Department of Public Administration, NCCU

1. "Research Articles" requires approximately two to three months to complete a first-round review. The Editorial Board's considerations for double-blind review include relevance to the journal's field, academic quality, compliance with research ethics, proportion of direct quotes from interview transcripts, and proportion of unpublished references.

2. Upon a desk review by the Editorial Board, manuscripts are sent to two anonymous reviewers, who may recommend "Accept," "Accept after Revisions," "Revise and Resubmit," or "Reject" to the Editorial Board. Based on the combined recommendations, the manuscript will be handled as shown in the table.

3. If both reviewers recommend "Resubmit after Major Revision," the author(s) must revise the manuscript according to the comments, submit a responses-to-comments table, and the manuscript will be re-evaluated by the original reviewers to decide on "Accept" or "Reject." In case of opposite opinions in the re-evaluation, a third reviewer will be consulted.

4. If the two reviewers provide conflicting recommendations, such as "Revise and Resubmit" and "Reject," the editor-in-chief will appoint internal members from the Editorial Board or two external Board members to decide whether to reject the paper or send it to a third review, which will be deemed the first-round review.

5. If the third reviewer recommends "Accept" or "Accept after Revisions," the paper is accepted. If the recommendation is "Revise and Resubmit," the author must revise based on the comments, provide a responses-to-comments table, and it will be re-sent to the third reviewer to decide on "Accept" or "Reject".

6. Manuscripts that pass the review process and are marked as "Accepted" or "Accepted after Revisions" still require final approval from the Editorial Board. This includes verifying compliance with publishing ethics, and passing plagiarism detection software checks.

7. For manuscripts requiring revisions ("Revise and Resubmit" or "Accept after Revisions"), the author(s) must complete the revisions within 1.5 months of receiving the comments. Submissions beyond this period will not be processed.

8. The Editorial Board reserves the right to edit the text and formatting of the final accepted manuscript.