TransNav Journal

All papers submitted to the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation are peer-reviewed according to the following procedure:

Initial review: The Editor-in-Chief evaluates each paper to determine if its topic and content is suitable for consideration by the International Programing Council of the TransNav Journal. Papers that do not meet minimum criteria are returned to the authors within one week of receipt. This is in the best interest of the authors who could then decide to either correct the problems or submit the paper to a more appropriate venue, avoiding delays from a lengthy review process that would nonetheless lead to rejection.

Peer review: Papers that pass the initial review are assigned to an Associate Editor, who selects several reviewers based on their expertise in that particular field. Each paper is reviewed by at least two reviewers under a double-blind peer review process, where both the reviewers and the authors are kept anonymous. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the paper based on its originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity. To facilitate timely publication, reviewers are asked to complete their reviews within one month. After collecting the reviewers' reports, the Associate Editor makes a recommendation on the acceptability of the paper to the Editor-in-Chief.

Recommendation: Based on the reviewers' comments and the Associate Editor's recommendation, the Editor-in-Chief makes a final decision on the acceptability of the paper and informs its authors and reviewers about the decision, along with reviewers' reports. The final decision can be "Accept Submission", "Revisions Required", "Resubmit for Review", "Resubmit Elsewhere", or "Decline Submission." A revised paper should be re-submitted within one month of the decision. It will usually be returned to the original reviewers for evaluation.

Review Guidelines

Double-blind Review

The journal employs the double-blind peer review process, where both reviewers and authors remain anonymous throughout the review process.

Criteria for Publication

For a paper to be published in the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation, it must meet four criteria:

Originality
Significance
Technical Soundness
Clarity

Recommendation

Several types of recommendation are possible:

Accept Submission
Revisions Required
Resubmit for Review
Resubmit Elsewhere
Decline Submission

Writing the Review

The purpose of the review is to provide the editors with an expert�s opinions on the quality of the paper under consideration. A good review report should identify both the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and should also provide constructive and specific comments on how to improve the paper. If the reviewer believes that the paper is not suitable for publication in the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation, the review report should provide brief but sufficient information that enables the author(s) to understand the reasons for the decision.

Suggested Format

The following format is suggested for preparing the report:

Summary and Recommendation
What is the purpose of the paper? Is the paper appropriate for publication in the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation? What are the main contributions of the paper? Are the contributions sufficiently significant? Are the methods or findings sufficiently novel? What are the major weaknesses of the paper? What is your recommendation for this paper and why? If the paper is unacceptable in its present form, does it show sufficient potential to ask the author(s) for resubmission?
Detailed Comments on Methodology and Conclusions
Is the method of approach valid? Is the execution correct? Does the paper provide adequate acknowledgement of prior research? Do the data support the conclusions? If not, what other data are needed? Does the paper offer enough details so that the research could be reproduced? Should the authors be asked to provide supplementary methods or data online? It would be very helpful to provide page numbers to the parts of the paper to which the comments apply.
Detailed Comments on Readability
Is the title appropriate? Is the abstract an accurate and useful summary of the paper? Is the paper clearly written? If not, how can it be improved? Can the paper be shortened? Are the tables and figures easy to understand? Does the paper contain typographical or grammatical errors? Again, it will be helpful to provide page numbers to the parts of the paper to which the comments apply.

Confidentiality

Reviewers should treat the contents of the paper under review as strictly confidential, not to be disclosed to others prior to publication. A reviewer should not use or share with others material from a paper he/she has reviewed. Nor should a reviewer distribute copies of a paper under review, unless it has been made public.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers are requested to inform the editor of any conflicts of interest in reviewing a paper. Such conflicts of interest can occur if the reviewer is asked to referee a paper written by a colleague of the same organization, former or current student, former advisor, or closely-related person. Another type of conflict occurs, for example, when the reviewer is a direct competitor of the author of the paper for a grant. If the conflict is severe, the reviewer should recuse himself/herself.