Navigation: Resources > Forms, Templates & Checklists > Reviewer and Editor Templates
This resource sets out CorayNova Academic Press's publisher-level framework for reviewer and editor templates used to support responsible peer review, editorial communication, conflict management, special issue planning, and editorial board onboarding.
The templates on this page provide public structure, required elements, and quality expectations. CorayNova does not publish full internal operational templates, internal training materials, internal assessment criteria, or confidential editorial records on the public website.
Reviewer and editor templates should support fair process, confidentiality, editorial independence, respectful communication, research integrity, and accurate record keeping on the CorayNova Journals Platform.
· Available Reviewer and Editor Templates
The following templates and template structures support reviewer and editor work across CorayNova journals. Journals may adapt them to the journal's peer review model, article types, scope, workflow, and approved editorial procedures.
|
Template |
Purpose |
Public Availability |
|
Reviewer Report Guidance |
Helps reviewers prepare structured, professional, constructive, and evidence-based reports. |
Public guidance |
|
Reviewer Conflict Declaration |
Helps reviewers disclose conflicts before accepting or completing a review. |
Public structure |
|
Reviewer Confidentiality and AI Reminder |
Reminds reviewers of manuscript confidentiality, identity protection where applicable, and strict AI-use limits. |
Public structure |
|
Decision Letter Elements |
Identifies recommended elements of clear and fair editorial decision letters. |
Structure only |
|
Reviewer Invitation Elements |
Identifies information that reviewer invitations should provide. |
Structure only |
|
Special Issue Proposal Form |
Lists basic information required for special issue proposals. |
Basic requirements |
|
Editorial Board Onboarding Checklist |
Identifies core topics for onboarding editorial board members. |
Principles and core items |
· Reviewer Report Guidance
Reviewer reports should be specific, evidence-based, respectful, and actionable. A strong report helps editors understand the manuscript's strengths, limitations, ethical readiness, reporting quality, and contribution to the field.
Reviewers should focus on the manuscript, not on personal judgments about the authors. Reports must not include insulting, discriminatory, sarcastic, hostile, or irrelevant personal comments. Reviewers may recommend citations only when they are academically necessary and should explain the reason. Coercive citation is prohibited.
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Report Area |
Reviewer Prompt |
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Scope and contribution |
Does the manuscript fit the journal's scope and article type? What is its main contribution to the field or readership? |
|
Originality and context |
Is the work appropriately situated in the relevant literature? Are important references missing or misrepresented? |
|
Methods and evidence |
Are the methods, data, analysis, interpretation, and conclusions appropriate, transparent, and sufficiently supported? |
|
Research ethics |
Are ethics approval, consent, animal welfare, personal data, survey, interview, or other ethical statements adequate where relevant? |
|
Data, code, and materials |
Is the data availability statement clear? Are supplementary materials, code, protocols, or materials described sufficiently where relevant? |
|
Reporting quality |
Is the manuscript clearly structured? Are reporting guidelines, figures, tables, references, limitations, and terminology handled appropriately? |
|
Integrity concerns |
Are there possible concerns about plagiarism, duplicate submission, image manipulation, data reliability, authorship, conflicts of interest, AI use, or citation manipulation? |
|
Recommendation |
State the recommended outcome and explain the reasoning clearly. The final editorial decision is made by the editor or authorized editorial decision-maker. |
· Reviewer Conflict Declaration
Reviewers should accept a review invitation only when they have suitable expertise, sufficient time, and no conflict that could affect independent assessment. Recent collaboration within the past 3 years is a basic standard for identifying a potential conflict. Ongoing relationships, close personal relationships, strong competitive relationships, supervisory relationships, direct institutional dependency, or other significant conflicts are not limited by the 3-year period.
Reviewers may recommend alternative reviewers when they cannot review, but they must give a reason. Editors independently decide whether to invite suggested reviewers. Reviewers must not provide false identities, disguised private email addresses, unverified contacts, or suggestions intended to manipulate peer review.
· Reviewer Confidentiality and AI Reminder
Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts, data, figures, tables, code, supplementary materials, review reports, editorial correspondence, and author or reviewer identities where applicable. Reviewers must not share manuscript materials with others unless the editor has given prior permission and the assistant's name, role, and conflicts of interest have been disclosed.
Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, data, images, supplementary materials, code, or review reports to public AI tools or external systems. Reviewers may use local or institutionally protected tools to improve the language of their own report only if manuscript content is not disclosed. Any AI use for reviewer report preparation should be disclosed to the editor and entered into the review record. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the report.
· Decision Letter Elements
Decision letters should be clear, respectful, proportionate, and consistent with the journal's workflow. CorayNova publishes recommended elements, not full internal decision letter templates.
|
Element |
Recommended Content |
|
Manuscript identification |
Journal name, manuscript title or ID, article type, and decision date where appropriate. |
|
Decision outcome |
Decision category, such as Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, Reject, Reject and Resubmit, Withdrawn, or Closed, according to journal workflow. |
|
Decision rationale |
Concise explanation of the main reasons for the decision, grounded in editorial assessment and reviewer input where applicable. |
|
Reviewer comments |
Comments for the author, edited where needed for clarity, professionalism, confidentiality, or relevance. |
|
Revision instructions |
Clear expectations, files required, response letter expectations, deadline where set by the journal, and consequences of missing a deadline. |
|
Ethics or policy notes |
Any required clarification of authorship, competing interests, data, ethics approval, AI use, permissions, preprints, or other policy matters. |
|
Contact route |
How authors should communicate with the editorial office or editor through the CorayNova Journals Platform or editorial@coraynova.com. |
· Reviewer Invitation Elements
Reviewer invitations should provide enough information for a reviewer to assess expertise, availability, confidentiality obligations, conflicts of interest, expected timeline, and how to accept or decline the task.
|
Element |
Recommended Content |
|
Journal and manuscript information |
Journal name, manuscript title or abstract where appropriate, article type, and subject area. |
|
Review task |
Review model, expected report type, recommendation options, and whether supplementary materials should be considered. |
|
Timeline |
Response deadline and review deadline as set by the invitation or CorayNova Journals Platform task. |
|
Confidentiality reminder |
Statement that manuscript materials, correspondence, identities where applicable, and review reports are confidential. |
|
Conflict declaration |
Instruction to decline or disclose if a conflict exists, including recent collaboration, personal relationship, competition, institutional dependency, or other relevant interest. |
|
AI reminder |
Instruction not to upload unpublished materials or reports to public AI tools or external systems. |
|
Support route |
Technical issues to support@coraynova.com; review content, conflicts, ethics, or invitation questions to editorial@coraynova.com. |
· Special Issue Proposal Form
Special issue proposals should be assessed for scholarly need, scope clarity, editorial capacity, conflicts of interest, peer review safeguards, timeline realism, ethical risk, and alignment with CorayNova standards. The basic public requirements below may be used before a formal template is requested from editorial@coraynova.com.
|
Required Area |
Information Expected |
|
Special issue title |
Proposed title, field, rationale, and relationship to the journal's aims and scope. |
|
Guest editor information |
Names, affiliations, expertise, ORCID where available, contact route, role expectations, and conflicts of interest. |
|
Scholarly rationale |
Why the issue is needed, target readership, likely contribution, and relationship to current research. |
|
Article types |
Expected article types and any article-type exceptions requiring approval. |
|
Peer review safeguards |
How submissions, guest editor papers, conflicts, reviewer selection, and decisions will be handled independently. |
|
Timeline and workflow |
Proposed call period, submission window, review plan, revision expectations, and production assumptions without guaranteeing publication outcomes. |
|
Ethics and integrity risks |
Potential risks related to authorship, citation behavior, conflicts, data, images, AI use, or topic sensitivity. |
· Editorial Board Onboarding Checklist
Editorial board onboarding should make responsibilities clear while protecting internal materials, internal training documents, internal assessment details, and confidential editorial records.
· Understand the journal's aims and scope, article types, peer review model, and decision process.
· Understand CorayNova's editorial independence, publication ethics, confidentiality, conflict-of-interest, complaints, appeals, and correction/retraction standards.
· Know how to use the CorayNova Journals Platform for assigned editorial tasks where relevant.
· Declare conflicts of interest and update declarations when circumstances change.
· Handle manuscripts, reviewer identities where applicable, review reports, and editorial correspondence confidentially.
· Use respectful, professional, and non-discriminatory communication with authors, reviewers, editors, readers, and publisher-level offices.
· Escalate ethics, integrity, appeal, complaint, privacy, legal, or platform concerns through the correct route.
· Contact Route
Questions about reviewer reports, editorial templates, conflicts of interest, special issue proposal requirements, editorial board onboarding, or ethics concerns should be directed to editorial@coraynova.com. Technical issues involving account access, platform tasks, file access, or display problems should be directed to support@coraynova.com.