The evaluation process of articles submitted to IJABO occurs as follows:

- Preliminary check: the editorial office checks the consistency of the registration data and compliance with the submission rules. If approved, manuscripts are submitted to the next stage, the desk review.

- Desk-review: at this stage, the Editor analyzes the scientific format of the manuscript, taking into account goals, theoretical framework, language, and methodology. The Editor also checks if the article fits into the editorial scope of the review and the potential contribution of the research. This task is divided between the chief editor and assistant editors, according to their expertise. If approved by the editors, articles are submitted to a single-blind review.

Single-blind review: The articles and additional documents are sent to at least two reviewers for evaluation. These reviewers have a doctoral degree and are not connected to the manuscript authors in any way; they are experienced in the field and/or familiar with the methods in question. IJABO ensures a single-blind (single-anonymous) peer-review process, where the authors do not know who the reviewers are. However, the reviewers know who the authors are. This allows authors to be more open and honest in reporting data or research results because they do not know who will judge them and ethical considerations that may go unnoticed until publication.

- After receiving the reviewers' reports, the editor sends them to the authors by IJABO OJS and e-mail, referring to one of the following three situations:

Approval: the article has been accepted for publication and the authors are requested to take the additional appropriate measures mentioned in the present guidelines to prepare it for its publication.

Review: The authors are requested to perform the suggested corrections or to justify why they choose not to do so. Any corrected version of the article should always be accompanied by a respective note that explains the changes made, and that justifies why certain suggestions were dismissed. The deadline of the revised article is set by the editor and sent to the authors according to the requested review. The corrected article is resubmitted to the reviewers so that these may check the changes. That cycle may be repeated several times until consensus is reached as to the approval or rejection of the manuscript.

Rejection: the article was not accepted for publication according to the justification presented by the editor, which is based on the reviewers' reports that state the improvements that need to be made in the text.
- The editor reviews and approves the final version of the article based on the reviewers' reports.

- Authors may track the status of the evaluation and appeal against decisions throughout the entire editorial process through the IJABO OJS system.

* Cases not covered by the present guidelines will be dealt with by IJABO's Chief Editor and its Editorial board, if necessary.