Peer Review Process

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The International Journal of Biomedical Image Intelligence (IJBII) is committed to a rigorous, fair, confidential and transparent peer-review process designed to support the quality, validity and integrity of published research.

Initial Editorial Assessment

All submitted manuscripts undergo an initial editorial assessment before external peer review.

The editorial team evaluates submissions for:

  • Relevance to the journal's aims and scope
  • Originality and potential contribution
  • Scientific and methodological quality
  • Compliance with the journal's submission requirements
  • Ethical and research-integrity considerations
  • Overall suitability for external peer review

Manuscripts that are clearly outside the journal's scope, do not meet minimum scholarly standards, or fail to comply with essential ethical or submission requirements may be declined without external peer review.

Double-Anonymous Peer Review

IJBII operates a double-anonymous peer-review process.

During peer review:

  • Reviewers are not informed of the authors' identities.
  • Authors are not informed of the reviewers' identities.
  • Authors are required to submit an appropriately anonymized manuscript and remove identifying information from manuscript files and file metadata.
  • Reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.

The journal takes reasonable measures to preserve anonymity throughout the review process, although absolute anonymity cannot be guaranteed in all circumstances.

Reviewer Selection

Manuscripts proceeding to external review are assigned to reviewers with relevant scholarly or professional expertise.

Reviewers should be independent of the submitted work and must disclose any actual or potential competing interest that could affect their ability to provide an impartial assessment.

Where an appropriate independent review cannot be provided, the reviewer should decline the invitation.

Review Criteria

Reviewers are asked to evaluate manuscripts with consideration of:

  • Originality and significance
  • Scientific and technical quality
  • Methodological rigour and appropriateness
  • AI and machine-learning methodology and validation, where applicable
  • Biomedical or clinical relevance
  • Dataset quality, representativeness and potential bias
  • Statistical analysis and interpretation
  • Reproducibility and transparency
  • Research ethics, privacy and integrity
  • Quality and integrity of biomedical images, figures and tables
  • Clarity and organization of the manuscript
  • Adequacy and relevance of the scholarly literature

Reviewers are expected to provide constructive, evidence-based and respectful comments that assist editors in reaching an informed decision and help authors improve their work.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts under review are confidential documents.

Reviewers must not share, distribute or use unpublished information obtained through the peer-review process for personal, professional or competitive advantage.

Editors and other individuals involved in the editorial process are likewise expected to maintain appropriate confidentiality.

Review Timeline

Reviewers are normally requested to:

  • Respond to a review invitation within one week.
  • Complete an accepted review within approximately three weeks.

These periods are targets rather than guarantees. Complex manuscripts, reviewer availability or the need for additional expert assessment may extend the review period.

Editorial Decisions

Following peer review, the editorial decision may include:

  • Accept Submission
  • Revisions Required
  • Resubmit for Review
  • Decline Submission

The Editor-in-Chief or responsible editor makes the final decision based on the reviewers' assessments, the quality and integrity of the manuscript, its relevance to IJBII, and the journal's editorial standards.

Reviewer recommendations inform editorial decisions but do not determine them automatically.

Revisions

When revisions are requested, authors should address reviewer and editor comments carefully and provide a clear response explaining the changes made.

Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or evaluated by the responsible editor, depending on the nature and extent of the revisions.

Failure to adequately address substantive concerns may result in further revision or rejection.

Editorial Independence and Conflicts of Interest

Editors and reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest that could reasonably affect their impartiality.

Where an editor has a relevant conflict of interest concerning a submission, responsibility for the manuscript should be transferred to another qualified editor.

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, scientific quality, ethical compliance and relevance to the journal, without inappropriate influence from commercial, institutional or personal interests.

Final Decision

The final editorial decision is communicated to the corresponding author through the journal's submission system.

Acceptance is not guaranteed by completion of peer review. IJBII reserves the right to request additional revisions, clarification or supporting information before a manuscript is finally accepted for publication.