CMC’s peer review policy is designed to ensure the highest level of scientific quality and excellence.
To this end, CMC’s reviewers are carefully selected from among the best international specialists in the fields and subfields covered. Additionally, upon receipt, articles submitted to the journal are carefully screened by the Editorial Office to ensure that they comply with scientific ethics.
CMC’s peer review policy is also innovative, proposing to authors and reviewers a hybrid system that combines a classic single-blind evaluation with some forms of open peer review.
The whole peer review process will be carried out as quickly as possible.
The peer review process works as follows:
Step 1: Receipt of an article - 15 days: The Editorial Office will first check the article to reject it if it is not within the scope of the journal, if it does not have the minimum quality required for a scientific publication, and if it violates the basic rules of scientific ethics: conflict of interest, plagiarism, massive use of AI, etc. The editorial team commits to responding within 15 days as to whether the text should be rejected or peer-reviewed.
Step 2: Deposit of the preprint - if it has successfully passed step 1, the article is immediately deposited as a preprint on the journal’s platform; a DOI is assigned to each preprint; after the peer review process is complete, preprints of final rejected articles are kept on the platform, while preprints of accepted articles are removed as they are no longer needed.
Step 3: Review by the Editorial Board: The article will be reviewed by the Editorial Board members who will select at least two reviewers to whom the article will be submitted for review. The reviewers will be given 1 week to accept or decline the review.
Step 4: Peer review: The article is sent to the reviewers who have agreed to review it; the authors have to give the reviewers access to the data they have collected to facilitate the review; the reviewers have to sign a confidentiality agreement to keep the data secret during the peer review; the authors and reviewers choose one of the three peer review options offered to them:
|
Option 1: Classic single-blind |
Option 2: Disclosed Single-blind |
Option 3: Open peer-review |
|
The names of the authors of the article are known to the reviewers, but the names of the reviewers are not known to the authors. Anonymised reports are sent to the authors. This system leaves more room for fair criticism, given the anonymity of the reviewers. |
This is the same system as the first, but if the reviewers agree, their names can be revealed to the authors, their full reports can be sent to the authors, and private discussions can take place between authors and reviewers. |
If authors and reviewers choose this option, the names of the reviewers and their ORCID numbers will be displayed on the platform. Their reports will be published on the platform and will be assigned a DOI. Authors’ responses to reviewers’ reports will also be published on the platform. In addition, a comment section on the platform will be open to the scientific community throughout the review process. Researchers who identify themselves with their ORCID number will be able to comment on preprints, reviewers’ reports and the revised version of the article. The discussion will be closed after receipt of the final version of the article or after rejection of the article. |
CMC is committed to ensuring that the peer review process is carried out as quickly as possible and to the highest standards of scientific quality.
Step 5: Receipt of reviewers’ reports: Acceptance of the article, with or without a request for revisions, or rejection. CMC is committed to ensuring that authors receive reviewers' reports as soon as they are received.
Step 6: Authors’ responses to reviewers’ reports: Authors have 15 days to respond to the reviewers’ reports. In the case of Open Peer review, submission of authors’ responses on the journal platform.
Step 7: Final version of the article: Authors will have one month (30 days) to write a final version of the article, taking into account the reviewers’ reports and the discussions that have taken place. This final version will be deposited on the journal’s platform. In the meantime, authors will provide a link to a public repository where the open data used in the article can be found.