1. Composition of Editorial Committee (partially amended on July, 2019) 

The editorial committee (including editor-in-chief) consists of five or more experts who have doctoral degrees and more than 10 years’ experience as professors or field specialists in the fields of welfare and rehabilitation for people with disabilities. The term of the committee member is three years but can be renewed. 

2. Selection of reviewers (partially amended on September 13th, 2015) 

1. After editorial board’s discussion, three reviewers who are the most suitable to the subject of each manuscript will be recommended and appointed by the chief editor.

2. For fair and rigorous review, the reviewers shall be appointed as the persons who have no personal relationship with a manuscript author. And any relationship with a manuscript author should be reported to the committee in advance.

3. The reviewers must be objective and strict as well as refrain from subjective and ethical violated review in the academic evaluation of manuscripts. If being unfair or ethically violated, the chief editor will warn this to the reviewer in a written paper and him/her from participating review process for one following year.

3. Review Procedures 

1. The manuscript file without the authors name and institutional affiliation is uploaded to the online submission system and verified by each of the three reviewers.

2. Three reviewers shall review the manuscript simultaneously and identity of each reviewer won’t be exposed to each other.

3. Each reviewer evaluates the manuscript based on the following four evaluation status.

● “Accept”: The manuscript is suitable for publication without further revision.

● “Minor Revision”: The manuscript will be published after revising specific parts of the manuscript, based on the reviewers’ comment.

● “Major Revision”: Judgement on publication of the manuscript is reserved and the manuscript will be reviewed again after revising specific parts of the manuscript, based on reviewers’ comment.

● “Reject”: The manuscript is not eligible to be published.

4. The review result will be decided as the following review chart and this can be checked individually by the manuscript author on the online submission system.

5. The manuscript which has gotten “accept” could be published with the chief-editor’s notice of publication to the manuscript author; and in this case, the manuscript can be revised according to the reviewers’ comment and the chief-editor will make a final review after the author’s revision. If the revision has been done as inappropriate, the chief-editor may request a farther revision.

6. For a manuscript with a “Minor Revision”, the chief-editor will send a list of contents to be revised to the author. Authors need to revise the manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments or provide a reasonable answer to the reviewers’ comments justifying why they did not revise it. Reviewers and the chief-editor will decide the publication of the revised manuscript after reviewing again.

7. For a manuscript with “Major revision”, the chief-editor will send a list of contents to be revised to author, and the manuscript will be reviewed again by same three reviewers based the review chart presented #4. In this case, the review result will be made either “Accept” or “Reject”.

8. For a manuscript with “Reject”, the chief-editor will notify this to the author with the reasons of such decision.

4. Review Criteria (partially amended on September 13th, 2015) 

1. Appropriateness of manuscript title

● Does the title of the manuscript properly represent the main idea of research?

● Are the manuscript title, purpose of study, and manuscript content consistent?

2. Clarity of study purpose and consistency of contents

● Are the introduction and rationale of study properly presented?

● Is the purpose of study clearly presented?

● How logically are research questions deduced?

3. Validity of the study composition (appropriate interpretation of results)

● Is the rationale of the study reasonable?

● How sufficient and objective has the literature review process been conducted?

● How much is this manuscript differentiate from previous studies?

● How much are research methods appropriate for achieving research objectives?

● How reasonably has the process of making hypothesis, variables, sampling, and statistical analysis been applied?

● Is the measurement of the data valid and reliable?

● Has the result of the study been considered in connecting with those of previous studies?

● Are there intentional omission or irrational rationalization and generalization when reporting results of the study that do not fit the hypothesis?

● Are there enough consideration on other factors which could have influence on the study results?

● How realistically are discussion and implication of the study presented based on the study results?

4. Originality of the study and reflection of recent research trends

● Has the study been written in a more original way rather following ways of existing studies?

● Has the study reflected in recent research trends?

5. Contribution and usefulness of the study to the welfare for the people with disabilities

● Does research contribute to the development of the field of the welfare for people with disabilities?

● Are the results of the study highly suggestive or worth of applying for the field of the welfare of people with disabilities?

6. Quality of manuscript abstract

● Does the abstract construct logically, including purpose of the study, methods, and results of study?

● Does the volume of abstract is being proper or is not too much being implicated? (15-20 lines)

7. References [Footnote]

● Is the reference section written fulfilling its regulations?

● Is the information in the reference section accurate?

5. Anonymity 

1. The chief-editor should not disclose the author’s name to the editorial committee during review period and anonymity between reviewers and the author should be guaranteed.

2. If one of the editorial committee members submits a manuscript, the chief-editor should not allow him/her to review the manuscript. Also, this fact should not be revealed to other editorial committee members until all review process has completed.

6. Confirmation 

1. As soon as the review process completed, the Editorial Committee meeting will be held to finalize the review report.

2. Once the publication has confirmed, the author will forward the final copy of the manuscript via e-mail to the chief-editor. Once the chief-editor finalizes this copy and sends this to a publisher, author cannot directly contact to the publisher to revise the manuscript.

3. The chief-editor will record the date of submission, the date of completion of the review, and the date of publication of the manuscript at the bottom of English abstract, based on the following dimension.

● Date of submission: Date when author submitted the manuscript and manuscript application form.

● Date of completion of the review: The date on which the final review completed

● Date of publication confirmation: Date on which the chief-editor confirms it’s publication (Ex. The day to receive final review result for “Accept” manuscript; the day of presenting revised manuscript for “Minor revision” manuscript; and the day of getting final re-review result for “Major revision” manuscript)

4. Even there are more than two manuscripts submitted and reviewed as “accept”, submitted by the same author(s), only one manuscript can be published on one issue and the other one will be published next issue.

7. The above principles of review may be amended by review of the Editorial Board.

8. Appeal and Resubmission 

1. In the case of “Major revision”, author can request review just one time more and three same reviewers are appointed to this review. According to the results of the review, the manuscript can be re-submitted. If all review process has not completed within the time-limit, the review process may be carried over to next issue.

2. In the case of “Reject”, author can appeal this only one time to the chief-editor by presenting an appealing statement, and new three reviewers may be appointed to review for this manuscript, and the same review process will begin.