「Russian Studies」 Editing Policies
1. Constitution and Activities of Editorial Board
1) The editorial board overviews the works related to the journal published by the Institute.
2) The editorial board consists of less than 20 editors recommended by the chief editor and three or more operation committee members and approved by more than half of the operation committee members.
3) An editor should be at a post equal to or higher than a full-time teacher at a university, or a full-time researcher of a relevant research institute. The term of office for the chief editor and the editors is three years, and they may serve consecutive terms.
4) The editorial board make decisions about the approval of manuscripts for publication and about special contributors. If necessary, the editorial board may require revision of a manuscript.
5) The editorial practices may be carried out with the help of assistant administrators.
2. Review
The review for the publication of a manuscript is entrusted to three experts selected by the editorial board. According to the review result, the decision for the approval of a manuscript is made by all the editors unanimously. If necessary, a fourth reviewer may be appointed.
3. Criteria for Manuscript Review
① Clarity of topic
② Logical development
③ Novelty of content and topic
④ Contribution to academic field
⑤ Use of domestic and international academic accomplishments and references
⑥ Consistency in expressions, terms, and symbols
4. Criteria and Procedures of Appointing Reviewers
1) Qualifications of reviewers: The editorial board appoints three reviewers for each manuscript. A review should be at a post equal to or higher than a full-time teacher at a university, or a full-time researcher of a relevant research institute, and must be an expert in the relevant field. According to the characteristics of a manuscript, a fourth reviewer may be appointed.
2) Criteria and procedure of appointing reviewers: The reviewers are selected from the expert reviewers registered to the reviewer pool of the Institute. The reviewers whose major is the same as the topic of the submitted manuscript are selected. For fair review of the manuscripts, the reviewers from the same regions and universities as the authors are avoided with each other.
3) Review and report of review: After reviewing the allotted manuscript, each reviewer reports the result in four levels, including “approved, approved after revision, reviewed again after revision, and rejected.” The decisions made by the individual reviewers are collected, and then the final decision is made according to the total score as in four levels, including “approved, approved after revision, reviewed again after revision, and rejected.” (Refer to the table of score in Paragraph (5).) The reviewers should submit to the chief editor a report prepared in a predetermined format including the decision on the submitted manuscript, objective and subjective review opinions, and required revisions.
4) Decision and Renewal of Review: After the completion of the decision on the approval of a manuscript, the chief editor sends the original manuscript with suggested revisions and a copy of the manuscript review report. The author submitting the manuscript should reflect the suggested revisions. The author may a free-format answer sheet to the manuscript review report with a revised version of the manuscript. If an author may not accept the suggestions made by the reviewers, the author should provide an appropriate answer in the answer sheet. If the review decision is ‘reviewed again after revision,’ the review may be performed for either the next issue or the current issue according to the decision made by the editorial board. If the final review decision is ‘approved after revision,’ the article may be published on the current issue for which the review has been performed again.
5) The review result is decided according to the following table of score.
① Score given by individual reviewers
| Review result | Approved | Approved after revision | Reviewed again after revision | Rejected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Point | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
② Score for final decision
| Final decision | Approved | Approved after revision | Reviewed again after revision | Rejected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Point | 11-12 | 8-10 | 4-7 | 0-3 |
6) Notification of review result: With regard to a finally approved manuscript, the chief editor request the authors to submit the final manuscript to the editorial board through e-mail. With regard to a finally rejected manuscript, the editorial board notifies the rejection to the authors.
