In general, we are looking for referees with a good track record in the area that we want them to comment on. We find them through their publications in various databases. We often do select new and younger faculty members to referee papers as well.

The essential task of a reviewer is to provide a critique and evaluation that is

     •  Prompt
     •  Constructive
     •  Thoughtful
     •  Fair

The essential goal of the peer review process is to maximize the quality of published research in a field of scholarly inquiry. Remember as you write your review that you have obligations to three audiences: (a) the editor of the journal, (b) the author(s) of the paper, and (c) scholars who are doing research in this field.

The editor of the journal relies on reviewers who will be thorough, prompt, and fair. The editor expects to be provided with detailed but concise assessments of manuscript quality; a clear recommendation about whether the paper should be rejected, revised, or accepted; and feedback to authors that will be helpful in crafting a revision (or submission to another journal). The editor expects you to extend your expertise--not every article sent to you for review will be squarely within your primary area of specialization.

The authors rely on reviewers to be constructive, reasoned, explicit, and ethical. A submitted manuscript is confidential: Do not discuss it; do not copy it, do not quote it. Identify both the strengths and the weaknesses of the paper. Be aware of your biases or preferences. Do not be superficial or dismissive. Focus on those limitations that are serious threats to the internal and external validity of the study. Think of yourself as an unpaid consultant to the authors. Consider how you can help them to improve their study and write in this spirit of constructive criticism. Above all remember the golden rule of reviewing: Do unto these authors as you would have them do unto you as an author.

Other scholars rely on reviewers to maximize the quality of research published in their field. Journals are perhaps the single most important vehicle for dissemination of research findings. As a reviewer, you are helping to set the standard for quality. You have the opportunity to advance the quality of research in your field, to update your awareness of current research, and to learn new knowledge and skills. Being a manuscript reviewer is one of the best and most effective ways to continue your own education as a scholar.

Researchers sign up to become a reviewer at http://scialert.com/register.php

Science ALERT Journals are committed to speedy evaluation of manuscripts, and our record in this respect in recent years compares favorably with those of major competing publications. For most papers, reviewers are asked to return comments within two weeks; papers that call for particularly rapid assessment, owing to competition or other factors, can often be reviewed within 48 hours or less. Most papers are published within 8-10 weeks of initial submission, considerably faster than our competition. Through our online publish-before-print program, we publish certain papers within ten days to two weeks of acceptance, and in some cases within two weeks of receipt.

Yes, Published Articles may be retracted or withdrawn by their authors, academic or institutional sponsor, because of pervasive error or unsubstantiated or irreproducible data or any other reason. In this situation, author(s) needs to pay withdrawal fee of US$1000. On the receipt of the fee, the journal will publish a note about this withdrawal in the next issue. This notice will also appear on the website of the journal.

To submit a manuscript, please follow the instructions bellow:

Getting Started

1. Launch your web browser and go to the Science Alert Online Submission System at http://scialert.com
2. Log-in or click the New to Science Alert option if you are a first-time user of Science Alert Online Submission System.
3. If you are creating a new account:
1. After clicking on New to Science Alert and enter the required information carefully and click on `I accept. Create my Account`. Your e-mail information is very important.
2. If you have an account but have forgotten your log in details, go to Forgot your password? And enter your email address. The system will send you an email containing account information.
4. Log-in to your account and submit your article.

Submitting your manuscript

1. After you have logged in click on Submit New Article
2. Accept Terms and Conditions by clicking on I AGREE
3. Enter data on Article Information, Author`s Information, Suggest Referees and click on Move to Next Step
4. At final stage you are required to upload your files:
1. Click on the Chose File and locate the file on your computer
2. Select the files of your article
3. When you have selected all files you wish to upload, click on Upload Files

NOTE: You have a limit of 10 MB combined for all files you upload.

After successful submission, you will receive a confirmation via e-mail. You can also log-on to Science Alert Manuscripts Submission and Tracking System any time to check the status of your manuscript. The Journal will notify you by e-mail once a decision has been made.

Guidelines by Journal
If you are interested in submitting a manuscript, view the author guidelines for each journal by selecting the journal title from http://scialert.net/guidetoauthors.php

You can retrieve your Science Alert password, if you forgot your password for Science Alert UserID, go to the www.scialert.com/forgot_password.php, provide your Registered E-mail ID (UserID) and click on "Send Password" button, your password will be delivered to your e-mail address.

If you forgot your Science Alert UserID, you should contact with the customer service department through e-mail ([email protected]) with the following information:

Your Name (as mentioned in your profile):
E-mail Address:
Telephone No.
Article No. if you have already submitted?

Customer support representative will provide you the required information within 24 hours.

A competing interest (often called a conflict of interest) exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of Science Alert Journals when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.

We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with a paper, we should know about any competing interests that authors may have, and that if we publish the article readers should know about them too. We are not aiming to eradicate such interests; they are almost inevitable. We will not reject papers simply because you have a conflict of interest, but we want you to make a declaration on whether or not you have competing interests. From January, 2011, Science Alert asks to the authors to use unified disclosure form prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Science Alert suggested using this unified form just to make life easier for authors, in that the same form can be completed for several journals, saving authors the trouble of having to provide slightly different information for different journals. Each journal, will, however, integrate the form into its processes in different ways.

The form asks authors to disclose three types of information:

1	Associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript (the timeframe for disclosure in this section of the form is the lifespan of the work being reported).
2	Associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript (in the 36 months before submission of the manuscript).
3	Non-financial associations that may be relevant or seen as relevant to the submitted manuscript.

The form, which is a PDF file, is available at www.scialert.net/disclosure_form.pdf

We ask all authors to download and complete a copy of the disclosure form. They should keep a copy of the form and send a copy to their corresponding author, but we do not want them to submit the form to us. Instead we want the corresponding author (or guarantor) to make a statement derived from the information provided in the form and to include that statement in the submitted manuscript.
Thus we are asking the corresponding author of each paper to get all authors to download and complete the form and to lodge a copy of the form with the corresponding author. The corresponding author should then draft a statement following the three elements in the disclosure form, and include it in the manuscript.

We also ask the corresponding author to keep the original competing interest forms and make them available on request.

The statement in the manuscript should take the following format. Below are some examples for different sorts of disclosures.

"All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work OR [author initials] had support from [name of organisation] for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years OR [author initials] [had specified relationship] with [name of organisation] in the previous 3 years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work OR [initials of relevant authors] [had specified relationships or activities of this type]"

Examples

Situation 1: No competing interests
"All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Situation 2: Grant funding for research but no other competing interest
"All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: all authors had financial support from ABC Company for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Situation 3: Mixed
"All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB foundation, DF does consultancy for HHH and VVV companies; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

"All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) (URL) and declare: financial support for the submitted work from ABC Company; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB Company, DF does consultancy of HHH and VVV companies; AB chairs the BAA guideline committee on disease Y, BF is a member of the Royal College of Physicians` guideline committee on gastroenterology."

All content published in ScienceAlert is permanently published, regardless of the outcome of the peer review that follows after publication.

Authors can revise, change and update their articles by publishing new versions, which are added to the article's history; however, the individual versions, once published, cannot be altered or withdrawn and are permanently available on the ScienceAlert website. ScienceAlert participates in the CrossMark scheme, a multi-publisher initiative that has developed a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the CrossMark policies, ScienceAlert is committed to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.

Clicking on the CrossMark logo (at the top of each ScienceAlert article) will give you the current status of an article and direct you to the latest published version.

In order to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record, we will apply the following policies when published content needs to be corrected; these policies take into account current best practice in the scholarly publishing and library communities:

Correction
In traditional journals, where articles are peer-reviewed before publication, Corrections (or Errata) are published to alert readers to errors in the article that became apparent following the publication of the final article.

By contrast, articles in ScienceAlert undergo peer review post publication and publication is not "final" as new versions can be added at any stage. Possible mistakes that come to light during the peer review process may be highlighted in the published referee reports, which are part of the article. Authors can publish revised versions, and any errors that become apparent during peer review or later can be corrected through the publication of new versions. Corrections and changes relative to the previous version are always summarized in the "Amendments" section at the start of a new version.

Retraction
This action is reserved for articles that are seriously flawed and so the findings or conclusions cannot be relied upon. Articles may be retracted for several reasons, including:

• honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty)
• research misconduct (data fabrication)
• duplicate or overlapping publication
• fraudulent use of data
• plagiarism
• unethical research

For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. The retraction notice will be linked to the retracted article (which usually remains on the site) and the article will be clearly marked as retracted (including the PDF).

An article is usually only retracted at the author's request or by the publisher in response to an institutional investigation. It is important to note in the context of ScienceAlert's publication model, that - as in traditional journals - a retracted article is not "unpublished" or "withdrawn" in order for it to be published elsewhere. The reasons for retraction are usually so serious that the whole study, or large parts of it, are not appropriate for inclusion in the scientific literature anywhere.

Science ALERT is interested in a wide range of manuscripts presenting original research and commentary in all areas of science and technology. For original research, the common thread is that the work should reveal novel concepts of broad importance to the scientific community. Categories of papers include:

Research Articles. These are full-length papers describing original research. There are no specific page limits although authors are encouraged to be as concise as possible and to use as few high quality illustrations as necessary to adequately document their findings.

Review Articles. Review articles are an attempt by one or more authors to sum up the current state of the research on a particular topic. Ideally, the author searches for everything relevant to the topic, and then sorts it all out into a coherent view of the "state of the art" as it now stands.

Methodology Articles. Methodology articles should present a new experimental or computational method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article must describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available. The described method needs to be well tested and ideally, but not necessarily, used in a way that proves its value.

Short Communications. Short communications should describe outstanding new discoveries. Short Communications should follow the same layout as research papers.

Letters to the Editor are considered for publication (subject to editing and abridgment) provided they do not contain material that has been submitted or published elsewhere.

Technical Comments. Science ALERT Journals also publishes brief Technical Comments (approximately 1000 words in length) on research papers that have appeared within the past six months in the journal; these comments are published on the journal's Web site, with an abstract in the Letters section of the print version of journal.

Yes. Science ALERT treats all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents. Science ALERT also instructs and expects our Board of Reviewing Editors and reviewers to treat manuscripts as confidential material. Our peer review process is also confidential, and identities of reviewers are not released. (Letters and Technical Comments are sent to the authors of papers on which they comment for response or rebuttal, but otherwise are treated in the same way as other contributions with respect to confidentiality).