AME aims to provide a service to authors and the wider research community by making as much research available as possible, provided it meets our journals’ high standards for research conduct and ethical procedures and receives approval after peer review.

1. Peer review mode

Unless otherwise indicated*, this process applies to all AME journals, meaning:

• the reviewer’s name is NOT disclosed to the author
• the author’s name is disclosed to the reviewer

*Please note that two AME journals, Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition and Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery, use double-blind peer review, which means that the identities of both the reviewer and the author are kept unknown to each other throughout the review process.

2. Transparent peer review

With a commitment to openness and accountability, and to increase the level of transparency throughout our peer review process, a majority of AME journals have introduced a transparent peer review process as an option for authors upon submission. For journals that employ the transparent peer review process, the reviewer will be of notified of the transparent peer review policy in their reviewer invitation letter. Please refer to the website of the specific AME journal for more information.

3. The role of reviewers

If we need your help with appraising a manuscript, we will send you an email and ask you to accept or decline the invitation through our submission system. We ask for reviewers’ assistance to ensure that any studies published in AME journals have been conducted properly, are scientifically credible and ethical, and are reported in accordance with the appropriate guidelines (e.g., CARE guidelines for case reports).

The Editorial Office is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject a manuscript, based on the reviewers' comments.

We welcome feedback from our reviewers. If you have any comments you wish to make relating to a manuscript you have reviewed and our decision on it, or to our review process in general, we would be pleased to hear from you.

4. To become a reviewer

If you would like to become a reviewer for a specific journal of AME, please send an email to the Editorial Office with a copy of your CV attached and an indication of your review interests.

The review could be conducted either via the journal website (OJS system or ScholarOne system) of a specific journal or the ABER peer review system (http://www.theaber.com/home).

5. Recognition for reviewers

AME has entered an official partnership with Publons, as of April 2020. Around 60 AME journals’ peer review system is now integrated seamlessly into the Publons platform (https://publons.com/publisher/6041/ame-publishing-company). The partnership was done to recognize our expert peer reviewers easily for their review contribution. Reviewers can now opt-in to Publons as part of the review submission process, and the review data can be transferred to Publons upon submission. Please browse one of our reviewer profile pages for an example at: https://publons.com/researcher/1302886/takashi-ohtsuka/.

6. Guidance for peer reviewers

• When you provide a review via our submission system, please declare any competing interests you may have in relation to the article. These could be of a personal, professional, or financial nature.
• Before writing your review, you may find it helpful to browse our guidelines for authors. Reviews should be conducted fairly and objectively. Criticism should be objective, not merely based on differences of opinion, and should aim to help the author improve their paper. Our journal requires authors to use reporting guidelines when writing a manuscript and to submit a completed checklist for each guideline. We encourage you to use this completed checklist included in the review task to aid in your review. Please first check whether the minimum information indicated in the checklist is included in the report and use the reporting guideline to aid in your assessment of the manuscript. If you find the checklist has been filled in incorrectly or that the manuscript does not actually include the information required by the checklist, as part of review comments, you could as well indicate what additional information must be reported. A reporting guideline may not be used to directly judge the quality of the methodology used in the study, but does suggest the kinds of questions that should be considered when designing a study.
• All unpublished manuscripts are confidential documents. The existence of a manuscript under review should not be revealed to anyone other than the peer reviewers and editorial staff. Peer reviewers are required to maintain confidentiality regarding the manuscripts they review and must not divulge any information about a specific manuscript or its content to any third party without prior permission from the journal’s editors. If we invite you to review an article and you choose to discuss the manuscript with a colleague, please remind them of the confidential nature of the paper and acknowledge their input in your review. Please also encourage your colleagues to register as reviewers.
• If you have any serious concerns relating to the publication ethics of a manuscript (e.g., if you believe you have encountered a case of plagiarism), you can contact the Editorial Office in confidence.

We are very grateful to all of the reviewers who have supported our journal so far.

Updated on August 26, 2020