For Reviewers

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

Reviewers are required to provide written (in the signed Reviewer Form, with possibility to provide additional comments in the manuscript using options Comments and Track Changes anonimously), competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain. Reviewers must not disclose the manuscript, in whole or in part, to generative AI tools, as doing so would compromise the confidentiality of its content.

In the end of the year all the names of peer reviewers for the given year are published in Musicology.

 

 

Peer Review

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper.

The peer review process is anonymous.

There are two peer reviewers per article.

The peer review process must be completed in agreed timeframe, so that the authors could be informed about the acceptance or rejection of their contributions within two months from the moment of the submission of the paper.

The reviewers are not paid for their work.

The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and the Guest-Editor(s) of the Main Theme section. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors’ own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

In the main review phase, the Editor sends submitted papers to two experts in the field. The reviewers’ evaluation form contains a checklist in order to help referees cover all aspects that can decide the fate of a submission. In the final section of the evaluation form, the reviewers must include observations and suggestions aimed at improving the submitted manuscript; these are sent to authors, without the names of the reviewers.

Authors are advised to avoid the formulations in the text that could reveal their identity to the reviewers. The Editor guarantees that all personal data of the author (notably the name and the affiliation) will be removed from the manuscript before sending it to the reviewers, and that all reasonable measures will be taken to ensure that the identity of the author remains unknown to the reviewers until the completion of the peer review process.

All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief may assign additional reviewers. In case that the reviewers’ opinions are again not in accord, the Editor-in-Chief, together with the Guest Editor of the Main Theme section or with the Editorial Board makes its final decision without consultations with additional reviewers.

During the review process Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.