Editorial Procedures

Qualification for Authorship

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; the creation of new software used in the work; and/or writing or substantively revising the manuscript. In addition, all authors must have approved the submitted version and must agree to be accountable for their own contributions and the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work. Note that acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group do not, by themselves, justify authorship. Follow guidance in the manuscript template to identify author roles in the Author Contribution Statement.

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts will be checked by a Co-Editor in Chief to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow JEED’s ethical policies. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s policy on Research and Publication Ethics or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Co-Editor in Chief will determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage.

Transparent Peer Review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to an Associate Editor who will usher the manuscript through the review process. At least two independent experts will complete a peer review. Associate Editors will invite experts in the discipline of the publication; potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered.

JEED encourages transparency in scientific discourse. Our aim is to provide an unbiased view into the peer-review process to further support our commitment to publishing novel, rigorously conducted ecological design-related science and engineering.

Each published manuscript will include a peer review file with the name of the handling Associate Editor, reviewer comments and author responses. All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response. The peer review file is published online with the final manuscript as a supplementary document. By submitting their review, reviewers agree to the publication of their comments to authors and ultimately as part of the published manuscript. Reviewers will remain anonymous, although we encourage reviewers to sign their reviews. Under limited special circumstances, authors may opt out of publishing a peer review file.

Peer review files will not contain all the information considered in the editorial decision making process, such as the discussions between editors, editorial decision letters, or any confidential comments made by reviewers or authors to the editors.

Reviewer Selection

During the submission process, authors will use the cover letter template to suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript, including detailed contact information (affiliation, address, phone, and e-mail address). The proposed reviewers should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years and should be from different institutions than the authors. Selected reviewers must have the disciplinary expertise to assess the quality of the research, be able to provide a thorough and constructive review in a timely manner, and communicate in a clear, professional way with the author and editors.

The editors will not necessarily approach these suggested reviewers. Authors may also identify appropriate Associate Editors of the journal who may be best suited to handling the manuscript through publication, or may be appropriate peer reviewers.

Criteria for Acceptance

When developing manuscripts and reviewing manuscripts, authors and reviewers should consider the guidance criteria outlined here before taking manuscript type into consideration. Guidance criteria for original research papers and subject-area reviews include:

Research questions or hypotheses are clearly stated and relevant to the field of ecological engineering.
Methodology is sound, study design is clearly described, and statistical methods are appropriate.
Research is placed in context of current understanding of the field, and relevant literature is cited and discussed in relation to the study presented in the manuscript.
Organization is easy to follow and aids in understanding; language and presentation (spelling, grammar, and sentence structure) are clear and no egregious errors are present; inclusive and culturally sensitive language is used throughout.

Guidance criteria for research case studies and design research portfolios include:

The project’s objectives are clearly stated and relevant to the field of ecological engineering.
Methodology is sound; project design is clearly described including local/regional context.
Visualizations are meaningful and add value to understanding of the project’s impact.
Project is placed in context of current design practices, and relevant literature is cited and discussed in relation to the study presented in the manuscript.
Organization is easy to follow and aids in understanding; language and presentation (spelling, grammar, and sentence structure) are clear and no egregious errors are present; inclusive and culturally sensitive language is used throughout.

Editorial Decision and Revision

The Co-Editor in Chief will communicate the final decision, which will be one of the following:

Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper is accepted after revisions based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given two weeks for minor revisions.
Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions made based on recommendations of the reviewers and editors. The author must provide a point-by-point response or rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be fully addressed. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
Reject and Encourage Resubmission: This is not a preferred outcome and will only be used under special circumstances. The manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once additional work is complete. Examples include additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions or data synthesis and/or modeling is insufficiently robust.
Reject: The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the JEED Co-Editor in Chief. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ and/or Editor’s comments. The Co-Editor in Chief will review the request with the other Co-Editor in Chief and Associate Editor responsible for the manuscript and may recommend acceptance or further peer review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A rejection decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

Production and Publication

JEED accepts, reviews, and publishes submissions on a rolling basis. Once accepted, the corresponding author will work with the Production Editor to prepare for publication, including any final corrections and submission of high-resolution graphics.

Corrections and Errata

Authors may submit corrections or omissions that affect the integrity of the published manuscript. All additions and corrections are subject to editorial approval and must be approved by all coauthors.

These policies are informed by the Scholastica and American Journal Experts’ Guide to Managing Authors: Journal Editor Training Course, which is licensed under CC-BY.