Ethical Code
The «International Gramsci Journal» (IGJ) is the official organ of the International Gramsci Society and is published solely on line.
Premiss
The IGJ is a review based on the ethical code principles for publications worked out by the Committee on Publication Ethics’ “Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors”. In this sense the IGJ takes all the necessary decisions against possible fraud or improper practices that might happen in the course of the publication of a work in the review itself. It is necessary for all parties involved – the members of the Editorial Committee and the Editorial Advisory Board members, the editor, the authors and the referees – to be acquainted with and share the following ethical requisites.
Section I – DUTIES OF THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
a) Decisions on publication
The journal editor is responsible for the decision to publish or not the articles that are sent in, after having read and considered the referees’ comments. In the case of a negative report by one of the referees, the article cannot be published. The editor and Editorial Committee are bound by the requisites of current laws on defamation, violation of copyright e plagiary. The Editor may consult with the other members of the Editorial Advisory Board or Editorial Committee or referees in arriving at a decision.
b) Correctness
The Editor and Editorial Committee evaluate the articles proposed for publication on the basis of their content with no discrimination regarding, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, or political orientation of the authors.
c) Confidentiality
The editor and any member of the Editorial Committee must not divulge any information regarding a manuscript submitted for judgment by the Review to anyone, apart from the corresponding author, referee, potential referee or editorial consultants.
d) Conflict of interest and divulgation
Unpublished matter contained in a manuscript sent in must not be used for research purposes by the editor or by a member of the Editorial Committee without the express written consent of the author.
Section II –DUTIES OF THE REFEREES
a) Contribution to the editorial decision
Through their peer reviewing the referees help the editor to take decisions on the articles proposed and may suggest changes to the author for improving the contribution.
b) Respect of reviewing times
The referee who does not feel that s/he is an appropriate person for a review or who is aware of not being able to pass a judgment within the time limits requested is required to inform the Editor immediately that it is impossible to carry out the peer review in the time assigned for it.
c) Confidentiality
All texts sent out for peer review are to be considered confidential. As a consequence, such texts must not be discussed with other persons without the explicit authorization of the editor.
d) Objectivity
The peer review must be carried out objectively. Any personal judgment on the author is inopportune. The referees must be clear in the knowledge that the aim of the peer review is not that of superimposing their own personal preferences or convictions on those of the author, but solely to provide a judgment of suitability of the contribution offered for the knowledge of and discussion by the scientific community. The referees are required to give adequate reasons for their judgments.
e) Indication of reference texts
The referees pledge to indicate precisely the bibliographical references of fundamental publications that have possibly been neglected by the author. The referees are also required to indicate to the Editor possible similarities or superpositions of the text received for reviewing with other publications that they know of.
f) Conflict of interest and diffusion
Any information or indications obtained during the peer review process must be considered as confidential and cannot be used for personal ends. The referees must not accept for reading articles for which there exists a conflict of interest.
Section III –AUTHORS’ DUTIES
a) Recognition of source material
The authors must provide a correct indication of the sources and publications mentioned in their article, so that these may be consulted for a reasonable time period after publication of their article. Fraudulent or knowingly false statements represent ethically wrong practice and are unacceptable.
b) Originality e plagiary
The authors must guarantee that their work is the result of their original thought and, if the authors have utilized other people’s work and/or words, this must be appropriately indicated or cited.
c) Multiple publications
Authors must not send in or propose to the IGJ contributions that are in essence identical in their language and final form to articles that they have already published or proposed to other reviews or to other publishers, unless this has the scope of increasing the degree of scientific diffusion of the contribution a the international level, by agreement with the initial reviews or publishers or, in any case, in such a way as to not existing violate copyright of rights of third parties.
d) Authorship
Authorship must be correctly attributed and all those who have made a significant contribution to the conceptualization, organization, realization and re-elaboration of the research lying at the base of the article must be indicated as co-authors. If other people have made a significant contribution to some of the stages of the research this contribution must be explicitly recognized. In the case of articles written by several authors, the author submitting the article to the IGJ must declare that s/he has correctly indicated the names of all the other co-authors, has obtained their approval of the final form of the text and their approval for publication in the IGJ.
e) Conflict of interest and declaration
All authors are to indicate in their manuscript any financial conflict or other conflict of interest that might be interpreted such as to influence the results or interpretation of their work. All sources of financial support for the project are to be declared.
f) Errors in published articles
When an author discovers an error or imprecisions of significance in an article s/he has published in the IGJ, s/he is obliged to inform the journal editor in time in order to collaborate in either withdrawing or correcting the text.