The editors of the Journal of the Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences have an obligation, as members of the editorial board of the publication, to ensure that the published articles are scientifically accurate, technically novel, presented at a high quality, and include research that is ethically sound. Our editors are selected by the Associate Editors-in-Chief (AEiC) or the Editor-in-Chief (EiC), and are responsible for managing manuscripts, selecting qualified and willing reviewers, communicating with authors as necessary, and ensuring that the review process is completed within the stipulated timeframe. Several guidelines to successfully carry out the review process are as follows.
 

Selection of Reviewers

• Editors are required to select qualified and willing reviewers with sufficient expertise to fairly and thoroughly evaluate the submitted manuscripts. 

• Ideally, editors should select at least two reviewers, and must avoid selecting reviewers who are from the same affiliation as the authors, or those who have a conflict of interest. 

• To ensure that the review reaches its conclusion within the prescribed deadline, the selected reviewers should be continuously monitored and communicated with. If necessary, to ensure the review process can be completed within the deadline, an already selected reviewer can be replaced with a new one.
   

Review Process 

• The Journal of the Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences stipulates that the first-round review completion period for Regular Normal, Regular Express/Special Express, Regular Ultra Express/Letter Ultra Express papers should be within two months, six weeks, and two weeks of submission, respectively. The editor should strive to ensure that each submitted paper completes the first review within the specified time frame.

• The EiC or AEiC should make every effort to select an appropriate editor for the submitted paper as quickly as possible. The EiC/AEiC can end the review process via immediate rejection when a submitted paper is out of the journal's scope, significantly below the journal's quality standards, includes research or data with ethical issues, or exhibits markedly low technical novelty.

• The EiC or AEiC should employ all available resources and methods to facilitate a smooth review process for the editors.

• Editors make the final decision, taking into account the comments of the reviewers. For all decisions, editors must provide written feedback to authors and engage in additional communication with reviewers and authors as necessary.

• Editors should not express any potential competing interests to reviewers or authors and must maintain impartiality. 

• If an editor determines that a manuscript includes research or data with ethical issues, they should immediately inform the EiC.
   

Decision 

• Editors have the authority and responsibility to make decisions to accept, reject, or request revisions for a paper for publication. The final decision is made by the editor who takes into consideration the significance and novelty of the research, the quality of the presentation, and the ethical appropriateness, in light of the comments made by the reviewers. 

• Similar to the EiC/AEiC, if an editor finds the quality level of the submitted manuscript too low, or discovers ethical issues, they can halt the review process through immediate rejection by contacting the editorial board. 

• In a revision review, the issues and problems pointed out by the reviewers and editors in the first review are meticulously examined to ensure they have been adequately addressed.

peer review process

Receipt of manuscript

File format in .docx or .hwp specifying the technical field, title, abstract, and key words.

Selection of editor and reviewers

After EiC's confirmation of the field, assignee routes the manuscript to an editor via ManuscriptLink and e-mail, then the editor selects at least two reviewers.

Requesting review

Associate editor sends the manuscript to selected reviewers via ManuscriptLink and e-mail and asks for evaluation. In case when reviewer declines the request, the editor selects another reviewer.

Summating evaluation result

In case when evaluation result is not collected within allotted time frame, the society should demand the evaluation result from the reviewer. If the summation of the review result is delayed over an allotted time frame, a new reviewer is selected and proceeds with the review.

Review procedure of manuscripts 

• Publication of the manuscript is determined by editor and EiC.

• Editors have the authority and responsibility to make decisions to accept, reject, or request revisions for a paper for publication. 

• The decision at each review round is classified into Accept, Minor Revisions, Major Revisions, and Reject. (Note that only Accept and Reject are permitted in case of Ultra Express Letter.)

• The final decision is made by the editor who takes into consideration the significance and novelty of the research, the quality of the presentation, and the ethical appropriateness, in light of the comments made by the reviewers.

• The society relays reviewers' comments and suggestions to the author and asks to revise the manuscript accordingly and re-submit the manuscript.

• Upon receiving the revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to re-evaluate the revised manuscript.

• In the case when the re-evaluation is not completed within allotted time frame, the respective editor is to make decision for publication based on the reviewers' original suggestions and the revised content of the manuscript, and the decision only is informed to the reviewer.