outline

Complaints and Appeals

Last Update: 18 December, 2024 | 12:08

All Brieflands journals follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal's editorial management of the peer-review process. Based on the  COPE advice, which mentions the requirement of a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, editorial board, or publisher, we introduce the related page of "Complaints and Appeals" on the COPE website to our readers. Please refer to this page.

Direct Connection to Us

You can send any complaint or appeal to us in these methods:

  1. Please submit a ticket via Publisher Support at https://brieflands.com/forms/support (Since Oct 2020, we have developed a new internal link in all journals to submit a ticket using primary contact information).
  2. To submit an anonymous ticket, please use our support portal.

Post-Publication Comments

Every reader can post a comment on any article's page (Post Publication Peer Review). This comment will be managed by the publisher and forwarded to his editor. read more

Approach to a complaint

  • 1) Our distinguished readers can open a discussion even anonymously about a decision made by an EIC, reviewer, or associate editor: In this case, please describe precisely the matter of claim with detailed documents.
  • 2) Upon submitting your ticket, you will receive a ticket ID. A standard investigation process may take up to 4 weeks after the ticket submission. 
  • 3) Any new ticket related to a complaint or appeal will be screened initially by the "Head of Ethics Department." In case of any requirement to collect more documents, we will contact the corresponding author and their institution. After collecting data, we forward them to our "Ethics Department." This committee includes:
    • The chief director of the publisher
    • Two representatives of the journal owner
    • The editor-in-chief of the journal
  • 4) The preliminary decision made by the mentioned ethics committee will be sent to all authors with a request period of 7 working days. In case of any objection by authors or complexity of an issue, we will forward it simultaneously to the second committee, which includes an additional member of the national ethics committee as well as an official representative of the related, affiliated institution or a joined lawyer plus to COPE council (after anonymization).
  • 5) Until the end of any conclusion, we will hold on to all further actions. 
  • 6) Any conclusion reached by COPE and the second ethical committee (above paragraph) will be our decision and ought to be executed from all sides.

COPE flowcharts about Complaints and appeals