WORK

Open Access

By default, articles published in Work are available only to institutions and individuals with access rights. However, the journal offers all authors the option to purchase open access publication for their article as part of the IOS Press Open Library. This means that the final published version will be freely available to anyone worldwide, indefinitely, under a Creative Commons license and without the need to purchase access to the article. This is also referred to as “gold” open access.

Gold open access pricing
Authors who choose gold open access publication will be subject to an article publication charge of €1500 / US$1500 for publication under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license or €2150 / US$2150 for publication under the CC BY 4.0 license. Pricing is exclusive of possible taxes. After an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be informed regarding the open access option during the production stages, and will have the opportunity to purchase open access for their article. It could be that the open access fee of an article is waived completely due an institutional agreement IOS Press has with the corresponding authors' institution. Please check the institutional agreements page for details.

Green open access
Authors who do not make use of the gold open access option may still make their article freely available using self-archiving, also referred to as green open access. Authors may make their final accepted manuscript available for free download from their personal or institutional website or institutional archive. This model is free for the author.

PubMedCentral deposits
This journal deposits all open access articles in PubMedCentral (PMC) as part of the IOS Press Open Library. If an author chooses to publish their paper with open access then the publisher will deposit the article in PMC upon publication.

Peer Review Policy

WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation is a peer-reviewed journal. Articles submitted to the journal undergo a double blind peer review process. This means that the identity of the authors is unknown to the reviewers and the identity of the reviewers is not communicated to the authors. Please visit our reviewer guidelines for further information about how to conduct a review.

After automatic plagiarism screening through iThenticate, all submitted manuscripts are subjected to initial appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief and, if found suitable for further consideration, to rigorous peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees. Reasons to reject a paper in the pre-screening process could for example be that the work does not fall within the aims and scope, the writing is of poor quality, the instructions to authors were not followed or the presented work is not novel.

Papers deemed suitable to be reviewed will be assigned to the Editor's Assistant. The Editor's Assistant will then invite reviewers to comment on the work and might consider inviting the reviewers suggested by the author(s). Editors and reviewers are asked to excuse themselves from reviewing a submission if a conflict of interest makes them unable to make an impartial scientific judgment or evaluation. Conflicts of interest include but are not limited to: collaboration with the authors in the past three years; any professional or financial affiliations that may be perceived as a conflict of interest; a history of personal differences with the author(s).

As a standard policy, decisions are based on two reviews, in some specific circumstances one review may be deemed sufficient to make a decision on a paper. The Editor-in-Chief strives to ensure a typical turnaround time (3–5 months).

Reviewers are asked to judge a paper on at least:

• Logical ordering of ideas
• Consistency with purpose and scope of work
• Contribution to the evidence based literature
• Sound research methodology, statistical approach, and interpretation    
• Quality of references    
• Writing style/clarity in English

Based on the received reviews the handling editor will propose to the Editor-in-Chief a recommendation:

1. Accept with no additional edits
2. Accept with minor to moderate revisions
3. Revise and resubmit
4. Reject

They mean the following:

1. The manuscript is suitable for publication and only requires minor polishing; thus, no further review is requested
2. The authors are required to make minor or moderate changes to their manuscript. The manuscript becomes acceptable for publication if the changes proposed by the reviewers and Editor are successfully addressed. The revised manuscript will be examined by the Editor-in-Chief and a decision is made for official acceptance or the manuscript is sent back to the authors for additional edits. Authors are requested to provide a letter to the reviewers and the Editor detailing the improvements made to the manuscript.
3. The manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in its current form. However, a major revision addressing all issues raised by the reviewers may be acceptable for publication. The revised manuscript will undergo a full second round of review. Authors are requested to provide a letter to the reviewers detailing the improvements made for the resubmission.
4. The manuscript is rejected as it is deemed to be out of scope, not relevant, or not meeting the journal’s quality standards in terms of significance, novelty, and/or presentation.

Authors are notified by the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final.