Peer Review Policy

1. Overview and Scope

The Journal of Arts, Culture and Society (JACS) is committed to maintaining the highest scholarly standards through a fair, thorough, and constructive peer review process. All manuscripts submitted to JACS that fall within the journal's aims and scope and meet basic submission requirements will be subject to peer review. This process is essential for validating research, ensuring clarity of argument, and enhancing the quality of published work.

2. Peer Review Model

JACS employs a triple-anonymous peer review model (often referred to as triple-blind review).

In this model:

  • The identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers.

  • The identities of the reviewers are concealed from the authors.

  • The identities of the authors are also concealed from the handling editor during the initial review process.

This rigorous approach ensures that manuscripts are evaluated solely on their scholarly merit, originality, and contribution to the field, eliminating any potential bias related to author identity, reputation, gender, nationality, or institutional affiliation for both the reviewers and the editor making the initial assessment.

3. Pre-review Screening (Desk Review)

Upon submission, the manuscript undergoes an initial evaluation by the editorial office, but not by the academic editor, to ensure it meets the requirements for triple-blind review.

This preliminary check assesses the manuscript for:

  • Fit with Aims and Scope: Relevance to the journal's focus on arts, culture, and society.

  • Adherence to Submission Guidelines: Compliance with formatting, length, and style requirements.

  • Anonymity: Confirmation that the manuscript has been properly prepared for triple-blind review (see Section 4).

  • Plagiarism Screening: All submissions are screened for similarity to published material using a plagiarism detection tool (e.g., iThenticate) to ensure the work is original.

  • Ethical Compliance: Verification of basic ethical statements, such as disclosure of conflicts of interest.

Manuscripts that clearly fall outside the journal's scope, are not properly prepared, fail the originality check, or contain identifying information that compromises the blind review will be returned to the authors without further review.

4. Author Responsibilities: Preparing an Anonymous Manuscript

To facilitate triple-blind review, authors are responsible for preparing a version of their manuscript that is stripped of all identifying information.

Authors must ensure that:

  1. Author Names and Affiliations: These are removed from the title page, headers, footers, and document properties.

  2. Self-Citations: References to the authors' own work are handled in one of the following ways:

    • Cited in the third person (e.g., "As Smith (2020) demonstrated..." rather than "As demonstrated in our previous work...").

    • Temporarily replaced with the text "AUTHOR CITATION" in both the citation and the reference list (e.g., "As noted in previous research (AUTHOR CITATION),...").

  3. Acknowledgments: These are removed during the review process and can be reinserted upon acceptance.

  4. Institutional Details: Any language or identifying details in the text that might reveal the authors' institutional affiliation (e.g., specific grant numbers, names of local collections) should be anonymized or generalized.

  5. File Properties: Metadata in the manuscript file (e.g., author name in "Created by" field) must be removed prior to submission.

Authors will be required to upload a separate, non-anonymized title page and any related files (e.g., cover letter) during submission. These files will only be accessible to the editorial staff and will not be shared with reviewers.

5. The Review Process

Once a manuscript passes the initial pre-screening, it is assigned to a handling editor with relevant subject expertise. Critically, the manuscript file the editor receives is the anonymized version. The editor does not have access to the authors' identities at this stage.

The editor will then invite at least two independent reviewers with recognized expertise in the manuscript's subject area. Reviewers receive the anonymized manuscript and are instructed that they must not contact the authors.

  • Reviewer Selection: Reviewers are selected based on their publication history and expertise.

  • Review Timeline: Reviewers are typically requested to complete their evaluation and submit their report within 3-4 weeks. The journal strives to provide an initial decision to authors within 8-10 weeks of submission.

6. Reviewer Responsibilities and Guidelines

Reviewers play a crucial role in upholding the quality of JACS. By agreeing to review, they commit to the following ethical and procedural guidelines:

  • Confidentiality: Manuscripts are confidential, privileged documents. Reviewers must not discuss the content or share the manuscript with any third party without explicit permission from the editor.

  • Anonymity: Reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors. If the authors' identity becomes accidentally apparent (e.g., through self-citation or subject matter), reviewers should notify the editor and continue to evaluate the work based solely on its content. They must not use this knowledge to influence their review or contact the authors.

  • Objectivity and Constructiveness: Reviews should be objective, constructive, and courteous. Personal criticism is inappropriate. Reviewers should clearly explain and support their judgments, providing feedback that can help the author strengthen their work.

  • Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers should inform the editor immediately if they suspect a potential conflict of interest (e.g., they believe they can identify the author and have a relationship with them). In such cases, they should withdraw from the review process.

  • Timeliness: Reviewers should accept or decline an invitation promptly and submit their review by the agreed-upon deadline.

  • Prohibition on AI Use for Review: A manuscript cannot be uploaded into generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools for review, as this violates its confidentiality. Reviewers may use AI tools to polish the grammar and clarity of a review they have authored, but the intellectual evaluation must be their own work.

  • Originality: Reviewers should alert the editor to any suspected issues of plagiarism, duplicate publication, or ethical misconduct.

7. Criteria for Evaluation

Reviewers are asked to evaluate manuscripts based on the following criteria:

  • Originality and Significance: Does the work offer a new contribution, insight, or theoretical perspective?

  • Clarity of Argument: Is the central thesis or research question clearly articulated and logically developed?

  • Methodology (if applicable): Is the research approach or theoretical framework appropriate, rigorous, and well-executed?

  • Engagement with Literature: Does the manuscript engage critically and appropriately with existing scholarship?

  • Quality of Presentation: Is the manuscript clearly written, well-organized, and free of errors? Are the arguments supported by appropriate evidence?

  • Interest to the Readership: Will the manuscript be of interest to JACS's interdisciplinary audience?

8. Editorial Decision and Author Notification

Based on the reviewer reports, the handling editor will make an editorial recommendation. At the point of decision, the editor will be "unblinded" and will learn the identities of the authors. This allows the editor to consider any potential conflicts of interest and to evaluate the work in the context of the authors' broader scholarly contributions if necessary.

The final decision will be communicated to the corresponding author, along with the anonymized reviewer reports. The possible decisions are:

  • Accept (with or without minor revisions)

  • Minor Revisions

  • Major Revisions

  • Reject

Authors are requested to submit any revised manuscript within a specified timeframe. If a revised manuscript is not received within this period, it may be considered withdrawn. For revised submissions, authors must resubmit an anonymized version of their manuscript to maintain the blind process for any subsequent rounds of review.

9. Appeals and Complaints

Authors who believe a decision was based on a significant factual error or a procedural flaw may submit a written appeal to the Editor-in-Chief. The appeal must provide clear and detailed justification for reconsideration. The Editor-in-Chief will review the case, which may involve consulting with members of the editorial board. JACS follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for handling complaints and appeals.

10. Handling of Competing Interests

All authors must declare any potential competing interests (financial, professional, or personal) in a separate, non-anonymized file during submission. This declaration will only be seen by the editorial staff and will not be shared with reviewers. Reviewers must disclose any interests that could compromise their impartiality. Editors with a competing interest in a manuscript (e.g., as a co-author or from the same institution) will be recused from handling it.

11. Preprints and Prior Publication

JACS will consider manuscripts that have been previously posted on a preprint server (e.g., SocArXiv, Humanities Commons). Authors must inform the editorial team of such a posting at the time of submission. While posting a preprint does not compromise the novelty of the submission for JACS, authors should be aware that it may make their identity more easily discoverable by reviewers, potentially challenging the integrity of the triple-blind process. Submitting a manuscript that is under consideration elsewhere constitutes a violation of the journal's ethical policy.

12. AI Use by Authors

The use of AI tools in writing the manuscript or generating content must be disclosed by the authors in a separate, non-anonymized file during submission. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the content produced with the assistance of AI. AI tools cannot be listed as authors of the manuscript.

13. Confidentiality

All submitted manuscripts are treated as privileged and confidential documents. The editorial team will not disclose information about a manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers, as appropriate. The identities of authors are protected from reviewers and editors during the initial review stage; the identities of reviewers are protected from authors at all times.