ROCYS welcomes original contributions describing unpublished results of theoretical, empirical, conceptual or experimental research. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by members of the editorial board and/or selected reviewers; the accepted papers will be published in the following issue of our journal. The authors are expected to include an introductory abstract of the article describing its significance, allowing non-experts to skip details as necessary.

The Romanian Cyber Security Journal (ROCYS) carries out a two-stage peer review process:

• desk peer review (internal peer review);
• double-blind peer review (external peer review).

Submitted manuscripts are assessed by the editorial team based on the following criteria:

• compliance with the research area of the journal;
• compliance with the structure mentioned in Publication Guidelines;
• the use of English language (articles should be written grammatically correct and should be easy to read).

During the desk peer review stage, the articles that are not a good fit for ROCYS’s scope will be automatically rejected. Articles that need improvement in structure and wording will be returned to the authors to make changes to the text. The manuscripts deemed eligible by our editorial team and that have also passed the desk review stage (with or without changes) move to the double-blind peer review stage. In this stage, the article is sent for evaluation to a reviewer in the ROCYS database who volunteered for this activity and has the most appropriate expertise for the manuscript. One or two academic subject experts (depending on the case) evaluate the manuscripts and the respective manuscript may be accepted for publishing without changes (no review), with minor changes, with major changes, it could be sent back to the author for a complete rewrite or it may be rejected. Each peer review report includes detailed comments if the author is required to make any changes. Authors are not permitted to request reviewers. In the case of manuscripts rated with “minor changes”, the authors will return the amended article according to the indications of the editorial team. ROCYS’s editor will verify the implemented changes and, if the changes follow the indications in the peer review report, the manuscript will be published. If this is not the case, the article will be rejected. In the case of manuscripts with “major changes”, the reviewer will verify again if the text complies with the indications received. If yes, the article will be published; if not, the article is returned to the authors for further amendments or is rejected.

ROCYS has a volunteer-based network of reviewers, made up of members of the academia, research scientists, experts and specialists. The reviewer database is updated regularly by our editorial team and is categorised based on the subject expertise. The editorial team will ensure that the reviewer assigned for blind review is different from the author and has a different affiliation by verifying the relevant identification details (full name and affiliation). ROCYS pays special attention to the double-blind peer review process and ensures the author-reviewer confidentiality. This means the reviewer receives the manuscript for evaluation without the author's name and affiliation, and the authors receive the peer review report with the redacted reviewer's name.