Purpose of the editorial role

Editors are entrusted with safeguarding scientific quality, editorial independence, and ethical compliance in everything that AAAI publishes. Your role is not merely administrative: you guide manuscripts through evaluation, improve reporting quality, and ensure that decisions are grounded in scholarly merit. Well-recognized editorial guidance (e.g., COPE and WAME) describes editors’ public duty to ensure accuracy, minimize bias, manage conflicts of interest, maintain confidentiality, and correct the record when needed. 

Who does what: editorial roles and accountability

Editorial work is shared across multiple roles (Editor-in-Chief, handling editors/associate editors, editorial board members, and guest editors). Clarity in responsibilities prevents delays, reduces inconsistent decisions, and protects confidentiality.

Responsible screening and triage

Screening is where editors protect author time and reviewer capacity. Your goal is to identify submissions that are clearly out of scope, ethically problematic, or too underdeveloped to benefit from peer review. Desk decisions should be prompt and respectful, with concise reasoning and (when feasible) a suggestion for a better-fit venue or a clearer path to resubmission.

Triage responsibilities (practical checklist)

• Scope alignment: Confirm the manuscript fits AAAI’s asthma/allergy/immunology remit and will interest the journal’s readership.
• Double-blind compliance: Ensure a properly blinded manuscript file is provided to protect anonymity in the review process. 
• Basic reporting completeness: The manuscript should state objectives, methods, results, and conclusions with enough detail to evaluate validity.
• Ethics essentials: For clinical research, verify that ethics approvals/consent statements appear present and plausible.
• Red flags: Excessive overlap, inconsistent data, image anomalies, suspicious authorship patterns, or implausible results should trigger an integrity review.

Running a high-integrity double-blind peer review

AAAI states it uses double-blind peer review and expects at least two independent reviewers for most submissions. Editorial responsibility here includes reviewer selection, confidentiality protection, review quality control, and decision synthesis.

Reviewer selection responsibilities

• Match expertise: Choose reviewers with the right topic and methodological fit (clinical, immunologic mechanisms, epidemiology, statistics, etc.).
• Prevent conflicts of interest: Avoid reviewers with recent collaborations, close institutional ties, or personal conflicts with the authors.
• Balance perspectives: When possible, include complementary expertise (e.g., clinician + methodologist) to improve rigor.
• Protect confidentiality: ICMJE emphasizes that peer-review materials are privileged communications and should be kept strictly confidential. 

Monitoring review quality and behavior

Editors are responsible for ensuring that reviewer reports are useful, civil, and evidence-based. If a report is superficial, biased, or contains inappropriate language, the editor should moderate it (e.g., remove ad hominem remarks), request clarifications, and/or seek an additional reviewer. Maintain the distinction between “required corrections” and “optional improvements,” so authors can respond efficiently.

Decision-making responsibility (do not outsource)

Reviewers provide recommendations; editors make decisions. AAAI lists decision categories such as no modifications, minor modifications, major modifications, or rejection.

The editor’s responsibility is to integrate the evidence, consider the novelty and validity, and write a decision letter that clearly explains why the journal is requesting revisions or declining the work.

Ethics oversight and integrity investigations

Editors are responsible for acting on suspected misconduct, ethical non-compliance, or credible complaints. COPE guidance is widely used for managing issues such as plagiarism, redundant publication, authorship disputes, data fabrication, and ethical approvals. 

Editorial responsibility includes pausing review when necessary, requesting documentation, engaging institutional channels in serious cases, and keeping careful records of decisions and communications.

Common integrity scenarios and editor actions

• Plagiarism / redundant publication: pause evaluation; assess overlap; request explanation; reject or correct as appropriate; document rationale.
• Authorship disputes: request written confirmation from all authors; avoid adjudicating personal disputes without evidence; escalate to institutions when needed.
• Conflicts of interest: require transparent disclosures; reassign handling where conflicts exist; consider additional peer review.
• Human/animal ethics problems: request ethics approval details and consent statements; reject if requirements are not met.
• Data or image manipulation: request raw data; consult specialists; consider expressions of concern or retraction when warranted.

Managing editorial conflicts of interest

Editorial responsibility includes recognizing and appropriately managing conflicts of interest (COI). Conflicts may be financial, academic, or personal (e.g., recent co-authorship, same institution, supervisor/trainee relationships, direct competition with disputes). WAME identifies managing conflicts of interest and separating editorial and business functions as key responsibilities to minimize bias. 

What to do when an editor is conflicted

• Recuse yourself promptly and document the recusal.
• Transfer handling to a non-conflicted editor with appropriate expertise.
• Avoid any informal influence: do not suggest reviewers, do not comment on decisions, and do not access confidential correspondence beyond what is necessary for reassignment.

Post-publication responsibilities

Editorial responsibility continues after publication. Corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, and retractions are tools to keep the scholarly record reliable. WAME notes that editors should publish corrections, retractions, and critiques of published articles when needed. 

COPE guidance supports structured responses to concerns and emphasizes consistent, transparent correction of the record. 

When to correct vs retract (practical guidance)

Special issues: extra responsibilities

Special issues can add value when they cover a coherent, timely topic—but they also create additional integrity risks (e.g., conflicts, uneven review rigor, and “fast lanes”). AAAI special-issue materials emphasize building an expert review team, ensuring manuscripts fit the journal scope, and supporting accept/reject decisions with proper reasons. 

The transparency principles explicitly note that best-practice expectations apply to special issues as well. 

Minimum safeguards for special issues

• Equal standards: Same review rigor and ethics checks as regular issues (no shortcuts).
• COI controls: Guest editors must declare conflicts; conflicted papers should be handled by an independent editor.
• Decision traceability: Keep clear documentation of reviewers, revisions, and decision rationales.
• Oversight: The EIC (or designated senior editor) retains authority to intervene, request additional review, or reject papers that fail to meet standards.

Professional communication is an editorial responsibility

Editors set the tone of the journal. Communications should be timely, respectful, and specific. Good editorial service includes acknowledging submissions, responding to author queries, setting expectations for revision, and helping reviewers understand what the journal needs from them.

Decision-letter quality standards

• Clarity: Use plain language and provide a prioritized list of required changes.
• Consistency: Align your letter with reviewer comments but do not reproduce harsh language or irrelevant demands.
• Confidentiality: Do not disclose reviewer identities or private editorial discussions.
• Documentation: Keep decision rationale in the system (especially for ethics escalations and appeals).