Initial editorial assessment

• The Editorial Office checks scope, completeness, originality, presentation, declarations, research ethics and basic methodological adequacy before external review.
• A manuscript that is outside scope, incomplete, ethically problematic, clearly unreliable or below the journal’s editorial threshold may be declined without external review.
• Passing initial screening does not guarantee external review, acceptance or publication.

External peer review

• Research articles and review articles must be evaluated by at least two independent external experts with relevant subject knowledge before acceptance.
• Reviewers are not members of the manuscript’s decision-making editorial team and must provide objective, evidence-based assessments.
• If fewer than two suitable independent reviews are available, the manuscript remains under review while the editor seeks additional qualified reviewers. A research or review article must not be accepted on the basis of fewer than two independent external reviews.
• Supplementary files forming part of the scientific claims are made available to reviewers and are included within the scope of review.

Identity masking

JBSS operates double-anonymous review as its standard procedure. Authors should remove names, affiliations, acknowledgements and other direct identifiers from the review manuscript where practicable. The journal cannot guarantee complete anonymity because identity may be inferred from subject matter, citations, preprints, datasets or public presentations.

Reviewer selection

• Reviewers are selected for relevant expertise, independence, methodological competence and availability.
• Author-recommended reviewers may be considered, but editors independently verify suitability and retain full discretion over selection.
• Editors will not knowingly use excluded reviewers when a reasonable, evidence-based exclusion request has been provided, although exclusion requests are not automatically binding.
• Reviewers must declare conflicts and decline assignments they cannot assess impartially, confidentially or within a reasonable period.

Review criteria

• Scientific importance, originality and relevance to the journal.
• Appropriateness and transparency of study design, methods, statistics and interpretation.
• Consistency of conclusions with the evidence presented.
• Ethical compliance, data availability, reproducibility and reporting quality.
• Clarity and completeness of writing, figures, tables, references and supplementary material.

Reviewer reports and confidentiality

• Reviewer reports are confidential and are not routinely published with articles.
• Reviewer identities remain confidential unless disclosure is required by law or expressly agreed under an authorised process.
• Reviewers may not share, retain, publicly upload or use unpublished manuscript material for personal, academic or commercial advantage.
• Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts to public or unauthorised artificial-intelligence systems.

Editorial decisions

Possible decisions include accept, minor revision, major revision, reject with invitation to resubmit, or reject. Reviewer recommendations inform but do not determine the decision. The handling editor evaluates the reports, manuscript and author responses; the Editor-in-Chief or an authorised independent editor retains responsibility for the final editorial decision.

Revisions and additional review

Authors should answer reviewer and editor comments point by point and identify substantive manuscript changes. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or assessed editorially, depending on the nature of the revisions. Acceptance is not guaranteed after revision.

Exceptions and editor submissions

• Editorials, announcements, corrections and similar non-research content may receive editorial review rather than external peer review; the published item should identify any material exception to the normal process.
• Submissions involving an editor, editorial-board member or publisher representative are reassigned to an independent handling editor who has no relevant conflict.
• No editor may participate in the decision on their own work.