Peer-Review Process Guidelines

Initial screening

After an article is submitted to JIMCA, a journal editor screens the manuscript and decides whether or not to send it for full peer review. Only after clearing the initial screening is the article sent to one or more peer reviewers. Editors will consider the following aspects:

  • Is the manuscript good enough quality to be sent for peer review?
  • Does it conform to the aims and scope of the journal and has it followed the style guidelines and instructions for authors?
  • Does it make a significant contribution to the existing literature?

Unsuitable articles may be rejected without peer review at the editor’s discretion. If the article passes these initial checks, it will be sent for peer review.

Benefits of carrying out this initial screening include:

  • A quick decision for authors – if the manuscript clearly lies outside the scope of the journal, then a rapid rejection allows the author to submit their article to another journal more quickly.
  • Peer reviewers’ time is not wasted – reviewers don’t have to spend time evaluating and giving feedback for a manuscript of clearly inferior quality.

Review Process

Properly-formatted manuscripts (APA Format) considered by the editor-in-chief to be of sufficient quality and in line with the Journal of Immersive Media and Creative Arts area of research will be sent to a reviewer member of the Journal's editorial team. The associate editors will serve as the action editors for those works deemed ready for external review. On occasion, the editor-in-chief may serve as an action editor (depending on content expertise and associate editor workloads). The action editors will secure reviewers and make judgments concerning publication worthiness. Publication judgements will be based on reviewer feedback and the action editor’s own reading of the submission materials. All associate editor and reviewer feedback is then sent to the editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief will then send a final decision letter to the corresponding author. In most instances, authors can expect decisions on initial submissions within 30 days. Because manuscripts receive expert review, and because the Journals Editorial Board and Advisory Board is international as well as Local in scope, this time may vary. The Journal of Immersive Media and Creative Arts retains the right to make changes in accepted manuscripts that (in the opinion of the editor-in-chief) do not substantially alter meaning as well as for grammatical, stylistic and space considerations.

The final decision

Editors have various options when it comes to making a decision on an article. The following are the most common decisions made:

  • Accept without any changes (acceptance): the journal will publish the article in its original form.
  • Accept with minor revisions (acceptance): the journal will publish the article once the author has made some small corrections.
  • Accept after major revisions (conditional acceptance): the journal will publish the article if the authors make changes suggested by the reviewers and/or editors.
  • Revise and resubmit (conditional rejection): the journal will reconsider the article in another round of decision making once the authors have made major changes.
  • Reject the paper (outright rejection): the journal won’t publish the article or reconsider it.

 

Provision of Supplementary Materials and Documents

An author may provide material that the research builds its argument upon, like a reflective practice  article on an animated short film may include the short film or a discussion on the design of a video game may include pictures of the user interface of the game, similarly, an author basing an argument upon a standard practice or procedure used in their respective art field, maybe required to submit the details of that practice or procedure in order to facilitate the review process. However, none of the items included in the supplementary materials or documents count against the main document’s page limit or word count. The supplemental material documents maybe a single Microsoft WORD format (.docx) extension, images or videos. There are no specific formatting guidelines for the supplemental text materials, but authors should seek to create a document that follows APA style guidelines wherever possible and maximizes ease of use for editors and peer reviewers.

There are no required supplemental materials for an initial submission. Authors can choose what details they wish to provide as part of a first submission. However, if an invitation to revise and resubmit a manuscript is extended, then the editorial team may request for inclusion of some of these supplemental items in order to make a well-informed publication decision upon resubmission. Any requests of this kind will be detailed in the decision letter. Offered below is a list of items that could be included in the supplemental materials document. The list is not meant to be exhaustive:

  1. A picture or a painting or other work of art.
  2. Photographs taken by author which are part of the argument in the article
  3. Any such video or short animated film. (link to streaming website may be provided for larger files)
  4. Empirical evidences, Readings or Result of any specific experiment that provide the ground for the argument in the submitted article.

Join us as Reviewers:

JIMCA is always striving for academic excellence and growth. We believe in constant progress and for the very reason the reviewers board is always looking to expand. If you are an expert in any domain of Creative Arts or  Immersive Media, and hold a PhD degree, we maybe looking for you. Share your CVs at reviewers@jimca.org and we can present your case to the editorial board.