Publication Ethics Statement

         

 

       

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

 

Guidelines on what constitutes authorship

Although there is no universal definition of what constitutes authorship it is generally believed that all should have been involved in the writing of the manuscript at draft and any revision stages, and have read and approved the final version. Anyone who made major contributions to the writing of the manuscript should be listed as an author. Any other individuals who made less substantive contributions to the study or the writing of the manuscript should be listed in the acknowledgement section. Any change in authorship (including author order) after the initial manuscript submission must be approved in writing by all authors.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

Funding

Biblioteca della libertà requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.

Declaration of conflicting interests

A conflict of interest is a situation in which financial or other personal considerations from authors or reviewers have the potential to compromise or bias professional judgment and objectivity. Authors and reviewers should declare all conflicts of interest relevant to the work under consideration (i.e. relationships, both financial and personal, that might interfere with the interpretation of the work) to avoid the potential for bias.

Conflicts of interest from authors:

Biblioteca della Libertà encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests. Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Although an author may not feel there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests affords a more transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number); Honoraria for speaking at symposia; Financial support for attending symposia; Financial support for educational programs; Employment or consultation; Support from a project sponsor; Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships; Multiple affiliations; Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest; Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights); Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work.

In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research. Authors should also disclose any conflict of interest that may have influenced either the conduct or the presentation of the research to the editors, including but not limited to close relationships with those who might be helped or hurt by the publication, academic interests and rivalries, and any personal, religious or political convictions relevant to the topic at hand.

All authors must privately disclose ‘All their potential conflicts of interest’ to the editors of the journal at the time of submission.

Conflicts of interest from peer reviewers:

Peer reviewers are expected to declare any potentially conflicting or competing interests (which may, for example, be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious), seeking advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest. Moreover, they are expected to follow journals’ policies on situations they consider to represent a conflict to reviewing. If no guidance is provided, they should inform the journal if: they work at the same institution as any of the authors (or will be joining that institution or are applying for a job there); they are or have been recent (e.g. within the past 3 years) mentors, mentees, close collaborators or joint grant holders; they have a close personal relationship with any of the authors. Also, peer reviewers should decline if asked to review a manuscript that is very similar to one they have in preparation or under consideration at another journal.

Editors should manage peer reviewers’ conflicts of interest. An invitation to review a manuscript should be accompanied by a request for the reviewer to reveal any potential conflicts of interest and a request for the peer reviewer to disqualify or recuse themselves when these are relevant.

Conflicts of interest from editors:

Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts must have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge. Other members of the editorial staff, if they participate in editorial decisions, must recuse themselves from any decisions in which a conflict of interest exists. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff.

Editors should avoid making decisions on manuscripts that conflict with their own interest, such as those submitted from their department or by research collaborators or competitors or those addressing an issue in which they stand to gain financially (eg, holding stock in a company whose product is discussed in the article). If they may have a perceived or possible conflict of interest, editors should delegate handling of any decision to other editors. When editors, members of editorial boards, and other editorial staff are presented with papers where their own interests may be perceived to impair their ability to make an unbiased editorial decision, they should withdraw from discussions, deputize decisions, or suggest that authors seek publication in a different journal.

Manuscripts authored by members of the editorial board present a special instance of potential conflict of interest. Editors should only submit their own manuscripts to the journal if full masking of the process can be ensured (eg, anonymity of the peer reviewers, lack of access to records of their own manuscript). The review of these manuscripts must always be supervised by a senior editor (deputy editor or higher) who will review the decision of the assigned decision editor for objectivity before the decision is final. As an extra precaution, if and when the article in question is published, the editor might like to publish an accompanying commentary showing how transparent the reviewing process had been.

 

Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

 

• Reviewers must give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for consideration for publication, and should judge each on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
• Reviewers should declare any potential conflict of interest prior to agreeing to review a manuscript, including any relationship with the author that may potentially bias their review.
• Reviewers must keep the peer-review process confidential; information or correspondence about a manuscript should not be shared with anyone outside the peer-review process.
• Reviewers should provide a constructive, comprehensive, evidenced, and appropriately substantial peer-review report.
• Reviewers must avoid making statements in their report which might be construed as impugning any person’s reputation.
• Reviewers should make all reasonable effort to submit their report and recommendation in a timely manner, informing the editor if this is not possible.
• Reviewers should call to the journal editor’s attention any significant similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or submitted manuscripts of which they are aware.

 

Publishing Policies and Allegations of Misconduct

Members of journal publishing teams have an important role to play in addressing potential cases of data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, unethical research, biased reporting, authorship abuse, redundant or duplicate publication, and undeclared conflicts of interest.

Editors should work with their publisher to consider relevant regulations, and to decide whether and how to refer cases of suspected misconduct, and what action to take. • Cases of suspected misconduct should be handled following established processes, for example, those presented in the COPE Flowcharts.

Cases should be handled at a speed that allows appropriate care to be taken.

1.  Plagiarism

Biblioteca della libertà takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication- checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

2.  Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in Biblioteca della libertà. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please contact the Editor(s) or the editorial office at Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo..

Biblioteca della libertà may choose in exceptional instances to publish materials that have been accurately translated from an original publication in a different language. In those instances, the Journal will collaborate with the author/s in order to obtain appropriate permission and to indicate clearly that the material has been translated and republished, and to identify the original source of the material.

3.  Redundant publication

This refers to the situation that one study is split into several parts and submitted to two or more journals. Or the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification. “Self-plagiarism” is considered a form of redundant publication. It concerns recycling or borrowing content from previous work without citation. This practice is widespread and might be unintentional. Transparency by the author on the use of previously published work usually provides the necessary information to make an assessment on whether it is deliberate or unintentional.

Note! Translations of articles without proper permission or notification and resubmission of previously published Open Access articles are considered duplications.

4.  Data falsification

Manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc.

Biblioteca della libertà acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.

The Journal requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles [“alongside their article submissions” or “if the articles are accepted”] to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third- party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility.

Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. The editor(s) can also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. For further information, please contact the editorial office at Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo..

5.  Circumstances under which Biblioteca della libertà will retract an article

Biblioteca della libertà is committed to playing its part in maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record, therefore on occasion, it is necessary to retract articles. Articles may be retracted if:

• There is major scientific error which would invalidate the conclusions of the article, for example where there is clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error).
• Where the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).
• Where there are ethical issues such as plagiarism (appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit including those obtained through confidential review of others' manuscripts) or inappropriate authorship (e.g., "guest" authorship; see above the criteria concerning what constitutes authorship).
• Where unethical research has been reoirted.

Complaints Process

This procedure applies to complaints about the policies, procedures, or actions of Biblioteca della libertà editorial staff. The procedure outlined below aims to be fair to those making complaints and those complained about. The Editorial Board and staff of Biblioteca della libertà will make every endeavor to put matters right as soon as possible in the most appropriate way. As far as possible, we will investigate complaints in a blame-free manner, looking to see how systems can be improved to prevent mistakes occurring.

• We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published, but thinks that there has been a failure of process - for example, a long delay or a rude response - or a severe misjudgment.
• The complaint must be about something that is within the responsibility of Biblioteca della libertà’s editorial department - content or process.

The best way to reach us is by email. Complaints should be directly emailed to the editorial office at Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Wherever possible complaints will be dealt with by the relevant member of the editorial staff, escalating to a section editor if required. In the case that this initial response is insufficient, the complainant can request for the complaint to be escalated to the editor, whose decision is final.

• All complaints will be formally acknowledged within 10 working

• If possible a full response will be made within four weeks. If this is not possible an interim response will be given within four weeks. Further interim responses will be provided until the complaint is

If Biblioteca della libertà receives a complaint that any contribution to the Journal infringes intellectual property rights or contains material inaccuracies, libelous materials or otherwise unlawful materials, the Journal will investigate the complaint. Investigation may include a request that the parties involved substantiate their claims. The Journal will make a good faith determination whether to remove the allegedly wrongful material. A decision not to remove material should represent the Journal's belief that the complaint is without sufficient foundation, or if well‐founded, that a legal defense or exemption may apply, such as truthfulness of a statement in the case of libel. Journal should document its investigation and decision.

Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to Biblioteca della libertà editorial office as follows: Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.