REVIEW PROCESS AND JOURNAL STANDARDS


STANDARDS

Complicity: An International Journal for Complexity and Education maintains a high standard and quality of published papers. Papers must be original contributions representing scholarly activity, as evidenced by discussion of the relevant literature, an awareness of the history and antecedents of work, and a format that allows a reader to trace sources of the work through citations.

All papers undergo an independent review by appropriately independent, qualified experts. Papers are reviewed in their entirety, not merely as abstracts or extracts.

THE REVIEWING PROCESS

All submissions are done electronically and there are two stages to the reviewing process:
The first stage is normally accomplished within one to two weeks of receiving a manuscript.
It involves only the two co-editors who do an initial screening of the submission. The three possible outcomes of this step are:

• rejection (e.g., the submission has an inappropriate focus,
  it is badly executed, out of date, etc.);
• request for revisions before formal review;
• move to formal review.

The second stage consists of a formal peer review process and we would normally ask reviewers to complete a review within four weeks. Complicity uses a "community" approach to reviewing which is relatively novel. The title and abstract of the paper are e-mailed to a community of reviewers which is made up of academics and practitioners who are actively engaged with complexity and education. Members of the panel who have a particular background or interest relevant to the paper will then volunteer or “bid” to review the submitted paper. This process ensures that the paper has a faster turn-around-time, since reviewers will only volunteer when they know they are able to undertake the review. The reviews are returned to the co-editors who then make a joint decision on the paper. The recommendations at this stage are either:

• reject;
• revise and resubmit for further review;
• accept with minor revisions;
• accept as-is.

If the result is revise and resubmit, decisions on how to handle the resubmission are made collectively by the editorial team (co-editors and member of the community of reviewers). Although the initial abstract circulation will not name the author, we do not use a "blind" review approach for Complicity. Unless otherwise requested by an author, reviews will be open for the reviewer, i.e., the author's details are provided for the reviewer. This is not the case for authors, for whom reviewers remain anonymous unless a reviewer specifically asks us to reveal their identity to the author. While we try to avoid pairing authors with reviewers to whom they are closely connected this, of course may happen due to the smallness of the complexity-in-education community. We therefore ask that reviewers who feel uncomfortable or compromised in knowing the author personally please let us know.

As a guide we would suggest that, in reviewing the paper, you might consider the following:

• Relevance for the journal, including clear connection to both education and complexity
• Appropriate grounding in scholarly literature and theory
• Appropriate scholarly writing style
• Logic and clarity of argument
• Accessibility and interest to readers of Complicity
• Formatting according to journal guidelines (although we will take care of this one
  after the reviewing process).