Guidelines for Reviewers

Peer-Review Procedure

Solarlits operates a rigorous, single-blind peer review process to ensure an objective, equitable, and unbiased evaluation of all submitted research. Under strict confidentiality, the handling Academic Editor invites a minimum of two independent, external experts to critically evaluate the manuscript. The following policy is adopted for manuscript decision:

We gratefully acknowledge the valuable support of the scientists who have reviewed papers for our journals.

Review Criteria

Reviewers are tasked with assessing the manuscript based on the following core criteria:

• Originality and Significance: The novelty of the research, its contribution to the field, and its potential scientific impact.
• Scientific Rigor: The robustness of the experimental design, the appropriateness of the methodology, and whether the framework robustly supports the authors' claims.
• Reproducibility: The adequacy of methodological details and data availability to permit exact replication by other researchers.
• Data and Conclusions: The accuracy of the data analysis and whether the conclusions are fully and logically supported by the results.
• Literature and Context: The relevance, currency, and integration of cited research.
• Presentation: The clarity of the prose, logical structure flow, and the technical quality of figures and tables.

Ultimately, reviewers are expected to provide constructive, actionable feedback to help authors refine and strengthen their work for publication.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

Peer review plays a crucial role in assisting the editor in making editorial decisions. To ensure the integrity of the publication process, reviewers are expected to adhere to the following standards when accepting an invitation:

• Reviewers who have been selected and find themselves inadequately qualified to assess the manuscript or unable to conduct a timely review should decline participation in the review process.
• Reviewers should seek guidance from the Editor before agreeing to review a paper when they have potential conflicts of interest.
• Reviewers must maintain impartiality throughout the review process, regardless of the authors' nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, or any other personal characteristics, as well as the origins of the manuscript or any commercial considerations.

All manuscripts received for review are confidential documents, and reviewers are obliged to treat them as such. Reviewers must not disclose the review or any information about the paper to unauthorized individuals, nor should they directly contact the authors without prior consent from the editor. Involvement of additional individuals in the review process requires prior permission from the journal, as outlined in https://cope.onl/case-reviewer.

Furthermore, any privileged information or ideas acquired through peer review must be kept confidential and not exploited for personal gain. Reviewers are prohibited from using unpublished materials obtained from a submitted manuscript in their own research without obtaining express written consent from the author.

While evaluating the manuscript and writing the report, reviewers have a responsibility to fulfill the following duties:

• Reviewers must bring potential ethical concerns in the paper to the editor's attention, including substantial similarities or overlaps between the manuscript under review and other published works of which the reviewer has knowledge.
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited in the manuscript. However, any suggestions made by a reviewer for an author to cite the reviewer's work should be grounded in genuine scientific merit and not driven by a desire to increase the reviewer's citation count or enhance the visibility of their own work.
• Whenever possible, reviewers are encouraged to accommodate requests from the journal to review revisions.