The Editorial Team of Advances in Community Services Research (ACSR) supports independent scholarly evaluation, editorial governance, peer-review coordination, journal administration, copyediting, production, indexing, communication, and technical operations. Academic editorial authority is separated from administrative and publication-support functions to preserve scholarly independence, research integrity, transparent governance, and responsible editorial decision-making across the journal's recognized scholarly scope and two editorial sections.
Academic editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, relevance to the ACSR Aims & Scope, originality, theoretical or conceptual quality, methodological rigor, research integrity, peer-review evidence, author responses, and applicable journal policies. Evaluation also considers the distinct scholarly and practical requirements of the journal's two editorial sections.
The Article section accepts Research Paper and Literature Review Paper manuscripts using the Advances in Research Master Manuscript Template and the standard scholarly review form. The Community Partnerships and Impacts section accepts Community Service Article manuscripts using the New ACSR Template Submission and its dedicated review form comprising 11 assessment components.
The Editor-in-Chief provides overall academic editorial leadership and governance. The Managing Editor coordinates editorial workflows, manuscript handling, author and reviewer communication, journal administration, and operational support. Section Editors undertake scholarly evaluation and manuscript-handling responsibilities within their assigned authority and expertise.
Academic editorial decisions are independent of APC payment, waiver eligibility, sponsorship, advertising, publisher ownership, institutional relationships, marketing interests, and other non-scholarly considerations. Editors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest, and manuscripts affected by material conflicts must be assigned to another qualified and sufficiently independent academic editor.
Editorial Team members may submit manuscripts to ACSR but receive no preferential treatment. Editorial affiliation does not provide exemption from manuscript requirements, guaranteed acceptance, expedited scientific evaluation, or any other academic editorial advantage.
An editor must not participate in screening, reviewer selection, confidential reviewer-information access, review assessment, revision evaluation, or scientific-editorial decision-making for their own manuscript or another manuscript where a relevant material conflict of interest exists. Such manuscripts must be assigned to another qualified and sufficiently independent academic editor.
Eligible manuscripts normally undergo double-anonymous peer review by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate subject or methodological expertise. Reviewers evaluate manuscripts using the review form corresponding to the selected OJS section. Reviewer recommendations are advisory, and final scientific-editorial decisions remain the responsibility of the authorized academic editor.
Following final scientific-editorial acceptance, manuscripts enter post-acceptance administration, copyediting, proofreading, production, metadata verification, Version-of-Record preparation, and publication. Administrative, copyediting, indexing, production, communication, and technical-support personnel do not independently determine scientific acceptance or rejection.
Material scientific inconsistencies, unresolved scholarly concerns, and research-integrity issues identified during post-acceptance processing must be referred to the responsible academic editor. Editorial and production support must not introduce unsupported scientific claims, alter research findings or documented community-service outcomes, or independently resolve substantive scientific disputes.
The current ACSR editorial-governance framework applies prospectively to ongoing editorial operations. Editorial appointments and operational assignments may change over time without retrospectively altering valid historical editorial decisions, reviewer records, publication dates, DOI records, volume or issue assignments, or other established scholarly records.
The Editorial Team operates within the journal's stated Aims & Scope, section-specific manuscript and peer-review requirements, publication ethics, editorial-independence principles, and applicable author and reviewer guidelines. Academic editorial responsibilities remain distinct from publication and technical-support functions.