JURNAL ILMIAH SAINS (JIS)
Editorial Integrity • Independent Assessment • Scholarly Quality
Jurnal Ilmiah Sains (JIS), published by Sam Ratulangi University, Manado, Indonesia, is committed to a fair, rigorous, independent, confidential, and timely peer-review process. Peer review supports editorial decisions and helps authors improve the scientific quality, originality, clarity, and reproducibility of their manuscripts. Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit and alignment with the journal’s Focus and Scope, without discrimination or commercial influence.
All original research manuscripts submitted to JIS in Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Physics, and relevant interdisciplinary areas are subject to editorial screening and external expert peer review before acceptance. Editorial materials that are not research articles, if published, must have their review status clearly identified.
JIS proposes a double-anonymous (double-blind) peer-review model, in which authors’ identities are concealed from reviewers and reviewers’ identities are concealed from authors. Manuscripts should be anonymized before review. Each manuscript proceeding to external review should normally be assessed by at least two independent reviewers with relevant subject expertise who are not handling editors. If reports are insufficient, contradictory, or address different areas of expertise, the editor may seek an additional assessment. The review model and minimum reviewer number stated here must be implemented consistently in the OJS workflow before publication of this policy.
Upon submission, the editorial office verifies completeness and compliance with author guidelines, while the handling editor evaluates the journal fit, originality and significance, manuscript structure, ethical declarations, similarity concerns, and minimum scientific quality. Manuscripts unsuitable for JIS or clearly deficient may be declined without external peer review (desk rejection), with reasons communicated to the corresponding author. Screening does not substitute for expert assessment of manuscripts advanced to review.
Reviewers are selected on the basis of their scholarly expertise, relevant publication or research record, independence, and ability to provide a substantive and timely review. Editors assess potential conflicts arising from institutional affiliation, recent collaboration, personal relationships, financial interests, or academic competition. Reviewer recommendations provided by authors may be considered but are not binding; identities and suitability must be independently verified. Editors must not select reviewers for the purpose of securing a predetermined outcome.
Reviewers are asked to evaluate: (a) alignment with the Focus and Scope; (b) originality, relevance, and contribution to scientific knowledge; (c) soundness of research design, methods, mathematical proofs, statistical analyses, experiments, algorithms, and/or computational procedures, as applicable; (d) completeness and reliability of data, results, figures, tables, code, and supporting materials; (e) adequacy of interpretation and consistency of conclusions with evidence; (f) use of relevant and appropriately cited literature; (g) clarity, organization, and quality of scientific reporting; and (h) research ethics, transparency, and reproducibility. Reviewers should distinguish essential scientific concerns from optional improvements.
Reviewers must accept only assignments within their competence and available time; disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest; maintain confidentiality; provide evidence-based, constructive, respectful, and unbiased assessments; and alert the editor to possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or manipulated data, unethical research, or citation manipulation. Reviewers must not contact authors directly, use unpublished material for personal advantage, or involve another person in the review without editorial permission. Review comments and recommendations must not depend on the author’s identity or institutional affiliation.
Submitted manuscripts, supplementary files, review reports, and editorial correspondence are confidential. Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or identifying information to external generative-AI services or other third-party tools unless the journal has expressly authorized a secure use consistent with confidentiality, data protection, and intellectual-property requirements. AI output cannot replace independent expert judgement. Any approved AI assistance must be disclosed to the handling editor.
The workflow follows: submission ? initial editorial screening ? reviewer invitation and assignment ? expert review ? editorial evaluation ? decision and author revision, where applicable ? verification of revisions and further review, where needed ? final decision. Possible decisions are reject, major revision, minor revision, or accept. Reviewer recommendations inform but do not determine the outcome; the authorized handling editor and/or Editor-in-Chief make the final decision based on the evidence, scientific quality, journal policies, and review reports. Acceptance is never guaranteed.
Authors receiving a revision decision must submit a revised manuscript together with a point-by-point response explaining how each comment was addressed or why a suggestion was not adopted. Editors assess the adequacy of changes and may return the manuscript to the original reviewers or commission new reviews. Multiple revision rounds may be required. Failure to respond adequately or to meet an agreed revision deadline may result in rejection or administrative closure, subject to editorial discretion and communication.
JIS seeks to conduct review and decisions efficiently without compromising review quality. Reviewer invitations and reminders, agreed deadlines, revision requests, and decisions should be managed through OJS and documented. The journal will communicate material delays to authors. Any numerical turnaround-time targets published on the website must reflect actual journal performance; no specific review duration or acceptance timeframe is guaranteed by this policy.
Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose relevant financial and non-financial competing interests. An editor with a conflict—including authorship, close collaboration, or an institutional or personal relationship that may impair independence—must recuse themselves. Another qualified editor without the conflict should oversee the manuscript. Submissions from editorial board members are subject to the same standards and independent review as other submissions.
Concerns regarding plagiarism, duplicate submission, unethical research, manipulated images or data, fabricated analyses, inappropriate authorship, reviewer identity fraud, compromised peer review, and citation manipulation are handled confidentially and impartially. The editorial team may request underlying data, code, permissions, ethics approvals, or explanations; pause consideration; and follow relevant Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance. Authors and reviewers should be given an appropriate opportunity to respond before conclusions are reached. Actions may include rejection, correction, retraction, or notification to relevant institutions where warranted.
Authors may submit a reasoned appeal against an editorial decision through the journal’s official editorial contact, identifying the manuscript and providing substantive grounds. Appeals are reviewed by an editor who was not responsible for the contested decision where practicable. An appeal does not guarantee reversal of the original decision. Complaints concerning reviewer conduct, bias, confidentiality, or procedural irregularity are considered separately and confidentially.
The editorial office should retain auditable OJS records of submission and decision dates, screening outcomes, reviewer invitations and assignments, review reports, revisions, correspondence, conflict-of-interest actions, and decisions, subject to applicable privacy and retention requirements. Published articles should display at least publication dates and preferably received and accepted dates. The editorial team periodically reviews reviewer performance, turnaround times, decision consistency, and the effectiveness of this policy to support continuous quality improvement.
This policy should be reviewed periodically by the JIS Editorial Board and amended when journal procedures or recognized publication-ethics guidance change. Primary references: COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.9); Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.12).
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Publisher: Sam Ratulangi University, Manado, Indonesia
Organized by: Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Address: Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences,
Jl. Kampus Kleak Unsrat, Manado 95115
