The Role of Peer Review

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This resource sets out CorayNova Academic Press's publisher-level standards for the role of peer review in CorayNova journals.

Peer review supports the integrity, quality, clarity, and trustworthiness of scholarly communication. It helps editors evaluate whether a manuscript is suitable for the journal, whether its claims are supported by the evidence presented, whether its methods and reporting are sufficiently transparent, and whether ethical or integrity concerns require further editorial attention.

Reviewer reports inform editorial decision-making; they do not determine the final editorial decision. Final decisions are made by the journal's Editor-in-Chief or authorized responsible editors according to the journal's approved workflow and CorayNova's publisher-level standards.

· Core Principle

Peer review at CorayNova must be independent, confidential, evidence-based, respectful, and proportionate to the manuscript type, journal scope, and approved peer review model.

Reviewers are invited for their scholarly expertise and independent judgment. Their role is to evaluate the manuscript, identify strengths and weaknesses, alert editors to ethical or integrity concerns, and provide constructive comments that help authors and editors understand the basis of the assessment.

· What Peer Review Contributes

Contribution

What Reviewers Assess

Why It Matters

Scholarly fit

Whether the manuscript aligns with the journal's aims, scope, readership, article type, and contribution expectations.

Helps editors determine whether the manuscript belongs in the journal's scholarly conversation.

Quality and rigor

Whether the research question, design, methods, analysis, evidence, and interpretation are appropriate and sufficiently robust.

Supports responsible editorial decisions and reduces the risk of publishing unsupported claims.

Transparency

Whether methods, data availability, code/materials availability where applicable, limitations, and reporting are clear enough for readers to assess the work.

Improves reader trust, reproducibility, and responsible reuse.

Ethics and integrity

Whether there are signs of missing ethics approval, consent concerns, image or data issues, plagiarism, duplicate submission, authorship anomalies, or undisclosed competing interests.

Protects participants, authors, reviewers, editors, journals, and the scholarly record.

Constructive improvement

Whether comments are specific, prioritized, respectful, and useful to authors and editors.

Helps manuscripts improve without turning peer review into adversarial criticism.

· Responsibilities of CorayNova Reviewers

· Accept review invitations only when they have suitable expertise, sufficient time, no disqualifying competing interests, and the ability to comply with confidentiality and ethics requirements.

· Provide a fair, timely, and evidence-based assessment focused on the manuscript, not on the identity, nationality, institution, language background, seniority, or personal characteristics of the authors.

· Identify major strengths, major limitations, methodological or reporting concerns, and ethical or integrity issues that editors should consider.

· Distinguish essential revisions from optional suggestions and avoid unnecessary requests that do not materially improve the manuscript.

· Use confidential comments to editors only for matters that should not be included in comments to authors, such as ethics, integrity, safety, confidentiality, or competing-interest concerns.

· Relationship with Editorial Decisions

Editors evaluate reviewer reports critically and in context. They may accept, reject, qualify, or seek further information about reviewer comments. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and must not be treated as votes.

The final editorial decision may differ from one or more reviewer recommendations when the editor determines that the journal's scope, standards, article type, evidence, ethics requirements, or reviewer reasoning supports a different outcome.

· Reviewer Standards at a Glance

Standard

Required Reviewer Practice

Independence

Disclose competing interests promptly and decline or seek editorial advice when impartial review may be affected.

Confidentiality

Treat the manuscript, review materials, review report, and editorial communication as confidential.

Respect

Use professional, specific, and constructive language; do not include discriminatory, insulting, or personal comments.

Integrity

Report suspected ethical or research integrity concerns privately through the CorayNova Journals Platform or editorial@coraynova.com.

Accountability

Submit reviews on time or notify the editor early if an extension or withdrawal is needed.

· Contacts

Questions about reviewer invitations, review content, competing interests, or ethical concerns should be directed through the CorayNova Journals Platform or to editorial@coraynova.com. Technical problems with the platform should be directed to support@coraynova.com.