Peer reviewing

All content published on the OPUS portal is peer-reviewed prior to publication.

Journals

The scientific evaluation of articles proposed for publication is carried out by the journals’ editorial committees, whose composition must be specified as soon as the journal is accepted by OPUS.

Peer review is a key task for the editorial boards of academic journals, and OPUS supports them by supplying the tools they need to carry out this task, and by guiding them in defining and implementing procedures. In particular, the recommendations of the Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/) will be implemented within evaluation procedures.

Detailed evaluation procedures will be posted on the journals’ websites; see for instance the Emerging Neurologist journal.

Books

In the event that a book is selected by the OPUS editorial committee at the project selection stage, a peer review of the entire book will be carried out (should the project be rejected at the initial selection stage, the peer review will not be carried out).

Peer review of selected projects will be overseen by the OPUS editorial board, responsible for scientific decisions, with operational support from the editorial office. Independent experts - external to the scientific committees of the books and to the Opus editorial committee - will be called in for this purpose. However, authors, volume editors or collection managers may propose lists of suitable referees.

In order to guarantee the impartiality of the evaluations, evaluators will be systematically asked to confirm their agreement with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics extended to books (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers).

This evaluation is carried out according to the “single blind” principle - the evaluators are aware of the identity of the authors, while the evaluations are anonymous.

Depending on the evaluation reports received and the decision of the editorial committee:

• the book or chapter may be rejected ;
• a request for revision may be sent to the authors.

Authors have the opportunity to propose a modified version of their manuscript, together with a response to the reviewers' comments.

The Opus editorial committee then decides :

• to accept the manuscript,
• to reject it,
• or to refer to one or more reviewers, whether or not they have already been asked to review the manuscript.

The stages of sending for evaluation / requesting revision may be repeated iteratively.

Authors are informed of the final decision regarding their manuscript.