The Department has a specific set of guidelines, that it follows in the process of selecting or rejecting a research paper. They are as follows -
1. Only the Editor-in-Chief and two senior members of the Editorial Board have the password for the official email id of Vageeshwari, so as to maintain fair play.
2. All the research papers undergo initial online screening for plagiarism.
3. Thereafter, preliminary screening of the papers is done by the members of the Editorial Board, according to their speciality. The members are sent the papers on their personal email ids, and also given the hard copies submitted by the authors. They have to reject/accept papers within a reasonable and defined time-frame (depending on the number of papers sent to each member).
4. If a member rejects a paper, the same is done giving reasons. He sends his report of acceptance/rejection to the Editor-in-Chief at the journal email id.
5. A meeting of the Editorial Board is then convened to review all the papers, i.e. which is to be rejected and which to be forwarded to the peer reviewers. The authors of the rejected papers are informed accordingly, while the accepted papers are mailed to the Peer Reviewers.
6. Each research paper is sent to two different reviewers to get an unbiased and objective review.
7. All papers are sent to reviewers with the concerned speciality.
8. The Department follows the Double-Blind process of Peer Reviewing. So, both the reviewer and the author don't know the names of each other. This ensures transparency in the entire process.
9. The Department has a pool of eminent experts from the field of Indian music, not only from India, but also abroad. In order to avoid any possibility of biased reviews, the Department changes the reviewers as much as possible every time, so that there is complete transparency in the Peer Reviewing process.
10. Each reviewer is required to mail back the papers, within a reasonable time, with their reports attached, citing acceptance or rejection of the paper, with reasons for the same.
11. Once the papers come back with the comments/reviews, the same are discussed in another meeting of the Editorial Board, and accordingly, are sent to the authors for modification, along with the critical comments of the anonymous reviewer.
12. If both the reviewers of a paper have made wholly or largely adverse comments against the paper, that paper is summarily rejected and the author informed of the decision through email, with the reasons for the same, so that he may know his mistakes and write a better paper the next time
13. The Editorial Board then meets for the third and final time, to discuss whether the corrections or changes have indeed been carried out by the author. Only when the members are satisfied, is the paper sent for publication.
14. The names of the experts involved in the process of Peer Reviewing are disclosed at the very end, i.e. at the time of publishing.
15. After publishing, an e-copy of the journal is then uploaded on the Department website – music.du.ac.in. This e-copy cannot be copied or changes made to it. It can only be downloaded and printed by anyone, at his own cost and expenses.
16. An e-copy of the journal is mailed to each author of his published paper.
17. The decisions of the Editorial Board regarding all matters relating to the publishing of Vageeshwari are final and binding in all respects.