Guidelines for Reviewers

Reviewers play an essential role in maintaining the quality, integrity, and scholarly value of Journal of Intelligent Aeronautical Systems and Sustainable Flight Technologies. Reviewers are expected to provide independent, objective, constructive, and timely assessments of manuscripts within their area of expertise. Acceptance of a review assignment indicates that the reviewer has the appropriate expertise and can evaluate the manuscript fairly and confidentially.

Before Accepting a Review

Reviewers should:

Accept assignments only when the manuscript falls within their area of expertise.

Ensure that they have sufficient time to complete the review within the requested timeframe.

Decline the invitation if they have a conflict of interest, personal relationship, competitive or collaborative involvement, or any other circumstance that could affect—or reasonably appear to affect—their impartiality.

Inform the editor promptly if they are unable to provide an objective assessment.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts and all related materials must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers should not share, copy, distribute, discuss, or use unpublished information from a manuscript for personal or professional advantage. Manuscripts should not be uploaded to external platforms or AI tools unless explicitly permitted by the journal and consistent with applicable confidentiality and data-protection requirements.

Conducting the Review

Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts objectively and focus on scholarly and scientific merit. The review should consider, as applicable:

Originality and significance of the research.
Alignment with the journal's aims and scope.
Clarity and relevance of the research question or objectives.
Appropriateness and rigor of the methodology.
Adequacy of study design, sampling, data collection, and analysis.
Accuracy and appropriate interpretation of statistical or computational methods.
Presentation and interpretation of results.
Whether conclusions are supported by the evidence.
Quality and relevance of figures, tables, references, and supplementary materials.
Ethical approval, informed consent, data protection, and other ethical requirements where applicable.
Transparency and reproducibility of the research.
Clarity, organization, and overall presentation of the manuscript.

Reviewer Comments

Reviews should be specific, constructive, and professionally written. Reviewers should identify both strengths and weaknesses and provide practical suggestions for improvement. Personal criticism, offensive language, unsupported allegations, or comments unrelated to the scientific quality of the manuscript should be avoided.

Reviewers should clearly distinguish between major concerns that may affect the validity or interpretation of the research and minor issues such as clarity, presentation, terminology, or formatting.

Research Integrity and Ethics

Reviewers should alert the editor to concerns about possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or manipulated data, inappropriate image manipulation, unethical research practices, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other potential breaches of research integrity. Such concerns should be communicated confidentially to the editor rather than presented as accusations to the authors.

Reviewers should not request citations solely to increase their own citation counts, promote their work, or unnecessarily increase the manuscript's references. Citation recommendations should be made only when genuinely relevant to the scholarly quality of the manuscript.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts when using technological or AI-assisted tools. Unpublished manuscript content should not be entered into generative AI systems or other external services unless the journal has expressly authorized such use and appropriate confidentiality protections are in place. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, fairness, and appropriateness of their submitted assessments.

Recommendation and Final Decision

Reviewers may recommend acceptance, minor revision, major revision, or rejection, as provided through the journal's review system. The recommendation should be supported by the comments and should reflect the manuscript's scholarly quality rather than the reviewer's personal preferences. The final editorial decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief or designated editor, taking into account the reviewers' assessments and other relevant editorial considerations.

After Completing the Review

Reviewers should maintain confidentiality regarding the manuscript and the review process after submitting their report. If they subsequently identify a significant error, conflict of interest, or ethical concern relating to the manuscript, they should promptly inform the editorial office.

The journal values reviewers' contributions and encourages reviewers to provide fair, rigorous, timely, and constructive assessments that help authors strengthen their work while supporting the journal's standards of research and publication integrity.