Peer Review Policies

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology follows the peer review policy of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including the scientific process. Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff, and is, therefore, an important extension of the scientific process. Each article submitted to BJMM for publication is reviewed by at least two senior specialists of the concerned specialty. The double-blind process is strictly followed and, in certain controversial cases, the opinion of a 3rd reviewer can also be sought. 

Peer Review Process (Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review)

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology follows the peer review process of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Responsibilities in the Submission and Peer-Review Process. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology is a peer reviewed scientific journal with a rigorous editorial screening and assessment process made up of several stages. The editors make decisions on submissions based on scientific rigor, regardless of novelty.

Initial Checks after submission of manuscript by Author

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Academic Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared, declared the competing interests and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal, compliance with editorial policies and ethical standards including those for human and animal experimentation. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. The handling Academic Editor is usually a member of the Editorial Board. After these checks, the Academic Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor or Associate Editor to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Double Blind Peer-Review Process

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. The handling editor selects reviewers based on expertise, publication history, and past reviews, and invites them to provide feedback on the manuscript. After agreeing to review, external peer reviewers typically have 10 days to submit their review. The journal office will follow up with late reviewers and inform the corresponding author if there is any delay. A double-blind review is applied, where authors' identities are unknown to reviewers and the authors do not know the reviewers as well. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewers. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past two years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

Final Editorial Decision and Revision of Manuscript

All the articles, reviews and communications published in Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology (BJMM) go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The handling Academic Editor or Staff editor makes the final decision on each manuscript. The time to render a first decision averages about 43 days, but times vary depending on how long it takes for the editor to receive and assess reviews. The editor will communicate the decision to the authors, which will be one of the following:

• Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given five days for minor revisions.
• Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point-by-point response if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
• Reject and Encourage Resubmission: If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.
• Reject: The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response. Decisions are communicated to the corresponding author in a formal letter, along with reviewer feedback and any other requirements from the journal office. If the editor feels that the submitted manuscript has the potential to be published, but requires changes, the authors will be invited to revise it and will give 45 days to resubmit the revised manuscript for both a major or a minor revision.

1. Production and Publication of Article

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on the Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology (https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/ BJMM) website.

Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers:

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology follows the COPE Peer review guidelines and it provides basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer review process in research publication. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process.

1. Reviews should be objective evaluations of the research. If you cannot judge a paper impartially, you should not accept it for review or you should notify the editor as soon as you appreciate the situation. If you have any professional or financial affiliations that may be perceived as a conflict of interest in reviewing the manuscript, or a history of personal differences with the author(s), you should describe them in your confidential comments.
2. If, as a reviewer, you believe that you are not qualified to evaluate a component of the research, you should inform the editor in your review.
3. Reviews should be constructive and courteous and the reviewer should respect the intellectual independence of the author. The reviewer should avoid personal comments; Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology reserves the right to edit out comments that will hinder constructive discussion of manuscripts.
4. Just as you wish prompt evaluations of your own research, please return your reviews within the time period specified when you were asked to review the paper. If events will prevent a timely review, it is your responsibility to inform the editor at the time of the request.
5. The review process is conducted anonymously; Bangladesh Journal of Medical Microbiology never reveals the identity of reviewers to authors. The privacy and anonymity provisions of this process extend to the reviewer, who should not reveal his or her identity to outsiders or members of the press. The review itself will be shared only with the author, and possibly with other reviewers and our Board.
6. The submitted manuscript is a privileged communication and must be treated as a confidential document. Please destroy all copies of the manuscript after review. Please do not share the manuscript with any colleagues without the explicit permission of the editor. Reviewers should not make personal or professional use of the data or interpretations before publication without the authors' specific permission (unless you are writing an editorial or commentary to accompany the article).
7. You should be aware of Journal policies for authors regarding conflict of interest, data availability, and materials sharing.