interest for all involved in the publication process including editorial staff, editorial assistants, authors, and reviewers.
• To establish a system for efficient and rapid peer-review process.
• To make editorial decision in a responsive speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner.
• To establish a procedure for reconsidering editorial decision.
• To regularly review, implement and describe policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or finding of misconduct by authors and anyone involved in peer review process.
• To develop system, in cooperation with publisher to ensure timely publication of manuscripts.
• To clearly communicate all other policies and standard.

Reviewers are scientist who uses their uncompensated time for the review process. Therefore, editors should clearly define the responsibilities of reviewer, and they should implement processes that stream line the peer-review process as much as possible.

4. Editor’s responsibility towards Reviewers

• To assign manuscripts to reviewer by considering their area of expertise and interest.
• To establish a system for reviewers to ensure that they treat the manuscript with utmost confidentiality and complete the review promptly.
• To inform reviewers that they are not allowed to make any use of the work described in the manuscript or to use the knowledge that they gained from the manuscript prior to the publication of the article.
• To providing reviewers explicit instructions on journal’s expectations for the scope, content, quality, and timeliness of their reviews to promote fair, constructive, thoughtful, and informative critique of the submitted work.
• To allow reviewers appropriate time to review the manuscript.
• To request reviewers at a responsible frequency that does not over burden them, for timely reviewing of the manuscript.

5. Editor-In-Chief Duties

• Assist Editorial staff on their queries on publication process.
• Establish policies for
  • Submission of manuscripts and criteria for authorship/contributor ship.
  • Processes for peer review, evaluation of decisions regarding publication, and methods for reconsideration of rejected manuscripts.
  • Identification and selection of theme issues and supplements.
  • Conflict of interest and disclosure.
  • Handling allegations and findings of scientific misbehavior and misconduct.
• Communicate publication guidelines and policies (e.g., Instructions for Authors, Instructions for Reviewers, ethical guidelines, editorial board reports, Editorials).
• Receive, review, and act on complaints from those involved in the publication process.

6. Editorial Freedom

The editor-in-chief will have complete authority to determine the editorial content and to choose theme issues within the defined scope of the journal and to participate in the development of the advertising policy.