Policy and Copyright for “Open access” publishing and for the Peer Review process

Authors sign an exclusive license agreement, where authors have copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the editors. In this case authors have the right to:

Share their article in the same ways permitted to third parties under the relevant user license (together with Personal Use rights) so long as it contains the end user license and a DOI link to the version of record on ScienceDirect.
Retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights (including research data).
Proper attribution and credit for the published work.

Copyright to the above-listed unpublished and original article submitted by the above author(s), the abstract forming part thereof, and nay subsequent errata (collective, the “Article”) is hereby transfer to the Manufacturing Technology Journal (collective, the “Journal”) for the full term thereof throughout the world, subject to the Authors Right (as hereinafter defined) and to acceptance of the Article for publication in the Journal. This transfer of copyright includes all materials to be published as part of the Article (in any medium), including but not limited to tables, figures, graphs, movies, and others multimedia files.

The Author(s) shall have the following rights (the “Authors Right”):

All proprietary rights other than copyright, such as patent rights.
The nonexclusive right, after publication in the Journal, to give permission to third parties to republish print version of the Article or a translation thereof, or excerpts therefrom, without obtaining permission from Manufacturing Technology Editor, provided the Journal prepared version in not used for this purposes, the Article is not published in another journals, and the third party does not charge a fee. If the Journal version is used or the third party republishes in a publication or product charging a fee for use, permission from Manufacturing Technology Editor must be obtained.
The right to use all or part of the Article, including the Journal prepared version without revision or modification, on the author(s) web home page or employer’s websites and to make copies of all or part of the Article for the Author(s) and/or the employer’s use for lecture or classroom purpose. If a fee is charged for any use, the Journal permission must be obtained.
The right to post and update the Article on free-access e-print serves as long as files prepared and/or formatted by the Journal or its vendors are not used for than propose. The right post choice part of the Article on web of the Journal (full title of the paper, author(s), abstract, keywords, acknowledgements and references). If the author(s) wish the Journal prepared version to be used for an online posting other than on the author(s) or employer’s website, the Journal editor permission is required.
If the Article was prepared under Czech Government contract, the government shall have the rights under the copyright to the extent required by the contract.

All copies of the Article made under any of the Author Rights shall include notice of the Journal copyright. By this Agreement, the author(s) or employer’s jointly and severally represent and warrant that the Article is original with the author(s) and does not infringe and copyright or violate any other right of any third parties, and that the Article has not been published elsewhere, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere in any form, except as provided herein. Agreement as authorized agents for and on behalf of all the authors, and that this Agreement and authorization is made on behalf of all the authors. The agreement author(s) also represented and warrant that they have the full power to enter into this Agreement and to make the grants contained herein.

STATEMENT OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

A. Submission of the Manuscript
The corresponding or submitting author submits the Manuscript to the journal. This is usually via an online system available on https://journalmt.com/.
The status of the Manuscript is: Received.

B. Editorial Office assessment
The journal checks the Manuscript’s composition and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines (template) to make sure it includes the required sections and stylizations. The quality of the Manuscript is not assessed at this point.

C. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC)
The EIC checks that the Manuscript is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and interesting. If not, the Manuscript may be rejected without being reviewed any further. The Manuscript to the plagiarism check (by the iThenticate) at this stage is sent.

D. EIC Assigns an Associate Editor (AE)
Sometimes we have Associate Editors who handle the peer review. If they do, they would be assigned at this stage.

E. Invitation to reviewers
The handling editor sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained – commonly this is 2. The double-blind review system is used.

F. Response to the invitations
Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest and availability. They then accept or decline. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.

G. The review is conducted
The reviewer sets time aside to read the Manuscript several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the Manuscript without further work. Otherwise, they will read the Manuscript several more times, taking notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.

H. Journal evaluates the reviews
The handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.

I. The decision is communicated
The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. The comments are anonymous always.

J. Final processing of the Manuscript
If accepted, the Manuscript is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the Manuscript was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor.
The status of the Manuscript is: Revised.

K. Prepare of the Manuscript after final review to the publishing
After the final review with a recommendation to the publishing, the Manuscript to the print is prepared. The DOI is assigned in this stage.
The status of the Manuscript is: Accepted.

Ahead concept of the revised Manuscript is online published (without pages numbering and 2 columns formatting).
The status of the Manuscript is: Pre-published.

Final Manuscript is online published in specified issue (volume, issue and page numbering).
The status of the Manuscript is: Published.