Review Model and Editorial Decisions

Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening are normally assessed by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate subject, theoretical, methodological, or community-service expertise. Authors submit a Blinded Manuscript separately from the Title Page & Author Information Form. Authors' identities are concealed from reviewers, and reviewers' identities are concealed from authors.

Standard pathway: Submission → Editorial Screening → Independent Peer Review → Author Revision → Post-Revision Verification → Final Editorial Decision.

Reviewer recommendations may be Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject. They are advisory and do not determine outcomes through simple voting. The responsible academic editor evaluates the manuscript, independent reviews, author responses, revised version, integrity concerns, and journal policies before reaching or recommending the final decision, subject to applicable journal governance. Divergent reviews may prompt clarification, specialist consultation, or an additional independent assessment.

After final editorial acceptance, manuscripts enter the applicable post-acceptance administration, copyediting, proofreading, production, metadata-verification, and publication processes. These publication-support functions do not independently determine scientific acceptance or rejection.

Editorial Sections and Review Forms

ACSR maintains exactly two OJS editorial sections, each with its designated manuscript template and assessment instrument. Manuscripts in both sections must be written in English.

• Article: Accepts Research Paper and Literature Review Paper manuscripts. Both types use the Advances in Research Master Manuscript Template and the standard scholarly review form. Assessment must reflect the research or literature-review methodology actually performed.
• Community Partnerships and Impacts: Accepts Community Service Article manuscripts using the New ACSR Template Submission and the dedicated Community Partnerships and Impacts Review Form comprising 11 assessment components. This form must not be replaced with the standard Article-section review form.

Research designs, analytical techniques, software, datasets, bibliometric methods, and other methodological approaches do not create additional OJS sections or independent manuscript categories. Reviewers must assess each manuscript according to its designated section, applicable template, actual methods or implementation design, supporting evidence, and intended contribution.

Each reviewer must independently evaluate the manuscript as a whole, including substantive content, methods or implementation, evidence, ethics, interpretation, conclusions, citations, references, language, and compliance with applicable journal requirements. Similar findings across reports do not remove the requirement for independent assessment.

Invitation, Expertise and Conflicts of Interest

• Accept an invitation only when the manuscript is sufficiently within the reviewer's subject, methodological, or community-service expertise and can be reviewed within the stated timeframe.
• Promptly disclose actual or potential financial, professional, institutional, academic, collaborative, competitive, supervisory, community-partnership, or personal conflicts of interest.
• Decline or consult the responsible editor when independence, appropriate expertise, confidentiality, or timely completion cannot be assured. Explain uncertain relationships before proceeding.
• Do not attempt to identify anonymized authors through internet searches or document metadata, contact authors directly, disclose the reviewer's identity to circumvent double-anonymous review, share the manuscript, or delegate the assignment without editorial authorization.
• Editors serving as reviewers must not evaluate or decide manuscripts involving their own work or material conflicts of interest. Any proposed involvement of another individual requires prior disclosure and authorization.

Scholarly and Community-Service Review Criteria

Reviewers should determine whether the manuscript makes a meaningful contribution within the current ACSR Aims & Scope and satisfies its designated editorial-section requirements. All fields expressly recognized within the journal's scope have equal scholarly standing. Community Service Articles must additionally demonstrate relevance to Community Partnerships and Impacts.

• Scope relevance: A substantive scholarly or community-service problem within a recognized ACSR field and a clear connection to the designated section.
• Originality and contribution: A clearly articulated problem or community need, knowledge or practice gap, purpose, novelty, and defensible scholarly, methodological, institutional, social, or community contribution.
• Scholarly grounding: Relevant and credible literature, appropriate theory or conceptual foundations, critical engagement with prior evidence, and a coherent rationale.
• Methodological or implementation rigor: Transparent, accurately reported, and defensible procedures appropriate to the objectives and capable of supporting the findings, outcomes, and conclusions.
• Research and publication integrity: Appropriate ethics and consent, data transparency, accurate authorship and disclosures, verifiable references, and absence of serious originality or manipulation concerns.
• Evidence and interpretation: Credible analysis, synthesis, or program evaluation; consistent reporting; and substantive interpretation in relation to objectives, literature, and context.
• Conclusions and implications: Conclusions proportionate to the evidence, recognition of limitations, and substantiated scholarly, practical, policy, social, or community implications.
• Writing and presentation: Coherent academic English, logical organization, accurate terminology, consistent tables and figures, and appropriate citations and references under the applicable manuscript requirements.

Assess each manuscript according to its actual methods. Reviewers should not require unrelated analyses, impose preferred software or methods without academic justification, or treat a defensible alternative approach as a defect. Reviewers are not copyeditors; identify language and presentation problems where they materially affect understanding.

Research Paper Assessment

Research Papers in the Article section use the Advances in Research Master Manuscript Template. Reviewers should assess the progression from the scholarly problem and conceptual foundation to methodology, empirical evidence, interpretation, and conclusions.

• Introduction: A meaningful problem, relevant context, state of the art, literature gap, objectives or questions, novelty, significance, and intended contribution.
• Review of Literature: Critical synthesis of relevant theories, concepts, and evidence; an appropriate framework; and justified hypotheses, propositions, or proposed relationships where applicable.
• Research Methodology: Transparent reporting of design, context, population or units of analysis, sampling or case selection, data sources, measurements, analytical procedures, validity or reliability considerations, and applicable ethics.
• Research Results: Accurate, transparent, and consistent empirical findings supported by the actual analysis, without unsupported claims, material omissions, contradictions, or selective reporting.
• Discussion: Interpretation in relation to the conceptual foundation, previous research, context, and contribution, including relevant agreements, contradictions, unexpected findings, limitations, and implications.
• Conclusion: Answers to the research objectives, synthesis of principal findings and contribution, material limitations, supported implications, and defensible future-research directions.

Results and Discussion serve distinct scholarly functions even when presented under a common principal heading. Methodology explains how the study was conducted; Results reports the evidence; Discussion interprets its meaning; and Conclusion communicates what the study establishes within its design and evidence limits.

Literature Review Paper Assessment

Literature Review Papers in the Article section use the Advances in Research Master Manuscript Template. Assessment should address the appropriateness and transparency of the declared review approach, reliability of the literature base, rigor of synthesis, significance of interpretation, and originality of the contribution.

• Introduction: A meaningful scholarly problem, knowledge gap, review objective or question, justified rationale, and clear intended contribution.
• Review Methodology: Accurate identification of the actual design and transparent reporting of sources, databases, searches, eligibility criteria, screening, duplicate handling, analytical techniques, and synthesis procedures where applicable to the review conducted.
• Review Findings or Literature Synthesis: Meaningful themes, concepts, relationships, theoretical perspectives, evidence patterns, debates, methodological developments, unresolved problems, or gaps supported by credible and traceable sources.
• Discussion: Substantive interpretation of what the literature establishes, remaining contradictions and limitations, extensions or challenges to existing knowledge, and supported scholarly or practical implications.
• Conclusion: Answers to the review objectives, principal insights, originality and contribution, relevant limitations, and a focused future-research agenda.

A review should not be treated as systematic, PRISMA-based, scoping, bibliometric, meta-analytical, or another specialized design solely because that label appears in the manuscript. The actual methods, documentation, and evidence must substantiate the claimed approach. Bibliometric mapping, citation networks, keyword co-occurrence, publication trends, and other visualizations must support substantive interpretation and critical synthesis; visual mapping alone is insufficient.

Community Service Article Assessment

Community Service Articles in Community Partnerships and Impacts must be evaluated against the New ACSR Template Submission and the dedicated 11-component Community Partnerships and Impacts Review Form assigned through OJS.

• Title and abstract: Accurate representation of the activities, objectives, implementation approach, principal outcomes, and implications, with claims proportionate to the evidence.
• Introduction: A clear community setting, identified needs or problems, relevant partners, implementation rationale, objectives, and intended contribution.
• Literature Review: Appropriate scholarly, conceptual, or practice-based literature supporting the selected community-service approach.
• Implementation Method: Transparent activities and implementation stages, participants, partners, setting, procedures, resources, evaluation instruments, and relevant ethical or institutional permissions.
• Results and Discussion: Credible evidence of activities, participation, implementation achievements, evaluation findings, and observed outcomes, interpreted in relation to community needs, objectives, and literature.
• Program evaluation and sustainability: Appropriate evaluation design, documented outcome indicators, limitations, follow-up arrangements, and evidence supporting sustainability or continuation claims.
• Conclusion: Outcomes, practical implications, limitations, and recommendations consistent with the actual activities and available evidence.
• Community participation and impact: Accurate representation of partners, stakeholders, participants, and collaborating institutions, distinguishing observed short-term outcomes from anticipated benefits and longer-term impacts.
• Ethics and documentation: Applicable partner permissions, participant consent, instrument permissions, photographic publication consent, confidentiality protections, and institutional authorizations.

Assessment principle: The considerations above guide substantive review. They do not replace, rename, or reduce the 11 assessment components of the official form. Reviewers must complete the actual section-specific form assigned through OJS.

Constructive Review Reports

Reports should distinguish major scientific, methodological, ethical, evidentiary, or community-service concerns from minor presentational corrections, explain their significance, and provide actionable recommendations supported by the manuscript and relevant scholarship. Maintain professional, respectful, proportionate, and evidence-based language. Personal remarks, discriminatory language, unsupported allegations, and unjustified methodological demands are inappropriate.

A clear report may follow Overall Assessment → Major Comments → Minor Comments → Recommendation, together with the required responses to the applicable OJS review form. The recommendation should reflect the significance and correctability of the identified concerns.

Report suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication or falsification, misleading data or image manipulation, improper authorship, fabricated references, citation or peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, misleading implementation claims, or unethical community-service practices confidentially to the responsible editor with supporting evidence. Do not independently investigate authors, contact their institutions or community participants, or make unsupported allegations.

Evaluate citations and references for relevance, accuracy, traceability, and support for the associated claims, including DOI information where provided. Identify fabricated, unverifiable, or misrepresented sources clearly. Citation and reference presentation should follow applicable APA Style, 7th edition requirements. Relevant sources may be suggested with academic justification, but reviewers must not coerce citations to their own work, ACSR, preferred journals, colleagues, or research groups.

Evaluation of Revised Manuscripts

Authors asked to revise must submit a revised manuscript and a point-by-point response to the editor's and reviewers' comments. Reviewers should check that each substantive issue is addressed, that stated amendments appear in the revised text, and that changes are adequately supported by evidence.

Subsequent review rounds should prioritize unresolved issues from earlier decisions. New major requirements should be raised only when revisions introduce a material problem, new evidence reveals an important concern, or a significant scientific or integrity issue was reasonably missed during an earlier assessment.

Distinguish unresolved scientific or integrity concerns from minor editorial matters that can appropriately be addressed during copyediting, proofreading, formatting, or production after final academic acceptance. Reviewer recommendations remain advisory; unresolved matters and final decisions are handled by the responsible academic editor.

Confidentiality and AI

Unpublished manuscripts, supplementary materials, underlying data, findings, identifiable community-participant information, review reports, and editorial correspondence are confidential. They must not be disclosed, distributed, reproduced, forwarded, or used for unauthorized personal, professional, research, competitive, publication, or commercial advantage.

Confidential manuscripts, extracts, unpublished data, author or participant information, reports, and correspondence must not be uploaded to publicly accessible generative-AI systems or external automated services where confidentiality, privacy, copyright, intellectual-property protection, data security, or appropriate information handling cannot be assured. Any proposed external assistance involving confidential content requires explicit journal authorization and adequate safeguards. Tool availability does not constitute permission to upload confidential material.

AI systems must not replace independent reading, critical analysis, methodological assessment, evaluation of community-service evidence, interpretation, or scholarly judgment. Reviewers remain accountable for the accuracy, originality, confidentiality, integrity, and academic justification of their reports and recommendations.

Timeliness and Reviewer Participation

Respond to invitations and submit reports within the timeframe stated through OJS or communicated by the responsible editor. Inform the Editorial Office promptly of delays, insufficient expertise, emerging conflicts, suspected confidentiality breaches, technical difficulties, or inability to complete an assignment so that an extension, replacement, or other appropriate arrangement can be considered.

Qualified researchers, academics, and professionals may register through ACSR OJS and indicate their willingness to review. During registration, select “Yes, I would like to be contacted with requests to review submissions to this journal” where available, and provide accurate affiliations, scholarly interests, methodological competence, relevant experience, and community-engagement expertise where applicable.

Registration does not automatically confer public Reviewer Team membership, an editorial appointment, or a guaranteed assignment. Reviewer selection depends on manuscript relevance, expertise, independence, availability, review quality, and conflicts-of-interest considerations.

Register as a Reviewer → · OJS Login → · Reviewer Directory →

Reviewer Recognition

ACSR recognizes independent peer review as scholarly and professional service. Reviewers are not employed by ACSR solely by virtue of their reviewer role and do not receive a regular salary or review honorarium for ordinary peer-review assignments.

Reviewer APC discount: Under the journal's reviewer-recognition arrangement, eligible reviewers who agree to assess an assigned manuscript are entitled to a 10% discount on the applicable standard ACSR Article Processing Charge for manuscripts they submit to ACSR, subject to verification of eligibility by the Editorial Office. The authoritative fee and waiver provisions are stated in the APC Policy.

The discount applies only after a manuscript has independently received final scientific-editorial acceptance and an APC is otherwise payable. It is not an advance payment, review honorarium, or guarantee of publication, and does not replace a full waiver where the manuscript already qualifies under the applicable institutional-affiliation policy.

Reviewer participation, recognition, discounts, and administrative arrangements do not provide preferential scholarly treatment, expedited scientific evaluation, favorable reviewer selection, guaranteed acceptance, or influence over editorial decisions. Where administratively available, acknowledgements or documentation of completed review service may be provided subject to confidentiality, applicable consent, and double-anonymous review requirements.

Reviewer Framework and Contact

The reviewer framework operates with the journal's Aims & Scope, two OJS sections, section-specific templates and review forms, editorial-independence requirements, and publication ethics. Legitimate updates to guidance, templates, forms, procedures, appointments, or the directory do not retrospectively invalidate valid historical reviews, completed editorial decisions, or established scholarly records. Updated requirements should be applied consistently and prospectively under applicable journal policies.

Editorial and reviewer support: Questions concerning invitations, deadlines, OJS access, registration, conflicts, assignments, recognition, or administrative support may be directed to Muslim Muslim, Managing Editor, at advancesresearch@gmail.com.

Academic editorial matters: Matters requiring scientific-editorial attention may be referred to Muhammad Ridwan Manulusi, Editor-in-Chief, through the official ACSR Editorial Office.

Administrative WhatsApp: +62 821 9454 8786. Administrative messaging does not replace confidential OJS records, formal reviewer reports, or official academic editorial decisions.

Publication Ethics → · Aims & Scope → · For Authors → · APC Policy → · Contact →

The Editorial Office appreciates reviewers who contribute their time, expertise, independence, constructive criticism, and professional judgment to the quality of ACSR publications and the integrity of the scholarly and community-service record.