Peer Review and the Publication Process
The Mycologia Iranica (MI) adheres to the policies and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows its Code of Conduct when dealing with potential cases of misconduct.
All types of manuscripts are assessed by editorial board members and subjected to peer-review processes. The Mycologia Iranica (MI) strives to adhere to the highest standards of double-blind peer review. In this process, authors and reviewers remain anonymous to each other throughout the process. During this process, the article will be reviewed by at least two independent experts in the field of the article, and the reviewers are asked to judge the validity, importance, and originality of the work and to help us prevent plagiarism as much as possible. Normally, feedback from reviewers to authors consistently increases the quality of scientific publications, and most authors are satisfied with the result of the work compared to what they initially submitted.
To prepare an article for publication in the Mycologia Iranica (MI), please refer to the guides for authors and articles published in recent issues and prepare it according to the journal instructions.
The peer review process in Mycologia Iranica (MI) is summarized into 10 steps:
Submission of a paper
The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is via an online system (https://mij.areeo.ac.ir/contacts?_action=loginForm). After submitting the article to the journal system, the corresponding author receives an email in which he/she can see the number under which the manuscript has been registered.
Primary assessment by Editor-in-Chief
The article is initially assessed by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief checks that the paper is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and interesting. if it complies with the journal's scope and format, it is sent to the editorial board.
Editorial board assessment
At this stage, the editorial board members, while becoming aware of the journal's activities, conduct a general review of the article and express their opinions to the editor-in-chief. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point.
Editor-in-Chief assigns reviewers
Editor-in-Chief sends invitations to at least two reviewers who would be appropriate to review the manuscript. As responses are received, further invitations are issued. The reviewers receive the article as a Microsoft Word file. Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then accept or decline. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.
Reviewers return reviews
The reviewers record their comments either as track changes in the text, in a separate file, or directly on the system to be sent to the editor-in-chief and the author with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a revision request (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.
Editor-in-Chief evaluates the reviews
The Editor-in-Chief considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the comments of the two reviewers are significantly different, the editor-in-chief may invite additional reviewers to get extra opinions before making a decision.
Editor-in-Chief makes a decision
The Editor-in-Chief sends a decision either reject, accept, or revise (major or minor), via an online system to the author(s) including any relevant reviewer comments. The authors are asked to respond to the questions raised by the reviewers or clarify the ambiguities. The author(s) resubmit the revised manuscript. Editor-in-Chief checks the author(s) feedback on the reviewers’ comments. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the Editor-in-Chief should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. If the paper was sent back for revision, one of the reviewers asks for second round of review. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the Editor-in-Chief.
Copyediting and page designing
After the manuscript is accepted for publication, it will undergo a first stage of copy editing where the editorial staff will correct any minor mistakes (such as punctuation or references). Authors will receive an edited version of their manuscript for final approval.
Proofreading
At this stage, the article is laid out in a format defined for the journal and the ditorial staff will create the final version of the manuscript in the journal’s template and the PDF proof will be sent to the author for final proofreading before publication. Authors should carefully check the proofs for typographical or layout errors, and use the sticky notes tool to mark and explain any changes necessary.
Publication
After the final proofread manuscript has been received and the last corrections have been performed, the manuscript will be published as a preprint version without page numbers. The author will be promptly informed as soon as the article is available online. The page numbering of the article may be delayed until the position of the article in the current issue is determined because full articles are arranged first, then short articles and short reports in each issue.
The peer review process in the Mycologia Iranica (MI) is summarized according to the following flowchart:
