Part 1 — Follow Guidelines 
Part 2 — Submitting your review 

Part 1. Follow Guidelines

Before beginning your review, familiarise yourself with the scope, aims, and editorial policies. Your assessment should be based on whether the manuscript makes a genuine contribution within that scope. If you are unsure whether the manuscript falls within scope, contact the editor before proceeding.

• Check the website for its aims and scope, peer review model, and any specific review criteria.
• Follow any instructions provided in the review invitation

1.1 Evaluate the quality of the manuscript

Your evaluation should address the following dimensions:

• Originality and relevance: Assess whether the work is original, within the scope of the publication, and makes a meaningful contribution to the field.
• Scientific and methodological rigour: Evaluate whether the research design, methods, and analysis are appropriate, robust, and clearly described.
• Clarity and structure: Assess whether the manuscript is well-written, logically organised, and accessible to its intended audience.
• Validity of conclusions: Determine whether the conclusions are supported by the evidence, analysis, and arguments presented.
• References and engagement with prior work: Evaluate whether relevant literature and prior research have been appropriately cited and critically engaged with.

1.2 Provide Constructive and Respectful Feedback

• Give clear, specific, and actionable feedback. Support your observations with clear arguments and, where possible, provide suggestions for improvement.
• Maintain a professional and collegial tone. Dismissive or condescending language is not acceptable.
• Distinguish between major concerns (which may affect the editorial decision) and minor concerns (style, clarity, small errors).
• Your review should be helpful to the authors regardless of your final recommendation.
• In open peer review, your report may be published alongside the article and your name disclosed. This is done with your approval

1.3 Assess Ethical Aspects

Flag any of the following to the editor confidentially, separately from the author-facing review:

• Suspected similarity or excessive overlap of other published work without proper reference
• Concerns about data integrity, fabrication, or manipulation.
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest on the part of the authors.
• Inappropriate or missing authorship attribution.
• Suspected undisclosed use of AI tools in manuscript preparation.
• Any other research ethics concern.

1.4 Maintain Confidentiality

The following confidentiality obligations apply to all manuscripts under traditional peer review. For open peer review and preprints, the data sovereignty principle in section 2.6 applies as the primary obligation.

• Treat the manuscript and all associated correspondence as strictly confidential.
• Do not share, discuss, or distribute the manuscript or any part of it to any third party, including colleagues or students, without the explicit permission of the editor.
• Do not use the content of the manuscript for personal advantage, including informing your own research, prior to publication.
• Confidentiality obligations continue after your review is submitted and after the editorial decision has been communicated.

1.5 Respect Author Data Sovereignty - AI and LLM Policy

Why this matters: Author data sovereignty is the right of authors to determine whether and how their intellectual work is incorporated into AI systems — independently of whether that work is openly available.

Open Access publication, preprint posting, and open peer review do not imply consent for a manuscript to be used as AI training data. This principle applies universally — to all manuscript types and all review types.

DOs

• Use a grammar or spell-checking tool to improve the clarity of your independently written review, provided no manuscript content is shared with the tool.
• Use an AI writing assistant to edit or rephrase sentences you have already written yourself, provided the substantive content and judgements are entirely your own and no manuscript content is shared with the tool.
• Use AI tools only in ways that do not compromise confidentiality, research integrity, or reviewer independence.
• Remain fully responsible for the content of review reports, recommendations, and communications.
• Verify the accuracy of any AI-generated suggestions before incorporating them into a review.
• Inform the editor if you are unsure whether a proposed use of AI is appropriate

DON’Ts

• Do not use LLMs connected to live databases or the internet to search for information about the manuscript or its authors — this may compromise anonymity in anonymous review.
• Do not assume that open access or preprint status implies consent for AI ingestion. Data sovereignty applies equally to publicly available manuscripts.
• Do not use AI tools as reviewers, editors, or decision-makers.
• Do not upload manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, or other peer-review materials to external AI or LLM systems without explicit journal authorization.
• Do not assume that Open Access publication, preprint status, or participation in open review permits the submission of peer-review materials to external AI systems.
• Do not use AI tools in ways that compromise confidentiality, the editorial independence, the research integrity, or the rights of authors for which you become accountable as a reviewer.
• Do not use AI to generate your review or any substantial part of it. AI-generated assessments are not acceptable substitutes for expert human judgement.
• TU Delft OPEN Publishing does NOT accept reviews that use chatbots as co-reviewers.

Disclosure

If you use any AI tool in preparing your review including language editing, you must disclose this when submitting your review. The disclosure should state which tool was used, for what purpose, and confirm that no confidential manuscript content was shared with the tool.

Example disclosure statement: "I used an AI-assisted writing tool to improve the language and clarity of this review report. The scientific evaluation, comments, and recommendations are my own."

Accountability

You are solely responsible for the content of your review. AI tools cannot be listed as co-reviewers. Your intellectual judgement and recommendation remain your sole responsibility regardless of any tools used.

1.6 Declare Conflicts of Interest

Declare any potential conflict of interest before or immediately upon accepting the invitation. This includes:

• Current or recent collaboration or co-authorship with any of the authors.
• Supervisory or mentoring relationships with any of the authors.
• Employment at the same institution as any of the authors.
• Any financial interest in the outcome of the review.
• Any personal relationship that could bias your assessment.

If in doubt, contact the editor before proceeding. Do not agree to review a manuscript if you have a competing manuscript in preparation on a closely related topic.

1.7 Be Timely and Reliable

• Respond to review invitations promptly, even if you are declining.
• Accept a review only if you can commit to the agreed deadline.
• If you anticipate a delay, notify the editor as soon as possible.
• If you need to withdraw after accepting, inform the editor immediately so an alternative reviewer can be sought.
• Suggesting a colleague as an alternative reviewer when declining is always appreciated — but only with their prior agreement.

1.8 Make a Clear Recommendation

• Provide a clear recommendation supported by your comments: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject.
• Ensure your recommendation is consistent with the substance of your review.
• Avoid recommendations that are more or less favourable than your comments suggest.
• If you have a concern about a potential ethical issue, flag this to the editor separately and confidentially — do not include it in the author-facing review.

1.9 Reviewer Anonymity

To support anonymous peer review, reviewers must ensure that their identity is not disclosed in review comments, annotations, or uploaded files.

DOs

• Submit your comments through the journal's review form, preferably.
• Focus feedback on the manuscript and provide constructive, evidence-based recommendations.
• Remove your name and other identifying information from any files you upload.
• Check document properties and metadata before uploading annotated files.

DON’Ts

• Include your name, affiliation, email address, ORCID, or other identifying details in review comments.
• Refer to yourself in a way that could reveal your identity (for example, "In my previous paper..." or "Our research group has shown...").
• Leave personal information in document comments, tracked changes, file names, or metadata.
• Contact authors directly regarding the manuscript.

Part 2. Submitting your review

When submitting your review:

• Use the review form provided
• Structure your review: (a) a brief summary of the manuscript; (b) major concerns; (c) minor concerns; (d) your recommendation.
• Flag ethical concerns separately: use the confidential comments field for the editor — do not include integrity concerns in the author-facing review.
• Disclose any use of AI tools in the designated field or as a clearly labelled note at the top of your review.
• Preserve reviewer anonymity: JHTR uses an anonymous peer-review process; therefore, ensure that comments, attachments, annotations, tracked changes, file names, and document metadata do not contain information that could reveal your identity to the author(s).

If you upload your feedback, make sure to remove any hidden information about your identity.

Microsoft Word

• Save the document.
• Go to File > Info > Check for Issues > Inspect Document.
• Run the inspection.
• Remove personal information, comments, tracked changes, document properties, and other hidden metadata.
• Save the cleaned file before uploading.

LibreOffice Writer

• Go to File > Properties.
• Review and remove author information where appropriate.
• Under General & Description, ensure personal metadata is not included.
• Remove comments that contain your name or initials.
• Save the file before uploading.

PDF Files

• Check that comments, annotations, signatures, and document properties do not reveal your identity.
• Remove any identifying information before uploading.