Ethic guidelines

Introduction

  1. General responsibilities: Conflict of interest
  2. Publication and authorship
    1. Authorship
    2. Plagiarism and Self-plagiarism
    3. Data
    4. Funding organizations
    5. References
    6. Retraction and Emendation
  3. Peer review / responsibility for and commitments of the reviewers
    1. Goal
    2. Scientific standards
    3. Objectivity
    4. Promptness
    5. Confidentiality
    6. Procedure
  4. Editorial responsibilities
    1. Accountability
    2. Responsibility on quality
    3. Confidentiality
    4. Feedback and improvement
    5. Corrections and retractions
  5. Publishing ethics issues
  6. Unethical Behaviour
  7. Appeals and complaints

Introduction

Edizioni ETS and the Editor-in-chief of the journal take their respective duties to prevent any kind of publication malpractice. The publisher, the Editor and the peer reviewers, play each their part and are responsible for the compliance with the following statements of publication ethics, inspired by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Ethical Code (see the Core Practices at https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).

  1. General responsibilities: Conflict of interest

Any actual or potential conflicts of interest from everyone involved in the publication process (Publisher, Editor-in-chief, Scientific Committee, Editorial staff, Reviewers, Authors) must be disclosed – including any financial, personal, or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. If there is no conflict of interest this should be stated. This should be listed at the end of the text, after any acknowledgements and just before the Reference list, under a subheading “Conflict of interest statement”.

  1. Publication and authorship
    1. Authorship

All authors should made substantial contributions to all the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authorship must be correctly attributed; all those who have given a substantial contribution to the design, organization, and accomplishment of the research the article is based on, must be indicated as Co-Authors. The respective roles of each co-author should be described in a footnote. The statement that all authors have approved the final version should be included in the disclosure.

  1. Plagiarism and self-plagiarism

Authors must clearly state that the submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or a thought explanation has been provided before the submission process). Since no proposal gets published without significant revision, earlier dissemination in conference proceedings or working papers does not preclude consideration for publication, but Authors are expected to fully disclose publication/dissemination of the material in other closely related publications, so that the overlap can be evaluated by the journal Editor-in-chief and the Scientific Committee.

  1. Data

Authors shall provide access to data associated with their research, upon reasonable request. Authors are requested to maintain records of the data and deposit them if allowed.

  1. Funding organizations

The Editor-in-chief will give serious and careful consideration to suggestions of cases in which, due to possible conflict of interest, an Author’s work should not be reviewed by a specific scholar.

In addition, they are requested to make explicit reference either to funding organization (s) or research programs.

  1. References

For this kind of information see the style sheet of the journal.

  1. Retraction and Emendation

Authors will promptly notify the Editor-in-chief of any mistake or error in their publication, both during the review process and after publication. A corrigendum or an addendum may be published in forthcoming issues. Authors acknowledge that the Publisher may retract the paper in case of unethical behaviors (plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fraudulent data, etc.).

  1. Peer review / responsibility for and commitments of the reviewers
    1. Goal

By means of the peer-review procedure, reviewers assist the Editor-in-chief and the Scientific Committee in taking decisions on the articles submitted. They are expected to offer the Authors suggestions as to possible adjustments aimed at improving their submission.

  1. Scientific standards

The reviewers are provided with guidelines by the Editor-in-chief in collaboration with the Secretary and the Scientific Committee. Peer review reports should be in English. Particular attention must be paid to individuate unethical behaviour, misuse or misinterpretation of sources or data, and other malpractices such as redundant publication and plagiarism. The reviewers must confidentially notify the Editor in chief of any substantial resemblance to other scientific papers (essay, submitted paper, chapter in a book, book, review article, etc…). In any case, reviewers are required to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.

  1. Objectivity

Reviewers are requested to provide an objective judgement. An evaluation grid is provided as a template to support them in the review, but they can integrate the form with any other information or suggestion that may be relevant. Any comment must be done in a collaborative way and from an objective point of view. Reviewers should clearly motivate their comments and keep in mind the Golden Rule of Reviewing: “Review for others as you would have other review for you”.

  1. Promptness

Reviewers should inform the Editor-in-chief if circumstances arise that prevent from submitting a timely review. Reviewers must not accept articles for which there is a conflict of interest due to previous contributions or to a competition with a disclosed author (or with an author they believe to have identified).

  1. Confidentiality

Peer reviewers’ identities are protected. On their turn, they are committed to handle submitted material in confidence. Any confidential information obtained during the peer review process should not be used for other purposes.

  1. Procedure

The journal adopts a double-blind peer-review process. Manuscripts submitted by authors are received by the editorial management and editorial board, who decide whether to desk-reject the proposal or initiate the review process. Reasons for a desk rejection may include cases of evident misconduct, a focus incompatible with the scientific goals of the journal, or significant shortcomings in the manuscript's technical-scientific apparatus or formal structure.

If the review process is initiated, the editorial management and board, with the support of the executive committee, oversee and manage the anonymous review process. This includes identifying at least two reviewers, mediating all communication between reviewers and authors while safeguarding their identities, and reaching a final decision regarding the publication of the manuscript. A single negative review is sufficient for a proposal to be rejected. In cases of significant divergence between the two reviewers' opinions, the editorial management and board may reserve the right to request an additional review.

At the end of the review process, the members of the editorial board decide whether to accept the proposal, reject it, accept it conditionally pending minor revisions, or request that the manuscript undergo major revisions and be resubmitted for a new round of review. The editorial board members take the reviewers' opinions into account when making their decision, though they are not obligated to follow the opinions or recommendations contained in the reviewers' reports.

The entire review process is conducted via the Open Journal System platform, which ensures the anonymity of both authors and reviewers and allows for the archiving of all documents related to the peer-review process. Upon request, members of the editorial board may disclose the identities of reviewers and authors only at the end of the review process and exclusively for the purpose of putting them in direct contact.

5. Editorial responsibilities

    1. Accountability

The Editor-in-chief is aware to be accountable for everything published in the journal. Therefore, he/she has processes in place to assure the quality of the material to be published and he/she ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased, and timely, and that all papers have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers. However, he/she actively seeks the views of authors, readers, reviewers, scientific and editorial board members about ways of improving peer review and publishing processes for the journal.

2. Responsibility on quality

The decision to accept or reject a paper for publication is based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the remit of the journal. In order to guarantee the quality of the published papers, the Editor-in-chief always encourage reviewers to provide detailed comments to motivate their decisions. These comments are anonymously sent to the author of the paper. The comments will help the committee decide the outcome of the paper and will help justify this decision for the author. Moreover, if the paper is accepted, the comments should guide the author in making revisions for a final manuscript.

3. Confidentiality

In any case, all material submitted to the journal remains confidential while under review. Reviewers’ identity will be protected and kept confidential as well. They may be made public in their entirety to comply with transparency requirements.

4. Feedback and improvement

The Scientific Committee is consulted periodically to gauge his opinions about the running of the journal, informing it of any changes to the journal policies and identifying future challenges.

5. Corrections and retractions

Plagiarism and self-plagiarism may lead to retraction Undisclosed conflict of interest may lead to retraction, expression of concern, or issue of correction, depending on how much the conflict of interest has altered the research and findings as well as the review process. In other cases, a change of authorship may be issued.

6. Publishing ethics issues

Edizioni ETS is committed to protect intellectual property and copyright, and respect privacy and personal data (especially for authors and peer reviewers). Edizioni ETS is alert to intellectual property issues and works with its Editor-in-chief to handle potential violations of intellectual property laws and conventions. Moreover, the Publisher works in close co-operation with its Editor-in-chief and Peer Reviewers to foster editorial independence, and to guarantee transparency and integrity in peer-review process, particularly with respect to conflicts of interest. Edizioni ETS always precludes business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and is willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

1. Unethical Behaviour

Misconduct may be brought to the attention of the Editor-in-chief by anyone, at any time. Sufficient information or evidence must be provided in order to initiate and support investigation. Anonymous or vague allegations will not be considered. Confidential investigation may take place upon initial decision of the Editor-in-chief. If, in the light of a full documentary evidence, a fraudulent conduct is ascertained, the outcome may vary, depending on the severity of the violation: minor infringements and honest errors might have minor consequences (the author is informed of his/her misunderstanding of the journal’s Ethic Guidelines); serious breaches might be notified with more formal letters, with public expressions of concern (with or without details on misconduct), with retraction or withdrawal of the publication. An embargo on any form of participation to journal may be issued. Particularly severe infringements (such as, but not limited to, fraudulence, calumny, forge) may be brought before the Italian law by the Editor-in-chief.

7. Appeals and complaints

Complaints are handled by the Editor-in-Chief and/or the Editor who handled the paper. If the complaint concerns the Editors themselves, it can be directed directly to the publisher. Complaints will be evaluated by the Editors and/or, if necessary, by the publisher. The reasons for the complaints will be considered, and it will be decided whether to uphold the decisions made, accept the complaint, or seek an external opinion. Complainants will receive appropriate feedback. Decisions on appeals are final and new submissions take priority over appeals.