Publication ethics and malpractice statement

 

Publication ethics and malpractice statement

 

 

Editorial policy of the journal

The electronic journal Repères-DORIF, edited by the association DoRiF-Università, encourages the collaboration of Italian and foreign specialists of different origins and fields with the association DORIF-Università. The journal may propose calls for contributions or publish works coordinated by members of DoRiF or by recognized specialists in the fields of French language and linguistics, plurilingualism and pluriculturalism.

Research Integrity

We uphold high standards and expect research published by Repères Dorif to abide by the principles within the Research Integrity Statement.

These principles cover:

• honesty in all aspects of research;
• scrupulous care, thoroughness and excellence in research practice;
• transparency and open communication;
• care and respect for all participants in and subjects of research.
• accountability both for one’s own research integrity and that of others when behaviour falls short of our standards.

Anyone who believes that research published by Repères Dorif has not been carried out in line with these Academic Research Publishing Ethics Guidelines, or the above principles, should raise their concern with the editor or email reperesdorif@gmail.com. Concerns will be addressed by following COPE guidelines.

If you have concerns and wish to appeal or file a complaint, please contact reperesdorif@gmail.com

Editorial process

We are committed to editorial independence, and strive in all cases to prevent this principle from being compromised through competing interests, fear, or any other corporate, business, financial or political influence. Our editorial processes reflect this commitment to editorial independence. We do not discriminate against authors, editors or peer reviewers based on personal characteristics or identity. We are committed to embedding diversity, removing barriers to inclusion, and promoting equity at every stage of our publishing process. We actively seek and encourage submissions from scholars of diverse backgrounds, including race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and disability.

We are committed to editorial independence, and strive in all cases to prevent this principle from being compromised through competing interests, fear, or any other corporate,

business, financial or political influence. Our editorial processes reflect this commitment to editorial independence.

• Editorial decisions on manuscripts submitted to our journal are made by external academic editors and based on independent peer review reports. The SAPC is required to approve Cambridge University Press taking on the publishing of an established journal or the creation of a new journal.

Peer review

The journal adopts a policy of double blind peer review, with each text being evaluated by two anonymous experts. Reviewers are selected on the basis of their expertise in the subject area of the publication and are nationally and internationally recognised experts.

All reviewers are included in the journal’s online editorial board. The evaluators have at their disposal an evaluation grid which takes into account the coherence of the text in relation to the theme of the issue, the quality of the theoretical and methodological approach, the innovative contribution of the research in the scientific and disciplinary field to which it belongs, as well as the quality of the written expression. The evaluation will be communicated to the authors in the form of a synthetic commentary, but the evaluators may also choose to return the submitted text with specific comments.

In the event of conflicting assessments, the article will be submitted to a third specialist. In the event that this third reviewer is not available, the final decision will be made by the Issue Coordinator(s).

Based on the reviewers’ recommendations, the Issue Coordinator makes one of the following decisions: “accept the paper”; “revisions required”; “resubmit for review”; “reject the paper”. An email is sent to the author to indicate acceptance or rejection.

If accepted, authors have three weeks to make any corrections required by the reviewers. The new version is then forwarded to the issue coordinator, who evaluates the text a second time. Authors may then be asked to make further corrections. If corrections are not made within three weeks, the editorial board reserves the right not to publish the text concerned.

Peer review is critical to maintaining the standards of our publications.

• We encourage our editors and peer reviewers to familiarise themselves with and act in accordance with relevant best practice guidelines on peer review. For journal editors and peer reviewers, please refer to COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
• We expect those who oversee the peer review process to be able to recognise warning signs of fraudulent or manipulated peer review, and to raise any concerns by emailing reperesdorif@gmail.com. People who oversee the peer review process may be internal to editorial board or contracted by us directly or indirectly;
• We support our editors and peer reviewers in investigating and acting on any suspected cases of manipulated or fraudulent peer review;
• We protect the confidentiality of participants in the peer review process where anonymity forms part of that publication’s peer review process. We also expect our authors and peer reviewers to uphold any relevant confidentiality arrangements and to provide necessary information to support this.

Authorship and Contributorship

We recommend applying the following principles.

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and/or
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and/or
3. Final approval of the version to be published; and 4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The corresponding author’s specific responsibilities include:

• Manuscript correction and proofreading. Handling the revisions and re-submission of revised manuscripts up to the acceptance of the manuscripts.
• Agreeing to and signing the Author Publishing Agreement on behalf of relevant coauthors and/or arranging for any third-party copyright owners’ signature;
• Acting on behalf of all co-authors in responding to queries from all sources postpublication, including questions relating to publishing ethics, reuse of content, or the availability of data, materials, resources etc.

COPE also provides extensive resources on authorship and authorship disputes, and we encourage anyone involved in editorial decisions to familiarise themselves with these resources.  We integrate with established and emerging industry standards to increase transparency in authorship (for example, ORCID).

Affiliations

Any article affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.

 Plagiarism

We adhere to the Cambridge University’s definition of plagiarism. Plagiarism

is defined as ‘using someone else’s ideas, words, data, or other material produced by them without acknowledgement’.

Plagiarism can occur in respect to all types of sources and media, including:

• text, illustrations, musical quotations, extended mathematical derivations, computer code, etc.;
• material downloaded from websites or drawn from manuscripts or other media;
• published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and grey literature.

We do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our publications, and we reserve the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered postpublication, we will follow our guidance outlined in the Retractions, Corrections and Expressions of Concern section of these guidelines.

We expect our readers, reviewers and editors to raise any suspicions of plagiarism, either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing reperesdorif@gmail.com.

Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Duplicate or redundant publication, or ‘self-plagiarism’, occurs when a work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by the author(s) of the work without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap. This can be in the same or a different language.

We do not support substantial overlap between publications, unless:

• it is felt that editorially this will strengthen the academic discourse;
• we have clear approval from the original publication;
• we include citation of the original source.

We expect our readers, reviewers and editors to raise any suspicions of duplicate or redundant publication, either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing reperesdorif@gmail.com.

When authors submit manuscripts to our journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless a journal is explicit that it does not have an exclusive submission policy.

However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate ublication.

Authors should follow our Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

Any manuscript based on a thesis should be a reworking of the material in the thesis and written to conform to the journal’s style guide or relevant book guidance. When quoting from the thesis or reusing figures, authors should avoid self-plagiarism by citing and referencing any extracts copied or adapted from the thesis appropriately. If a thesis was published by a publisher and is publicly accessible, permission may be required from the thesis publisher before submitting to a journal. The editor should be informed that the manuscript draws on a thesis in the cover letter.

Research with Humans or Animals

Research involving humans or animals should be approved by relevant ethics committee(s) and should conform to international ethical and legal standards for research. We also expect authors to respect human participants’ right to privacy, and to gain any necessary consent to publish before submitting to us.

Competing Interests and Funding

We try to ensure that any publication is free from undue influence. Authors, editors and reviewers of our journal, are required to declare any potential competing interests that could interfere with the objectivity or integrity of a publication. Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the presentation, review or publication of a piece of work. These may be financial, non-financial, professional, contractual or personal in nature. We also expect that anyone who suspects an undisclosed competing interests regarding a work published or under consideration  should inform the editor or email reperesdorif@gmail.com.

Libel, Defamation and Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression is critical to us as academic publishers, but we do not support publishing false statements that harm the reputation of individuals, groups, or organisations.

Retractions, Corrections and Expressions of Concern

Journal editor will consider retractions, corrections or expressions of concern in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines. If an author is found to have made an error, the journal will issue a corrigendum. If our journal is found to have made an error, they will issue an erratum. Retractions are usually reserved for articles that are so seriously flawed that their findings or conclusions should not be relied upon, or that contain substantial plagiarism or life-endangering content. Our Journal may make minor changes such as those which would likely occur during copyediting, typesetting or proofreading, but any substantive corrections will be carried out in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines.

In exceptional cases, we may remove an article from online publication where we believe it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations. This includes, without limitation, where we have concerns that the article is defamatory, violates personal privacy or confidentiality laws, is the subject of a court order, or might pose a serious health risk to the general public. In these circumstances, we may decide to remove the article and publish a notice that clearly states why the full article has been removed.

Image Manipulation, Falsification and Fabrication

Where research data are collected or presented as images, modifying these images can sometimes misrepresent the results obtained or their significance. We recognise that there can be legitimate reasons for modifying images, but we expect authors to avoid modifying images where this leads to the falsification, fabrication, or misrepresentation of their results.

Fraudulent Research and Research Misconduct

Where we are made aware of fraudulent research or research misconduct by an author, our first concern is the integrity of content we have published. We work with the editor, COPE, and other appropriate institutions or organisations, to investigate. Any publication found to include fraudulent results will be retracted, or an appropriate correction or expression of concern will be issued. Please see the Retractions, Corrections and Expressions of Concern section of these guidelines for more information.

Versions and Adaptations

We neither modify existing, published content or originate new materials to meet political or ideological requirements where we judge these to compromise the quality, effectiveness or factual accuracy of the materials or to conflict with our Code of Ethics.

Transparency

We strive to follow COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing and encourage our publishing partners to uphold these same principles.

Data and Supporting Evidence

We support transparency and openness around data, code, and other materials associated with research. We expect authors to maintain accurate records of supporting evidence necessary to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate new findings, and to supply or provide access to this supporting evidence, on reasonable request. Where appropriate and where allowed by their employer, funding body or others who might have an interest, we encourage authors to:

• deposit evidence in a suitable repository or storage location, for sharing and further use by others; and
• describe where the evidence may be found in a Data Availability Statement which authors should include in their publication.