The reviewing process is fully compliant with the ISI recommendations.

IxD&A implements a standard usual double-blind reviewing procedure. All papers are assigned to two independent reviewers who are known to have specific and complementary competencies in the topic of the paper.

The editorial board is committed to completing the reviewing process within 4 months from the paper submission, but it might take a few more months depending on the promptness of the reviewers in submitting their reports and/or on the capacity of the co-guest editors of special issues/focus sections to respect the editorial timing.

Manuscripts are evaluated in in-depth review form that considers their RELEVANCE, ORIGINALITY, RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE, QUALITY, CONTEXTUALIZATION OF THE RESEARCH, and CLARITY (organization, readability, grammar and style).
Each reviewer has to submit a report containing opinions on each of the above aspects.

The Editorial Board follows a precise policy on papers acceptance:
• Double acceptance -> paper is accepted.
• Double acceptance with the request of minor revision -> paper is conditionally accepted and authors are requested to submit a revised version of the paper (accompanied by a document explaining how the reviewers’ observations have been satisfied) that, then, is forwarded for re-evaluation.
• Double acceptance with the request of major revision -> paper is not accepted and authors are requested to submit a revised version of the paper (accompanied by a document explaining how the reviewers’ observations have been satisfied) that, then, is submitted to a second run of double-blind reviewing procedure.
• Double rejection -> the paper is rejected.
• Acceptance + Rejection -> the paper is not accepted and a third reviewer is involved to take a decision on paper rejection/admission to a second double-blind reviewing run; in case of admission, authors are requested to submit a revised version of the paper.

The papers must be submitted to the journal in English. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure adequate proofreading.
In addition, full compliance with the authors’ guidelines provided by the journal is required.

N.B.: IxD&A is published four times per year and, usually, for regular papers, due to the reviewing process described above it is not possible to estimate in advance in which issue the accepted contribution may appear, in any case within two issues from the acceptance (six months).

Reviewers

All papers are reviewed by prominent scholars that might be members of the IxD&A Scientific Editors Board and of the Editorial and Scientific Board, or additional experts recruited on the occasion.  According to the international standard IxD&A does not disclose the list of the reviewers but this latter is always available for indexing and evaluation organizations.

Some figures

Last year’s unique reviewers: > than 100

Last year’s acceptance rate: almost  50%  for special issues and focus sections, less than 10% for regular papers

The regular paper workflow in detail

• as first step a check is operated at the editorial level to identify papers that can be considered Out of Topics or not yet mature to be considered as a potential scientific contribution to be published in IxD&A Journal; papers that do not pass the preliminary quality check are rejected at editorial level and their authors immediately notified;

• papers that pass the preliminary quality check are examined in detail and fully anonymized if they were not yet;

• two reviewers are contacted and, if available, assigned to the papers (usually they have 4-6 weeks to submit their report);

• if no third reviewer has to be involved in one week the decision is taken and the authors notified; in case a third review has to be involved to complete the reviewing process additional 4-6 weeks are needed;

• in case of need for minor/major revisions no deadline is imposed on the authors, the reviewing process enter on standby and will be resumed once the revised version of the paper will be submitted (accompanied by a document explaining how the reviewers’ observations have been satisfied);  upon reception of the revised version of the paper it will be reviewed again in 4-6 weeks at the of which authors will receive a second notification;

• in case of acceptance authors are asked to provide a carefully proofread camera-ready version of the paper (.doc) together with photos, short bios and Orcid (if they have one) of all the authors, and the signed Consent to Publish form;
authors are also requested to include a CRediT author statement (see authors’ guidelines) and the DOIs of the cited papers in the references section -> to identify the DOIs authors can use the facility provided by Crossref https://apps.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery

• once the publishing workflow will end and the paper will be published the authors will be invited to participate and give a presentation in a “Meet the Authors” event dedicated to the issue in which their contribution has been published.

The special issue/focus section workflow in detail

• as first step a check is operated at the editorial level to identify papers that can be considered Out of Topics or not yet mature to be considered as a potential scientific contribution to be special issue/focus section; papers that do not pass the preliminary quality check are rejected at editorial level and their authors immediately notified; in case of doubt the co-guest editors are contacted to know their opinion on the borderline contributions;

• titles, abstracts and keywords of the submitted contributions are shared with the co-guest editors that are requested to suggest two reviewers per contribution; after a check at editorial level (reviewers should not have conflicts of interest, should be affiliated to two different Institutions and have a different nationality, have a different and complementary scientific background) and an additional check for their availability, the papers are assigned to the suggested reviewers (they have usually 4-6 weeks to submit their report);

• once the reports have been collected they are forwarded to the co-guest editors together with suggestions derived from the IxD&A acceptance/rejection policies; the decision on the borderline situation is up to the co-guest editors;

• once the co-guest editors have taken their decision the editorial board notifies the authors and a deadline to submit the revised papers that need minor/major revision is communicated (usually 3 weeks); authors are also requested to submit an accompanying document explaining how the reviewers’ observations have been satisfied;

• once the revised papers and the accompanying documents have been collected by the editorial board, they are forwarded to the co-guest editors that have 2 weeks to take their final decisions;

• once the final decision is taken, the authors will receive the second and final notification from the editorial board; in case of acceptance authors are asked to provide in max 2 weeks a carefully proofread camera-ready version of the paper (.doc) together with photos, short bios and Orcid (if they have one) of all the authors, and the signed Consent to Publish form;
authors are also requested to include a CRediT author statement (see authors’ guidelines) and the DOIs of the cited papers in the references section -> to identify the DOIs authors can use the facility provided by Crossref https://apps.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery
in the while, the co-guest editors are expected to write and submit their preface to the special issue/focus section

• once the publishing workflow will end and the papers will be published the authors will be invited to participate and give a presentation during the “Meet the Authors” event dedicated to the issue in which the special issue/focus section has been published, and the co-guest editors to introduce the special issue/focus section and stimulate the discussion.