About the Journal

AIMS AND SCOPE

JERA is a non-profit, peer-reviewed and open access journal of the European Radon Association that focuses on radon research and practices.

The purpose of JERA is to publish original research, review articles and/or technical papers relating to radon, thoron and decay products.

The subject areas covered by the journal concern all aspects of radon. Therefore, the publications can cover topics such as radon metrology, radon mapping, radon measurement procedures and protocols, legislation and its practical application, radon in indoor air, soil, water and materials, health effects, radon mitigation and prevention techniques, thoron etc.

Authors may contact the Editor-in-Chief in advance to inquire about whether their research topic is suitable for consideration by the Journal of the European Radon Association.

Through an Open Access publishing model, the Journal of the European Radon Association provides an important forum where people working with radon in academic, public and private sectors can present the latest results from radon research and practical applications.

 

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Submissions are preliminarily examined by the Editor-in-chief and the editors and are run through a plagiarism detection software program. If a submission is not found to be appropriate for full peer review, the authors are notified. Submissions deemed suitable for full review are assigned to a Subject Editor, who has the paper examined by (usually) two peer reviewers. When it proves difficult to find a second reviewer for a paper, an editorial decision may be based on one reviewer's report in combination with the opinion of the Subject Editor.

JERA has a 'double blind' review process: Authors are not told who reviewed their paper. The peer referees’ identities remain unknown to the authors throughout the review process. Also peer reviewers have no access to the names and affiliations of the authors

Peer reviewers are asked to give their opinion on a number of issues pertinent to the scientific and formal aspects of a paper, and to judge the papers on grounds of originality and urgency. All relevant information will be forwarded to the author(s).

Peer reviewers will have six possible options, for each article:

1. Accept Submission (i.e. no need for any revision)
2. Revisions Required (i.e. accepted if the author makes the requested revisions)
3. Resubmit for Review (i.e. accepted or rejected after revisions have been made - paper will be sent out for another peer review round)
4. Resubmit elsewhere (i.e. if the manuscript is better suited for another journal)
5. Decline Submission (i.e. if the manuscript is substandard)
6. See Comments (i.e. if the reviewer cannot choose from any of the above)

In addition, papers may be rejected directly by the Editor-in-chief if judged to be out of scope or if scientifically or formally sub-standard.

When asking for revisions, reviewers have two possible goals: to ask authors to tighten their arguments based on existing data or to identify areas where more data are needed.

 

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE

Articles are posted online in the volumes immediately following final proofreading. The exceptions are articles destined for special numbered issues; publication of these articles may be delayed until they can all be published together at the same time. When posted online, the article is assigned a DOI number (Digital Object Identifier) whereby they become searchable and can be cited without delay.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

JERA is published Open Access under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. Authors retain full copyright. JERA is free for anybody to read and download, and to copy and disseminate for educational (but not commercial) purposes as long as appropriate credit is given, a link is provided to the license, and any changes made are clearly indicated.

JERA is accessible via the journal’s website at www.radonjournal.net as well as via international search engines such as DOAJGoogle and Google Scholar

ARCHIVING

This journal is part of the Public Knowledge Preservation Network for purposes of preservation and restoration. In addition, all files are archived with Portico.

AUTHOR SELF-ARCHIVING

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post papers submitted to JERA on personal and institutional websites, prior to and after publication (while providing the bibliographic details of the latter).