Quaestio • Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement


Quaestio’s publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is mainly based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011).


Editors’ responsibilities

Publication decisions The editors are responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. The editors will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and relevance to Quaestio’s scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism will also be considered.

Confidentiality The editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Best practices Best practices for the editors of Quaestio include: reviewing author instructions regularly and providing links to relevant guidelines; ensuring that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions; providing guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence; encouraging reviewers to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism; requiring reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editors or the members of the advisory board for their own research purposes without the author’s explicit written consent.


Reviewers’ responsibilities

Contribution to editorial decisions The peer-reviewing process assists the editors and the advisory board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper.

Promptness Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editors and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editors.

Standards of objectivity Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.


Authors’ duties

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of sources Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Manuscripts which have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted . In addition, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be re submitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material. In case of publication they permit the use of their work under a license, which allows others to copy, distribute and transmit the work as well as to adapt the work and to make commercial use of it.

Authorship of the paper Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest All authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in her/his own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editors or publisher and to cooperate with the editors to retract or correct the paper in form of an errata corrige.

Reporting standards A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to check the soundness of the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.


References

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (2011, March 7). Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
Retrieved from http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf

Publishers: Brepols Publishers / Pagina

General Editors: C. Esposito, P. Porro

Editorial Manager: C. VandenBorre

Peer review method: "double-blind" (the contributions are evaluated by two external reviewers, or by one external reviewer and a member of the Advisory Board)