Peer Review Policy

All research articles and review articles submitted to the International Journal of Theoretical & Applied Computational Intelligence (IJTACI) are peer reviewed. Editorials and invited commentaries are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief or an editorial board member and are labelled as such. This policy applies equally to regular and special-issue papers.

Type of review

IJTACI uses single-blind peer review: reviewers know the identity of the authors, and the identity of the reviewers is kept confidential from the authors. Each manuscript is evaluated by at least two independent external experts.

Stages

1. Technical check and editorial screening (within 7 days; by day 7). The handling editor checks scope, originality, that the file is editable, ethics and data statements, and the Turnitin similarity report (overall similarity below 20%, excluding references). Manuscripts that fail may be rejected without external review.
2. Assignment and initial assessment (within 7 days; by day 14). The Editor-in-Chief assigns a handling editor who has no conflict of interest with the authors.
3. External review (up to 4 weeks; by day 42). At least two independent reviewers are invited by the handling editor within the 7-day assessment period and are asked to return their reports within two weeks. A third reviewer is added if the first two disagree substantially. Overdue reviews are followed up after two weeks and replacement reviewers are invited where needed, within the same four-week period.
4. Decision (within 7 days of receiving the reviews; by day 49). The handling editor recommends accept, minor revision, major revision or reject, and the Editor-in-Chief takes the final decision. Editors do not overrule reviewers on scientific grounds without a written justification.
5. Revision (minor revision: 1 week; major revision: 2 weeks; by day 63). Authors submit a revised manuscript with a point-by-point response. Revised manuscripts are checked within 7 days (by day 70) and, for major revisions, are returned to the original reviewers where possible.
6. Final acceptance decision (within 5 days of the revision check; by day 75). The Editor-in-Chief confirms acceptance, or requests one further round of revision.
7. Acceptance and publication. After acceptance, the production team formats the article in the journal style and sends the authors a proof with any queries; articles are published online normally within 10 days of acceptance, subject to timely proof approval. Each article shows the dates received, accepted and published.

The time from submission to final acceptance is normally within 75 days for manuscripts that need one round of revision. These are target times, and actual times may vary with reviewer availability and the time authors take to revise. A manuscript may go through at most two rounds of revision.

Selection of reviewers

Reviewers are chosen for subject expertise and recent publications in the field. They must have no conflict of interest: no shared institution with the authors, no collaboration with them in the last three years, no supervisory relationship and no financial interest. Reviewers declare conflicts before accepting an invitation. Reviewer identities and reports are confidential. Reviewers who breach confidentiality or ethics rules, or who repeatedly fail to deliver, are removed from the reviewer pool.

Reviewer evaluation criteria

Originality and novelty, scientific significance, technical quality and methodology, validity of results and conclusions, organisation and clarity, adequacy of references, data and code availability, and ethical compliance. See also the Guide for Reviewers.

Confidentiality and AI tools

Manuscripts and review reports are confidential. Reviewers and editors must not upload them to public generative AI tools and must not use AI to write assessments or take decisions.

Manuscripts from editors, board members and reviewers

A manuscript authored by the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, an editorial board member, a reviewer or publisher staff is handled by an independent editor who has no conflict of interest. The author has no access to the review file, the reviewer identities or the editorial discussion, and the published article states that an independent editor handled it. The editorial office monitors such papers and keeps them below 25% of the research articles published in any issue, or in any calendar year for continuous publication, in line with DOAJ guidance. The editorial office also monitors the share of papers from any one author group or institution in each volume.

Special issues

Special-issue papers follow exactly the same peer review process. See the Special Issues and Guest Editors Policy.

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal a decision once, within 30 days, with a detailed justification. An editor not involved in the original decision considers the appeal. See the Publication Ethics page for the full complaints and appeals procedure.

Contact

Editorial office: editor@ijtaci.com

COPE resources

IJTACI follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Useful resources: COPE Core Practices; COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers; COPE flowcharts. See also the journal's Publication Ethics statement.

Further reading and compliance

This policy is written to be consistent with the following published standards and indexing-service policies: Scopus content policy and selection; Web of Science Core Collection editorial selection process; Web of Science journal selection criteria; Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, WAME); ICMJE Recommendations.