Open Access
ASTESJ publishes accepted articles under an open-access model. Published articles are made available online without subscription access for readers.
Article Processing Charges are used to support editorial administration, peer-review coordination, production, website maintenance, indexing preparation, and online publication. APCs are charged only after acceptance and do not influence editorial screening, reviewer selection, peer-review reports, editorial decisions, special issue handling, or publication outcomes.
Fee information is available on the Article Processing Charge page.
ASTESJ Editorial Office
Editorial Office Role
The ASTESJ Editorial Office coordinates journal administration, technical checks, manuscript correspondence, production support, publication scheduling, website updates, and communication with authors, reviewers, editors, and guest editors.
Editorial office staff may check file completeness, metadata, formatting, ethical declarations, conflict-of-interest statements, data availability statements, and author information. These checks do not replace external scientific peer review.
Editorial Office Contact
The public Editorial Office record should list the responsible contact person, role, affiliation or organization, city, country, and email address. Contact information is available at https://www.astesj.com/editorial_office/.
Editorial Process, Peer Review, and Production
Initial Checks and Assignment
Submitted manuscripts are first checked by the Editorial Office for completeness and compliance with basic journal requirements. The Editor-in-Chief or an assigned managing editor may then assess whether the manuscript fits the journal scope and is suitable for peer review.
Independent Peer Review
ASTESJ requires independent peer review for all primary research articles. Manuscripts that pass editorial screening are normally evaluated by at least two reviewers with relevant expertise. Reviewers must be independent of the authors, institutions, funders, manuscript topic, and competing work.
Editorial Board Members and Guest Editors may review manuscripts only when they meet the same independence requirements as other reviewers. Their editorial role does not replace the need for independent reviewer assessment.
Decision and Production
Editors make decisions after considering reviewer reports, author responses, scope fit, ethical compliance, originality, reporting quality, and technical merit. Accepted manuscripts enter production for copy-editing, language editing, metadata checks, final proofing, and online publication.
Editorial Board Responsibilities
Editor-in-Chief
The Editor-in-Chief provides academic leadership for ASTESJ and is responsible for maintaining the journal’s editorial standards, scope, peer-review integrity, and publication ethics.
- Maintains the journal scope and editorial direction.
- Oversees editorial quality and peer-review standards.
- Supports the Editorial Office in resolving complex editorial and ethics matters.
- Appoints or recommends qualified Editorial Board Members, Associate Editors, and Guest Editors where applicable.
- Ensures that manuscripts submitted by editors, board members, guest editors, or related authors are handled independently.
- Chairs or supports Editorial Board meetings where held.
- Approves policy changes that affect peer review, ethics, editorial roles, or special issue governance.
Editorial Board Members
Editorial Board Members support the journal through academic advice, scope expertise, reviewer recommendations, manuscript handling where assigned, and policy input. Editorial Board Members are not exempt from conflict-of-interest rules.
- Advise on manuscript scope and technical fit within their field.
- Recommend independent external reviewers when requested.
- Handle manuscripts only when assigned and when no conflict of interest exists.
- Review manuscripts only when they meet reviewer independence requirements.
- Support special issue development subject to journal approval and transparency requirements.
- Provide feedback on journal policies, research integrity issues, and editorial standards.
- Promote ethical, transparent, and technically sound publication practices.
Decision Authority
Final decisions are made by Editor-in-Chief or Editorial board member after external peer review. Editors should not make decisions on manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest. A manuscript cannot be accepted only through internal assessment or editorial opinion without the required independent external review.
Supporting Editor Responsibilities
Managing Editor
The Managing Editor coordinates the manuscript handling workflow between the Editorial Office, authors, reviewers, editors, and production staff. The Managing Editor supports administrative and technical handling but does not replace independent peer review or the final academic editorial decision.
- Performs initial checks for file completeness, manuscript formatting, metadata, author information, declarations, and required submission documents.
- Checks whether the manuscript is ready for pre-review assessment, including scope fit, ethical declarations, conflict-of-interest statements, data availability statements, and basic reporting completeness.
- Coordinates reviewer invitations, review reminders, author revision requests, and editorial correspondence where assigned.
- Checks revised manuscripts for response completeness, updated files, and required declarations before further editorial assessment.
- Supports post-review and post-acceptance processing, including copy-editing coordination, proofreading communication, metadata preparation, production checks, and publication scheduling.
- Escalates scope, ethics, authorship, conflict-of-interest, reviewer misconduct, or publication integrity concerns to the Editor-in-Chief or Editorial board member.
- Ensures that editorial office handling remains separate from reviewer assessment and academic publication decisions.
Guest Editors
Guest Editors support approved special issues within their area of expertise. Their role is to help define the special issue scope, recommend reviewers, advise on technical fit, and support timely editorial handling under ASTESJ policies.
- Prepare a special issue title, aim, scope, summary, keywords, and subject area.
- Recommend qualified contributors and independent reviewers.
- Check whether submissions fit the approved special issue scope.
- Declare conflicts of interest before handling any manuscript.
- Ensure that special issue manuscripts follow the same independent peer-review and ethics rules as regular submissions.
- Support promotion of the special issue without guaranteeing acceptance or preferential treatment.
Editorial Independence and Conflicts of Interest
Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions are based on the manuscript’s scope fit, originality, technical merit, reporting quality, ethical compliance, reviewer reports, and author responses. APC payment, institutional relationships, editorial board membership, special issue status, author identity, or reviewer service must not determine acceptance.
Editor Conflicts of Interest
Editors must decline handling a manuscript when they have a personal, financial, academic, institutional, supervisory, collaborative, or competitive conflict with the authors, institutions, funders, topic, or manuscript outcome.
If a conflict is identified after assignment, the manuscript must be reassigned to an independent editor.
Editors as Authors
Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, Guest Editors, Editorial Office staff, or related authors must be handled by an independent editor with no conflict of interest. These manuscripts require the same editorial screening and at least two independent external review reports.
Special Issue Governance
Special Issue Approval
Special issue proposals must be reviewed for scope fit, guest editor qualifications, topic relevance, ethical risk, proposed timeline, and reviewer availability before public announcement.
Special issue submissions follow the same peer-review, ethics, conflict-of-interest, and editorial decision standards as regular submissions.
Guest Editor Transparency
Each special issue page should list the Guest Editor name, role, institution, department where available, city, country, email or profile link, ORCID where available, open or closed status, submission deadline, and publication period.
Published special issues can be found on the Special Issues page. New proposals may be submitted through the Special Issue Proposal Application.
Benefits and Recognition
Recognition
ASTESJ may recognize editorial service through public role listing, service certificates, acknowledgments, invitations to editorial meetings, and opportunities to propose special issues. Recognition does not influence manuscript acceptance, peer-review outcomes, APC handling, or editorial decisions.
- Public listing on the Editorial Board.
- Editorial service certificate are issued to editors.
- Annual acknowledgment of editorial service where appropriate.
- Eligibility to propose special issues, subject to scope review, editorial approval, and conflict-of-interest checks.
- Opportunity to advise on journal scope, policy development, and research integrity practices.
Editorial Voucher
Editors may receive a 50 USD voucher toward the ASTESJ publication fee after country-wise discount has first been applied. The voucher may be used only for an accepted ASTESJ publication and does not guarantee acceptance, faster review, favorable peer review, special issue approval, or any preferential editorial treatment.
Use of AI Tools by Editors
Editors must protect manuscript confidentiality when using any software or AI-assisted tool. Manuscripts, figures, tables, data, code, supplementary files, review reports, and confidential editorial correspondence must not be uploaded to public or third-party AI tools unless ASTESJ has provided explicit permission and confidentiality is protected.
AI tools cannot replace editorial judgment. Editors remain responsible for editorial assessment, conflict checks, reviewer selection, decision recommendations, and final decisions where assigned.
Detailed requirements are provided on the ASTESJ AI Policy page.
Editorial Contact
General or support inquiries may be sent through the Contact ASTESJ page. Editorial Office contact information is available on the Editorial Office page.