Japan Society of Developmental Psychology

Japanese Journal of Developmental Psychology
Editorial & Peer Review Process

  1. The first author of the submitted manuscript must be a member of the JSDP.
  2. Under the auspices of the JSDP Board of Directors, the JJDP editorial board is responsible for the editing of this journal. Members of the editorial board are entrusted with their responsibility by the President of the JSDP.
  3. The JJDP has one Chief Editor and one Associate Editor, as well as editorial board members.
  4. Upon receipt of a submitted manuscript, one member of the editorial board (chosen by the Chief Editor or Associate Editor as the action editor for the submission) plus two general reviewers (selected from the members of the JSDP) are assigned to the review of the manuscript. The responsibility for the editorial decision and editing is generally that of the action editor.
  5. The review process results in two possible editorial decisions: (1) acceptable for publication, and (2) unacceptable for publication. “Acceptable” means that the article is publishable in its present form, or that it can reach a publishable level of quality with minor revisions based on the feedback from the reviewers. “Unacceptable” means that the submitted article is not appropriate for the scope of the journal or is judged to be of insufficient quality to be published by the JJDP. Articles may be revised and resubmitted in order to meet the requisite criteria for publication.
  6. The following are among the considerations of peer reviewers and the editorial committee, for Empirical Research Articles: importance of the contribution to the developmental sciences, and the level of quality of theoretical rationale, interpretation, methodology, and data analysis.
  7. Short commentaries about articles published in the JJDP, or about JSDP scholarly activities, are considered by the JJDP for publication as Opinion Papers. For such submissions, the following are among the considerations of peer reviewers and the editorial committee: importance of contribution to the scholarly field, a focus appropriate for the JJDP, and logical argumentation.
  8. Unauthorized reprinting of the articles appearing in the JJDP is prohibited.
  9. he submission and review process is conducted on-line, and the peer review process is intended to take about one month.
  10. The identity of submitting authors is not revealed to reviewers outside the editorial board.
  11. If the author of a submission disagrees with an editorial decision, he/she may submit to the editorial board documentation counter to the editorial decision. The editorial committee will then issue a response based on consideration of such documentation.
  12. Simultaneous submission of articles submitted to the JJDP to another journal or other journals is not permitted. The JJDP maintains strict policies and procedures against such duplicate submissions.
  13. Articles already published in university bulletins, books, or general readership magazines may not be submitted for publication to the JJDP.
  14. The editorial office of the JJDP is the Secretariat of the JSDP.

JJDPEditorial Process

[Note: this is a summary of the posting by Chief Editor Tatsuo Ujiie. It is not a direct translation, but it conveys his general points about the direction of the editorial process].
The JJDP Chief Editor directed that effective April of 2008 the editorial processes of the JJDP will be reformed to be in better accordance with the philosophy of the JSDP. Most importantly, the review process will seek to have a more positive impact on the authors of manuscripts, and a more positive impact on the developmental sciences. Instead of an emphasis on writing that avoids technical errors or ideas that might be criticized, it is the intention of the editorial board to encourage writing that is interesting, new, important, and can have an impact on the field.
Accordingly, reviewers and the editorial board encourage submitting authors to consider an editorial decision as not simply a success vs. a failure. Instead, reviewers will pay more attention than ever to positive points of articles deemed unacceptable for publication, and re-thinking and even multiple resubmissions of manuscripts will be encouraged.
To facilitate the submission and review process the JJDP is moving toward an entirely on-line system. This will make the work of both reviewers and authors more efficient. It is the ultimate intention of the JJDP to make it possible to receive more submissions and to publish more articles, better serving the field of developmental psychology and the members of the JSDP.