Peer review – Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Cities

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Peer review – Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Cities | Caravel Press

The model

Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Cities operates double anonymous peer review. Reviewers are not told who the authors are, and authors are not told who the reviewers are.

This is not a setting that can be switched off. Author identity is held in a separate part of the system from the manuscript, and the reviewer's copy is assembled without it, so a reviewer cannot see an author's name, affiliation or funding even by accident.

Authors must remove identifying information from the manuscript file itself before submitting. The system cannot anonymise prose that names the authors' own institution or self-cites in the first person.

What happens to a submission

1. Checks
The editorial office confirms the submission is complete, in scope, and correctly anonymised, and screens it for similarity with iThenticate. An incomplete submission is returned rather than rejected.
2. Editorial assessment
A handling editor reads the paper and decides whether it should go to review. A paper outside the journal's scope, or clearly below the standard the journal publishes, is declined at this stage with reasons. This is a decision on scope and standard, not a shortcut around review.
3. Review
At least two independent reviewers with subject expertise assess the work. Reviewers are selected by the handling editor for expertise and independence: nobody at the authors' institution, no recent collaborator, and nobody with a declared competing interest. Authors may suggest reviewers and may ask that particular people are not approached; the editor is not bound by either.
4. Decision
The handling editor makes a recommendation on the reviews. The final decision rests with the editorial office and is one of: accept, minor revisions, major revisions, revise and resubmit for further review, or decline. Reviewers advise; editors decide.
5. Revision
Authors receive the full text of every review and respond point by point. A revised paper normally returns to the same reviewers. There is no limit on the number of rounds, but a paper that is not converging will be declined rather than kept in circulation.

Withdrawing a submission

A paper can be withdrawn at any point before it is published. Write to aifsc@caravelpress.com from the address it was submitted under and say which submission you mean. No reason has to be given.

Nothing is charged for a withdrawal, at any stage, including after acceptance.
The paper is taken out of the review process, and any reviewer still working on it is told it has been withdrawn.
The submission and its history stay on the editorial record. They are not public and they are not shared.
Withdrawal is what frees a paper to go elsewhere. Until it is withdrawn it is still under consideration here, and submitting it to another journal in the meantime breaks the undertaking given at submission.

Once an article is published it cannot be withdrawn. The published record is permanent and the DOI goes on resolving. The only instruments after publication are correction, expression of concern and retraction, set out in the corrections and retractions policy.

What reviewers are asked

Every review scores the paper from 1 to 5 on originality, methodology, significance, clarity and relevance, and requires a written comment on each. A score without a reason is a verdict with no reasoning, and the system will not accept one.

Reviewers also give overall comments to the authors, and may add a confidential note to the editor which the authors never see.

Timings

To respond to an invitation: 4 working days
To complete a review: 14 calendar days
Submission to first decision: Measured and stated here once enough papers have completed review
Submission to publication: 7–9 weeks, the median across 101 papers published by Caravel Press

Every published article carries the date it was submitted, the date it was accepted and the date it was published.

Special issues and guest-edited collections

A special issue is reviewed to exactly the same standard, by the same process, in the same system as any other submission. There is no separate route and no lighter touch.

Guest editors are appointed by the editor-in-chief and are named on the collection.
A guest editor cannot handle a paper they have authored or co-authored, and cannot see it in the system.
Final decisions on every paper in a special issue rest with the journal's own editors, not with the guest editors.
A collection is not a route for its guest editors to publish their own work at volume, and the proportion of it they author is watched as closely as it is across the journal.

Permanent address

For reviewers

What Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Cities asks of a reviewer, and what it offers in return.

Before you accept

Accept only if the paper is within your expertise. Declining is more useful than a review outside your field, and it is never held against you.
Decline if you have a competing interest: a recent collaboration, a shared institution, a commercial interest, or any relationship that a reader might reasonably think could colour your judgement. Say why, so the editor can find someone else quickly.
Accept only if you can complete the review within 14 days. If you need longer, say so when you accept and we will usually agree.

While you review

The manuscript is confidential. Do not share it, quote it, or use it in your own work, before or after publication.
Do not enter any part of it into a generative AI system. It is not yours to upload, and doing so is a breach of confidence.
Do not attempt to identify the authors, and tell the editor if you believe you have.
Write to the authors, not about them. Say what is wrong, why it matters, and what would fix it.

How we work

Reviewing for Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Cities takes one click from an email. There is no dashboard to learn, no account to create before you can read the paper, and nothing to install.

You are told the outcome of every paper you review, and you see the other reviews for that round once the decision is made.

Recognition

Reviewing is unpaid work that holds the literature together, and we record it. A certificate is issued for every review, in your name, the day your report reaches the editors and whatever the paper's outcome. Reviewers reach Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond recognition as completed reviews accumulate, and receive a certificate at each level. Every certificate carries a serial that anyone you show it to can check.

We publish no list of our reviewers. Your credit is the certificate itself, which is in your name and carries a serial anyone you show it to can check, and the review recorded against your ORCID where you have given one.