Code of ethics

Code of Ethics of diségno journal
Biannual journal of the UID – Unione Italiana per il Disegno Scientific Society.

 

diségno is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal inspired by the code of ethics for scientific publications developed by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

The Authors, Editorial Director, Editorial Board - coordination, Journal Manager, and Referees must know and share the following ethical requirements. Sending a paper to the journal implies the transfer to the same of all rights and the acceptance of the following clauses.

 

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors who do not adhere to these guidelines.

• I/We declare that the contents of the paper have not been previously published in other publishing contexts.
• I/We declare to be the sole author(s) and the owner(s) of the paper. The images included in the text are royalty-free, or I/We have obtained permission for the publication.
• I/We grant the exclusive use of all rights of economic exploitation free of charge, without any space limitation, and within the maximum time limits recognised by current legislation (currently 20 years) and with all methods and technologies currently existing and/or to be developed in the future. It is therefore understood to include, inter alia, reproduction in any manner or form, communication -including, by way of example, but not limited to, rights of exploitation through interactive digital channels (by any means currently known or in the future developed - distribution, adaptation and reworking of which the article is susceptible.
• I/We exclusively give up the right to translate, reproduce, distribute, and communicate the paper in any language, in any way and form, the rights of advertising exploitation, the right to assign these rights to third parties, in whole or in part, for any reason, etc., without limitation of space and within the maximum time limits of protection recognised by the legislation in force and with all modalities and technologies currently known and/or in the future developed.
• I/We likewise waive/renounce all copyright payments in connection with the inclusion of the paper in the afore-mentioned journal, and I/We undertake not to reproduce the paper in other volumes or journals nor to make it available online in digital format on public or private networks (whether free of charge or for a fee), except with the written authorisation of the journal's editorial direction.

 

Decisions on Publication and Duties of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board

- The decision on the publication of articles submitted to the journal rests with the Editorial Director, Editors, and the journal's Editorial Board - coordination. In their decisions, they are bound to respect the journal's editorial and scientific strategies and approach and are bound by current regulations on defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

- The Editorial Director and the Editorial Board - coordination decide on the themes of each issue, including scholarly proposals, and define the thematic sections. In making their decisions, the Editorial Director and the Editorial Board - coordination may rely on:
a) the support of the ordinary members of UID (Unione Italiana per il Disegno), who may indicate issues to be covered and, at the request of the Editor-in-Chief, may also serve as reviewers.
b) the support of scholars and experts from outside the Scientific Committee, the Editorial Board - coordination, and the Staff (appointed every three years), according to the double-blind peer review procedure.

- The members of the Editorial Board - coordination, with the issue Editors, are required to preliminarily evaluate manuscripts based on their scholarly content, without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, scientific, academic, or political orientation of the authors.

- The members of the Editorial Board - coordination and the issue Editors must not disclose any information about the submitted manuscripts to third parties other than the authors, reviewers and/or potential reviewers.

- Unpublished material contained in manuscripts submitted to the journal must not be used by members of the Editorial Board - coordination, Staff, or Editors for their own research without the written consent of the Author.

- The Journal Manager maintains in a confidential database the results of the evaluation process of all articles, whether accepted for publication or not.

- If the Editorial Board - coordination or the Editors detect or receive reports of errors or inaccuracies, conflicts of interest, or plagiarism in a published article, they must promptly notify the Author and the Editorial Director and take steps to clarify the matter and, if necessary, withdraw the article or publish a retraction.

 

Duties of the Journal Manager

The Journal Manager is responsible for managing editorial processes through the journal's OJS platform.

Specifically, the Journal Manager performs the following routine activities:
- enters and publishes the journal's announcements and Call for papers;
- manages the settings and ongoing workflow activity related to online submissions (submission process, review steps, communication to authors on editorial decisions, editorial work on revision and layout, sending editorial drafts to authors, publication, DOI code registration, correction and republication in case of errors);
- manages access of external users to the journal organs and their respective roles (reader, author, reviewer), providing technical support as needed;
- manages the accesses of users internal to the Editorial Board - staff and their respective roles (copyeditor, designer, section editor);
- regularly verifies the proper accessibility of the journal website.

In addition, the Journal Manager performs the following extraordinary activities:
- produces statistics related to the journal's activity (Report Generator);
- maintains up-to-date content of the journal's public pages (About the Journal, Code of ethics, Policies, Editorial team, static pages);
- customizes and updates preset emails;
- updates review forms as needed;
- updates Author Guidelines as needed.

 

Duties of reviewers (peer review)

- Reviewers assist the Editorial Board - coordination and issue Editors in editorial decisions and may indicate corrections and suggestions to the Author to improve the manuscript.

- A selected reviewer who does not feel qualified to review the manuscript assigned to him or her, or who knows that he or she will not be able to complete the review within the allotted time, must notify through the journal platform of his or her decision to decline participation in the review process, usually within 7-10 days from the date of the invitation to review the paper.

- Manuscripts submitted for review must be treated as confidential documents. They should not be shown or discussed with anyone unless authorized in advance by the Editorial Board - coordination.

- Reviews must be conducted objectively. Reviewers are not allowed to criticize or personally offend an author. Reviewers must express their opinions transparently and with the support of clear and documented arguments. Each statement, observation or argument reported should preferably be accompanied by a corresponding citation.

- Reviewers are required to call to the attention of the Editorial Board - coordination any substantial similarities or overlaps between the manuscript under review and any other published article of which they have personal knowledge. Information or ideas obtained through manuscript review must be kept confidential and not used for personal benefit.

- Reviewers should not accept manuscripts for which they have conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions related to the manuscript.

 

Duties of Authors

- Authors must ensure that their works are completely original and, if works and/or words of other authors are used, that these are appropriately paraphrased or quoted verbatim; in any case, any reference to works of other authors must always be indicated.

- Authors are required to cite all publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the proposed work. Authors of articles based on original research must provide an accurate account of the work done, as well as an objective discussion of its significance. The underlying data should be accurately represented in the manuscript.

- Manuscripts should contain sufficient detail and references to allow others to replicate the research. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

- Proposed manuscripts should not have been published as copyrighted material in other journals. Manuscripts submitted for review by the journal should not be submitted to other journals for publication. By submitting the manuscript, the author(s) agree(s) that, should the manuscript be accepted for publication, all rights of economic exploitation, without territorial limitation and in all ways and technologies currently existing and/or developed in the future, will be transferred to the journal's editorship.

- Literary authorship of the manuscript is limited to those who made a significant contribution to its conception, design, execution or interpretation. All those who made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. If there are others who participated in significant aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged and listed as contributors in the acknowledgments. The corresponding author should ensure that all relevant co-authors are included in the manuscript, have seen and approved the final version of the article, and have consented to its submission for publication.

- Authors must guarantee the originality and/or free publication of the images. They are also responsible for ensuring that the images are copyright free. In the event of a legal dispute over the copyright of the images, the contributors will bear the costs arising from the publication of the images, relieving the Editorial Director and the Editorial Board - coordination of any burden. Particular care should be taken in citing sources and any works of other authors. The accuracy of any citation must be verified by the author.

- Authors should disclose in their manuscript all financial or other conflicts of interest that could affect the results or interpretation of their article. All sources of financial support for the project should be made public.

- If an author discovers major errors or inaccuracies in the published manuscript, he or she should promptly notify the Editorial Director and the Editorial Board - coordination and work with them to withdraw or correct the manuscript.

 

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest may exist when an author or his/her institution, a reviewer, or a member of the Editorial Board - coordination has personal or financial relationships that may inappropriately influence their behavior, in terms of judgment, pressure, or evaluation. This conflict may exist even if the individual believes that such relationships do not touch him or her. The Editorial Director is responsible for handling any conflicts of interest as best they can-for example, through the system of double-blind review by anonymous referees-and authors may be required to make a statement about them.

 

Originality and plagiarism

Authors must ensure that the work submitted is entirely original and, if the authors have used work and/or words of others, that these have been appropriately cited. All forms of plagiarism constitute unacceptable unethical behavior.