Editors must be vigilant to guarantee the quality and credibility of published scientific work

Excerpt

Scientific journals are designed to communicate primary scientific research and are committed to maintain high standards in order to keep the integrity of the scientific record. The editor-in-chief and the editorial board of a scientific journal are responsible for the entire content of a scientific journal, and it is their responsibility to evaluate the quality and the validity of submitted manuscripts with due respect to the stated aims and standards of their journals. After editorial and peer review, the editor-in-chief ultimately decides whether manuscripts can be published or not. Usually, the editor sends manuscripts for review to independent experts who are not part of the editorial board. Papers may also be rejected without external review, which is at the discretion of the editor. However, there are unfortunately many scientific journals around that do not undertake editorial or peer reviews and at the same time ask for a publication fee (so-called predatory publishing). The Journal Evaluation Tool may be a helpful tool to determine whether a scientific journal is a credible publication source (Rele et al. 2017). …