Every submission to the Journal of Knowledge Structures & Systems (JKSS) is firstly filtered by the Editor-in-chief (EC), who focuses on content and style, namely with respect to adequacy to the this journal's mission and scope. Authors of potentially retainable papers but which require linguistic improvement will be accordingly informed and offered the English language services of JKSS.* If a submitted paper is retained, it enters the stage of handling by the editors,** it possibly being the case that the EC himself already requires that (major) changes be made before this process begins.***

​

When a retained paper is handed over to an editor, this (1) may require that (possibly major) changes  be made, in order to improve the chances of a successful peer-reviewing process; (2) will send the (revised) paper to at least two peer reviewers. In this latter case, the editor may also decide to be one of the peer reviewers.

​

It is the role of the editors to select appropriate peer reviewers for each retained paper and to secure a correct and fair peer-reviewing process. Peer reviewers are given 45 days for their review and they should make their decision—reject, publish conditional to changes, or publish—timely known to the editors and the authors in a written report, upon which editors act as they see appropriate (for instance, if the editor disagrees with a “reject” decision, a new peer reviewer may be sought). Summary rejections that leave no room for discussion might be disregarded by JKSS editors.

​

Upon a final “publish” decision the publication process begins. This has different steps, from internal manuscript preparation to final proofreading by the authors, and it is now their responsibility to comply successfully with all the instructions given to them by JKSS. Failure to comply (for instance, by rejecting the journal’s style instructions) may terminate in non-publication.

​

Before publication of an accepted manuscript, the peer reviewers are invited to write a short comment (ca. 1 page long) to be published—with the authors’ consent—at the end of the published article. Alternatively, they may write a longer text (2-4 pages) to be published as a separate reviewer commentary. This invitation holds for both the reviewers who recommended publication and those who recommended rejection after engaging in constructive discussion with the authors.

​

Authors of accepted original research or review manuscripts will be asked to choose up to six authors they cited. These (and possibly more authors chosen by the EC) will be invited by the EC immediately upon publication of the manuscript to write a commentary article to be published in the same issue. Commentary articles may include the authors' own research and opinions, and may even express a critical view on a published article. (Please use the Commentary Template.)

​​

​

 

*Authors may choose to secure language services elsewhere, after which they may resubmit the paper.

​

**Opinion and commentary articles, book reviews, and replies to critics are reviewed only by the EC.

​

***Authors are free to decide against the advice of the EC to have their paper go through blind peer-reviewing.