Journal Policies

Editorial Oversight

Orbit selects its editors via an internal discussion, interview, and voting process. Guest editors are selected and invited by the Editorial Team.

Roles are indefinite for as long as editors are willing to serve. Editors and the Editor-in-Chief are all responsible for shepherding articles through the review, copyediting, production, and proofing processes.

Articles receive at least two double-anonymous peer review reports and then a decision is made by the Editor/Guest Editor as to whether to reject, revise, or accept the submission. Guest editors are mentored by a permanent editor to ensure that their decisions are fair and that feedback is appropriate.

The journal editors take advice and reviews from members of the Editorial Board when submissions overlap with their expertise. The Editorial Board is reviewed annually by the Editorial Team and each membership lasts for as long as members are willing to serve. Members of the Editorial Board can be democratically removed by the editors for gross misconduct or any other reason.

This journal cultivates a broad and experienced Editorial Board that contains members from across different nations, academic institutions, genders and demographics. Potential board members are approached by the editorial team while keeping this diversity in mind.

Peer Review Process

All submitted manuscripts are first reviewed by the editorial team. Articles that are out of scope are desk rejected by the Editors, as are articles that we feel would definitely not pass external peer review. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject manuscripts without sending them for formal review. Editorial pieces and introductions are internally reviewed by the Editors. When an article goes to external peer review, the Editor informs the other Editors of this decision and locates two reviewers who can take on the piece.

Orbit's policy is to use double-anonymous peer review to ensure the fairness of the review process.

The journal selects active researchers as peer reviewers based on the expert knowledge of the Editor handling the submission. Orbit does not allow for authors to suggest peer reviewers for their research, nor will the editors consider any suggestions made by authors.

Editors supply potential peer reviewers with the abstract in advance and the manuscript and figures upon acceptance to undertake peer review.

Orbit provides reviewers with guidance to assist with completing their review. This guidance asks reviewers to consider the content, structure, argument, language and other elements (for example, figures and tables) of the research before they offer a recommendation.

The editors make a decision based on the reviewers' advice from among the following options:

• Accept without revisions: Your submission has been accepted as is.
• Minor revisions: Your submission requires minor changes and will be accepted once those have been completed.
• Major revisions: Your submission needs significant reworking. A new file must be submitted and another round of peer review will take place.
• Reject: Your submission was not accepted for publication with this journal, because it did not meet editorial standards.

While reviews in all cases are anonymous, we recognise that articles that germinated in conference presentations are exceptionally hard to anonymize. In such cases we will, therefore, ask reviewers to disclose any conflicts of interest, disclose whether they know the identity of the author and to justify their comments solely on the basis of the article under submission. These factors will be combined and considered at the discretion of the editors in reaching a decision.

In the case of editors submitting, the submission will be handled by other members of the team who must adhere strictly to the recommendations of external reviewers.

According to its double-anonymous peer review policy, Orbit does not publish peer review reports alongside articles, or the names of the peer reviewers who have undertaken review of the article. Anonymised peer review data is held securely and privately in the journal’s publishing platform for the author to access whenever they choose to.

Organisation and Governance

Orbit is owned and managed by the editors of the journal, a not-for-profit collective established in 2012 and run on a voluntary basis without any monetary recompense. New editors are appointed by the existing editorial team on a democratic basis.

This journal was formerly published independently but is now published by the Open Library of Humanities. The Editor-in-Chief is a founder and former CEO of the Open Library of Humanities.

Business Practices

Advertising

Orbit does not permit any advertising on the journal’s website and will never consider requests of any kind from other parties wishing to advertise in the journal or on its webpages.

Direct Marketing

This journal does not engage in any direct marketing practices.

The publisher, the Open Library of Humanities (OLH), employs a Marketing Officer who undertakes general marketing activities for the publisher including the promotion of its journals. The Marketing Officer does not, however, engage in direct marketing for any OLH journals and this does not affect the editorial decisions of OLH journals in any way.

Other Revenue

This journal is funded by OLH’s Library Partnership Subsidy Model and does not generate any additional streams of revenue.

Special Issues

Orbit publishes special issues of articles. These do not differ from the journal's usual publishing process: submissions are treated in exactly the same way as all others, except that a guest editor with relevant expertise in the issue's subject area oversees the peer review process in tandem with mentorship on the process from the journal's editors.

Anyone can propose a special issue to the journal, and the editors democratically decide whether to accept the proposal.