Peer Review Process

Ceddi Journal of Education (CJE) applies a double-blind peer-review process. All submissions undergo initial editorial screening to assess their relevance to the journal's Focus and Scope, compliance with submission requirements, ethical considerations, and overall scholarly quality. Manuscripts that fall outside the journal's scope or do not meet its requirements may be returned to the authors or rejected before peer review.

Editorial screening considers whether manuscripts address a clearly defined educational problem and contribute to educational theory or practice. Research on curriculum, teacher development, educational psychology, and educational management must demonstrate a clear connection to educational innovation, technology-enhanced learning, or educational assessment and evaluation.

Studies involving digital systems, applications, artificial intelligence, or other technologies must provide evidence of their educational relevance or benefits through evaluation appropriate to the research objectives. Technical functionality, software usability, or algorithm performance alone is insufficient. Conducting a study in a school or university does not, by itself, establish its suitability for CJE.

Submitted manuscripts undergo similarity screening using Turnitin. Similarity reports are evaluated in context by the editorial team and are not used as the sole basis for determining plagiarism or making editorial decisions.

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are assigned to a handling editor for further evaluation and management of peer review. Suitable manuscripts are reviewed by at least two independent external reviewers with relevant expertise who are not members of the journal's editorial team and have no conflicts of interest related to the manuscript or its authors.

Double-Blind Peer Review

Author and reviewer identities are concealed from each other during peer review. Authors must submit a separate title page and an anonymised manuscript in accordance with the Author Guidelines. The editorial team checks the review file for identifying information before sending it to reviewers.

Reviewers assess the manuscript's conformity with the journal's scope, originality, educational relevance, methodological soundness, research ethics, clarity, and contribution to educational theory or practice. They evaluate whether the findings support the conclusions and whether the educational implications and limitations are adequately explained. Reviews must be objective, impartial, constructive, and supported by clear reasoning.

Manuscripts and review reports are confidential. Reviewers must not share or use unpublished material without authorization or upload manuscripts or review reports to public generative AI services. Review reports are communicated to authors without identifying the reviewers and are not published with the article.

Editors and reviewers must disclose actual or potential conflicts of interest. Anyone with a conflict that could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, impartiality must not participate in the review or editorial decision for the manuscript concerned.

All original research articles accepted for publication must undergo the independent external peer-review process described above. Editorial screening does not replace peer review.

Editorial Independence

Manuscripts submitted by members of the editorial team or editorial board are subject to the same requirements as other submissions, including double-blind review by at least two independent external reviewers. An editor without a conflict of interest manages the submission.

The submitting editor or editorial board member must not select reviewers, access confidential editorial deliberations or reviewer identities, or participate in decisions concerning their own manuscript. They receive reviewer comments through the normal author communication process.

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly quality, educational relevance, research integrity, and the reviewers' assessments. Commercial interests and payment of publication charges must not influence reviewer selection or acceptance decisions.

Editorial Decision

Based on the reviewers' reports and editorial evaluation, manuscripts may receive one of the following decisions:

Reject
Major Revision
Minor Revision
Accept

Authors requested to revise their manuscript must submit a revised version and a point-by-point response to the editorial and reviewer comments. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or evaluated by additional independent external reviewers where necessary. A revision request does not guarantee acceptance.

The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection based on the reviewers' reports, the handling editor's evaluation, the authors' responses, and compliance with the journal's policies. Where the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, the final decision is delegated to an appropriate editor without that conflict.

Editorial and Publishing Process

Submission: Authors submit their manuscript, separate title page, and required supporting information through the journal's Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.
Initial Editorial Screening: The editorial team checks conformity with the journal's scope, educational contribution, submission requirements, scholarly quality, ethical considerations, and textual similarity using Turnitin.
Editor Assignment: A handling editor without a conflict of interest evaluates suitable manuscripts and manages peer review.
Peer Review: At least two independent external reviewers evaluate the anonymised manuscript through double-blind peer review.
Editorial Decision: Review reports and editorial evaluation inform a decision of Reject, Major Revision, Minor Revision, or Accept.
Revision and Re-review: Authors revise the manuscript and respond to comments. Further peer review is conducted where necessary.
Final Decision: The Editor-in-Chief, or an appropriate editor without a conflict of interest, makes the final acceptance or rejection decision.
Copyediting and Typesetting: Accepted manuscripts are edited and formatted according to the journal's publication standards.
Proofing: Authors check the galley proofs and return corrections within the deadline specified by the editorial team.
Online Publication: Articles are published with immediate open access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
Digital Preservation: Information on the journal's arrangements for long-term preservation of published content is provided in the Archiving Policy.

Review and Publication Timeline

The journal aims to complete the initial peer-review round within approximately 30 days after the manuscript is sent for review. For manuscripts accepted for publication, the journal targets approximately 23 weeks from submission to online publication. These timelines are editorial targets, not measured averages or guarantees.

Actual processing times may vary depending on reviewer availability, manuscript complexity, the extent of revisions, authors' response time, and the editorial and production workflow. Where significant delays occur, the editorial team will communicate with the authors. Authors wishing to withdraw a manuscript must follow the journal's Retraction and Withdrawal policy.

The editorial and peer-review processes follow the journal's Publication Ethics policy. Editors and reviewers are expected to observe relevant ethical guidance, including the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.