REVIEW GOALS

CRICKETT's mission is to create information sources that are easily absorbed by both humans and electronic knowledge systems. Therefore, our peer-review process may produce very technical demands, or above-average amounts of suggestions for adding specific data, or it can pose extensive rewriting tips. The Publisher encourages the Editors, Reviewers, and Authors to remain patient and passionate during the entire process. The results of a dedicated mutual pre-publication collaboration can be truly rewarding and important for all parties involved, and for the general public as well. Working together, we can make sure that CRICKETT Readers are exposed to nothing less than a well-matured and highly informative stream of precisely organized information. Whether it is a physician needing urgent information to save life, or a student eager to make their own first scientific discovery, or a curious patient, let's not disappoint them with shallow, repetitive, rambling, overcomplicated, or inaccurate reading. And, in recent days, let's not disappoint the emerging world of artificial intelligence, either. CRICKETT is introducing small cautious additions to the classic publishing practices, aiming at improved machine-readability and increased intelligent searchability of our articles (without compromising human-friendliness of the on-screen or printed text). Enhanced digital knowledge building will benefit us all - the Authors and their results can get better exposure, and streamlined information retrieval can make research and life easier. It will require our hard work to get there, from all of us. Before all, everything begins with producing valuable publications - which is virtually impossible without thorough and enthusiastic peer-review.

TIMELINE

CRICKETT does not guarantee any precise peer-review duration. Experts must have enough time to analyze manuscripts. The standard time is 6 weeks. In justified cases, we can try to negotiate shorter evaluation deadlines, but this is dependent on experts availability and willingness to participate in an expedited process without compromising the quality of their work. Typical situations when rapid pee-review can be considered include: disasters, pandemics, and other urgent public health concerns; serious side effects of drugs or medical procedures; dramatic changes to clinical practice; a potential to greatly reduce morbidity or mortality; publications tied to imminent, ongoing or recently concluded important meetings or political decisions; urgent situations in technology transfers and intellectual property protection. Acceptance for expedited review does not guarantee positive review outcomes or waived revisions of the manuscript (nor does it guarantee expedited publication, because each of these decisions is made separately).

TRANSPARENCY

Every CRICKETT article is clearly marked as peer-reviewed or not, and the exact methodology is indicated as well, located near the article title. There are two approaches:

● PRE-PUBLICATION DOUBLE-BLIND PEER-REVIEW

Peer-reviewers are qualified experts in the field who are not part of the journal's editorial staff. They evaluate individual manuscripts in their own personal capacity. To maximize impartiality and objectivity, manuscripts submitted to CRICKETT are peer-reviewed in a double-blinded manner. Double means that the Reviewers' identities and affiliations remain unknown to the Authors (at all times), and vice versa, the Authors' identities and affiliations are hidden from the Reviewers (until the respective article is published). As a standard, two expert opinions are collected. If needed, additional peer-reviewers are called.

● RETROSPECTIVE OPEN PEER-REVIEW

This is a process open to the broadest expert scientific community, and anybody can see the resulting critique. Any scientist or practical expert can participate (the Redaction always verifies the identity of all critique contributors, whether they want to remain anonymous to the public or not), and the Authors of the criticized article can publicly respond to the critique in the same document. The process has a defined workflow: When an original article is published, there is an option made available by CRICKETT to start a public re-evaluation of its contents. All comments and responses to comments are continuously collected as short retrospective contributions (Telegrams, Images, or Spotlights), and these are subsequently merged into a single document called the Addendum (which is appended to the article web page, or even published under a separate title, with all non-anonymous contributors listed as co-authors, and all anonymous comments cited as anonymous sources). The Abstract of the Addendum is updated after every new contribution or a pool of simultaneously added contributions. The time-stamped Abstract should reflect the current standing of the criticized original article (for example: Did further studies confirm the original findings? Did contradictory results emerge at any moment afterwards? Did the original study fail to acknowledge any important former paper? Can the methodology still be considered sound, after the years elapsed since the original publication?). Statements in the Abstract must be fully explained in the body text, with proper bibliographic references. Nothing can be deleted from the Addendum during consecutive updates, but pieces of text can be relocated, marked as not relevant anymore, tagged as false, supplemented with newer information, or similar. If the Addendum proves that the original article was compromised by research misconduct, other fraud of any kind, or by any inconsistency with the good practices of scientific publication, the original article can be retracted, then revised, re-peer-reviewed, and only then re-published.

CONFIDENTIALITY

During peer-review, all manuscripts and the associated discussions or correspondence are considered privileged communications. Without prior approval from the Redaction, the Editors and Peer-Reviewers are expressly prohibited from (i) copying manuscripts, (ii) sharing anything related with others, and (iii) discussing their personal evaluations or recommendations outside the assigned CRICKETT Workgroup. In addition, CRICKETT Editors and Peer-Reviewers are also bound to: (i) report immediately any possible personal, professional, or financial conflicts of interest with Authors or their work (the respective Managing Editor will review each case and decide whether any Reviewer shall be replaced); and (ii) destroy all manuscript copies when reviews are completed.