Spectrum of Mechanical Engineering and Operational Research (SMEOR) requires peer reviewers to respect the confidentiality, intellectual property rights, scholarly contributions, and legitimate interests of authors throughout the peer-review process. Reviewers are personally responsible for conducting reviews independently, objectively, professionally, and in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policies.
Manuscripts submitted to SMEOR and all associated files, data, figures, tables, supplementary materials, reviewer correspondence, and editorial communications must be treated as confidential.
Reviewers must not share, distribute, reproduce, upload, publicly discuss, or otherwise disclose unpublished manuscript content to unauthorized individuals.
Reviewers must not retain or use confidential manuscript materials for purposes unrelated to the peer-review process. Where consultation with another specialist is considered necessary, prior authorization from the handling Editor must be obtained.
Confidentiality obligations continue after the reviewer has submitted the review and regardless of whether the manuscript is subsequently accepted, rejected, withdrawn, or published.
Unpublished information, ideas, hypotheses, methods, models, algorithms, data, analyses, results, interpretations, code, or other original material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by reviewers for their own research, publications, professional activities, commercial advantage, personal benefit, or the benefit or disadvantage of another individual or organization without appropriate authorization.
Reviewers must not appropriate, reproduce, plagiarize, disseminate, or otherwise misuse intellectual contributions contained in a manuscript received for review. Information obtained through privileged access to an unpublished manuscript must not be used to obtain an unfair academic, professional, financial, commercial, or competitive advantage.
Broader requirements concerning the protection of unpublished scholarly material and other intellectual property rights are provided in the journal's Protecting Intellectual Property policy.
Reviewers are expected to provide an independent, objective, constructive, evidence-based, and professionally expressed assessment of the manuscript.
Comments should address the scientific, methodological, technical, analytical, and scholarly content of the work. Personal criticism, discriminatory language, hostile comments, defamatory statements, or other inappropriate remarks are not acceptable.
Reviewers should accept assignments only when they have sufficient expertise to provide an appropriate scholarly assessment and sufficient time to complete the review within the requested period.
Reviewers must disclose any actual, potential, or reasonably perceived conflict of interest before accepting a review assignment.
Where a personal, professional, academic, financial, institutional, collaborative, supervisory, competitive, or other relationship could compromise, or reasonably be perceived to compromise, impartiality, the reviewer should inform the Editor and decline or discontinue the review where appropriate.
Detailed requirements concerning reviewer conflicts are provided in the journal's Conflict of Interests policy.
Reviewers may recommend additional references where those references are genuinely relevant and reasonably necessary to improve the accuracy, context, completeness, or scholarly quality of the manuscript.
Reviewers must not request citations primarily to increase citations to their own publications, publications of colleagues or associates, articles published in SMEOR, or publications in another journal.
Citation recommendations must be based solely on scholarly relevance and must not be used to manipulate citation counts or citation-based indicators.
Reviewers must not upload submitted manuscripts, figures, tables, supplementary materials, unpublished data, reviewer correspondence, or other confidential information obtained through the peer-review process into publicly accessible or external Generative AI or AI-assisted systems where doing so could compromise confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, or data protection.
Reviewers must not use Generative AI as a substitute for their own scientific evaluation or critical judgment. Peer-review reports must reflect the reviewer's own expert assessment of the manuscript.
AI-assisted tools may be used solely for limited language, grammar, or readability assistance in preparing the reviewer's own report, provided that no confidential manuscript content or identifiable submission information is entered into an external AI system in violation of the journal's confidentiality requirements.
Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, tone, and recommendations contained in their submitted review reports.
Detailed requirements are provided in the journal's Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Tools policy.
Communication between reviewers and authors concerning a manuscript under review should take place through the journal's editorial system or Editorial Office.
Reviewers should not contact authors directly regarding a manuscript without prior authorization from the handling Editor. Where a reviewer believes that clarification or additional information is required, the request should be communicated to the handling Editor, who will determine whether and how it should be forwarded to the authors.
Reviewers should not attempt to identify authors in order to circumvent the journal's double-blind peer-review process.
If the identity of an author or reviewer becomes known inadvertently, this does not remove the obligations of confidentiality, professional conduct, independence, and appropriate communication through the journal.
If a reviewer identifies possible plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image or data manipulation, citation manipulation, inappropriate authorship, ethical concerns, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or another potential breach of research or publication integrity, the concern should be reported confidentially to the handling Editor together with relevant information where available.
Reviewers should not independently investigate the authors, contact their institutions, or communicate allegations directly to the authors. Any further assessment will be handled through the journal's applicable publication ethics procedures.
Suspected research or publication misconduct will be considered in accordance with the journal's Unethical Behaviour policy.
By accepting an invitation to review for SMEOR, reviewers agree to conduct the review objectively, confidentially, independently, and professionally; protect the intellectual property contained in the manuscript; disclose relevant conflicts of interest; respect the journal's double-blind peer-review process; and comply with the journal's applicable peer-review and publication ethics policies.
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