Evaluation Criteria

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This resource sets out CorayNova Academic Press's publisher-level criteria for evaluating journal proposals, relaunch proposals, transfer proposals, hosted journal cooperation, and society or institutional partnership proposals.

Evaluation is qualitative, evidence-based, and proportionate to the proposed journal's scope, complexity, risk, and stage of development. CorayNova does not rely on a single metric, indicator, market forecast, institutional relationship, or commercial expectation to decide whether a proposal should proceed.

· Evaluation Criteria Matrix

CorayNova evaluates proposals against academic, editorial, ethical, operational, platform, and sustainability criteria. The criteria below may be applied flexibly according to proposal type, journal stage, field complexity, and available evidence.

Criterion

What CorayNova Evaluates

Scholarly need

Whether the journal addresses a genuine field need, community need, emerging topic, interdisciplinary gap, or underserved scholarly area.

Scope clarity

Whether aims and scope are precise, differentiated, manageable, and understandable to authors, readers, editors, reviewers, and indexers.

Field fit

Whether the proposed field and community align with CorayNova's publishing mission, expertise, platform capacity, and long-term development direction.

Differentiation

Whether the proposal avoids unnecessary duplication with existing CorayNova journals or other field journals.

Editorial leadership

Whether the proposed Editor-in-Chief and editorial leadership have appropriate academic credibility, availability, independence, and governance readiness.

Editorial board capacity

Whether the proposed board plan covers the field, has suitable expertise, manages conflicts, and can support responsible editorial work.

Peer review capacity

Whether the proposed peer review model, reviewer network, decision process, and quality controls are realistic and transparent.

Ethics risk

Whether the field, article types, special issues, conflicts, human/animal research, personal data, or other factors create risks that can be managed.

Research integrity safeguards

Whether the proposal addresses data, images, methods, reporting guidelines, authorship, AI use, competing interests, and post-publication responsibilities.

Operational feasibility

Whether platform setup, workflow, editorial office support, production, publication frequency, training, and communication are realistic.

Metadata readiness

Whether the proposal can support DOI, ORCID where provided, funding metadata, references where available, license display, and correction/retraction linking.

OA and compliance readiness

Whether the proposed access, APC, waiver, copyright, license, and repository information can be stated transparently.

Financial sustainability

Whether the funding, APC, institutional, society, or partnership model is realistic and separated from editorial decisions.

Long-term preservation

Whether the proposal addresses PKP Preservation Network eligibility, DOI persistence, platform records, backups, metadata maintenance, and any additional preservation arrangement.

Alignment with CorayNova policies

Whether the journal can operate under CorayNova's publisher-level policies on editorial independence, peer review, ethics, fees, licensing, privacy, accessibility, preservation, and complaints.

· Commercial and Institutional Considerations

Market demand, institutional support, society support, APC or funding model, sponsorship, outreach potential, and partnership opportunity may be considered. These considerations must not override scholarly quality, ethics, editorial independence, transparency, research integrity, or long-term sustainability.

Institutional arrangements, sponsorship, APCs, discounts, waivers, commercial cooperation, marketing support, hosting arrangements, or partnership discussions do not influence manuscript-level editorial assessment, peer review, acceptance, rejection, correction, retraction, expression of concern, article removal, or appeal outcomes.

Consideration

Boundary

Market or community demand

Can support the academic case but cannot substitute for scholarly need, scope clarity, and editorial capacity.

Institutional or society support

Can strengthen sustainability but cannot influence editorial independence or manuscript decisions.

APC or funding model

Can be evaluated for transparency and viability but cannot determine acceptance of manuscripts or suppress legitimate editorial actions.

Sponsorship or partnership

Can support operations when transparent and controlled but cannot override policy, ethics, or peer review standards.

Brand or strategic fit

Can be considered as part of publisher responsibility but must be evaluated alongside scholarly, ethical, and operational factors.

· Evaluation Process and Outcomes

CorayNova may ask proposers to revise a proposal, provide additional evidence, clarify governance, address conflicts of interest, strengthen editorial board plans, revise the scope, improve ethics safeguards, or modify the operational model before a decision is made.

CorayNova may invite external advisers, subject experts, editorial consultants, or publisher-designated reviewers to participate in proposal review where needed. Participants must respect confidentiality and disclose relevant conflicts of interest.

Outcome

Meaning

Proceed

The proposal may move to agreement, governance setup, platform planning, launch readiness review, or another approved next step.

Revise and Resubmit Proposal

The proposal has potential but requires substantial revision before further evaluation.

Hold for Further Development

The proposal may be premature, underdeveloped, or dependent on conditions that must mature before evaluation proceeds.

Decline

The proposal does not meet CorayNova's academic, editorial, ethical, operational, policy, sustainability, or strategic requirements at this time.