Code of ethics of Mediaeval Sophia journal
Mediaeval Sophia is a peer-reviewed scientific journal inspired by the code of ethics elaborated by COPE: Best Practise Guidelines for Journal Editors. The journal respects the code of ethics set out here. All parties involved – Direction, Editorial Office, Editorial Board members, referees and authors – must know and share the ethical requirements illustrated below.
Editorial Office duties
Decisions concerning publications
Only the Director, the Assistant Director and the Editorial Office of Mediaeval Sophia are responsible for deciding whether or not to publish the submitted articles. They can consult the referees to make their decision.
Fairness
The Direction and the Editorial Office evaluate the articles proposed for publication exclusively on the basis of their scientific content, without any racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination, and without any discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, citizenship and political orientation of the authors.
Confidentiality
The Direction and the Editorial Office undertake to ensure the utmost confidentiality throughout the editorial process, and not to reveal information about the submitted articles to anyone other than the author, referees, and editor.
Dissemination
The Direction and the Editorial Office undertake not to use in their research the contents of an unpublished article proposed for publication without the author’s permission.
Duties of the referees
Contribution to the editorial decision
The peer-review is an evaluation procedure that helps the Direction and the Editorial Office to make decisions on the submitted articles. It also allows the authors to improve their articles according to the suggestions received (methodological, bibliographic, etc.).
Respect for deadlines
The referee who does not feel adequate for the proposed task, or recognizes that he/she cannot evaluate the essay in the required time, must promptly communicate it to the members of the Editorial Staff.
Confidentiality
Any text assigned for reading is reserved. Therefore, articles must not be discussed with other people without explicit permission.
Objectivity of the evaluation
Peer-review must be conducted objectively. Any personal judgment on the author is inappropriate. Referees must adequately justify their judgements.
Text information
The referees undertake to accurately indicate the bibliographic references of possibly overlooked fundamental works.
The referees must notify the editors of any similarities or overlaps of the text received with other works known to them.
Conflict of interest and dissemination
Confidential information or indications obtained during the peer-review process must be considered confidential and cannot be used for personal purposes.
Duties of the authors
Data access and retention
If the editors deem it appropriate, the authors should make available the sources, or data on which the research is based, so that they can be archived, for a reasonable period of time after publication, and eventually be made accessible.
Originality and plagiarism
The authors are required to declare to have done an original work in every part and to have quoted all the texts used.
Multiple, repetitive and/or competing publications
The author has to avoid publishing articles describing the same research in more than one journal. It is ethically incorrect and unacceptable to submit the same text to more than one journal at the same time.
Quotation of sources
The author must always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article.
Copyright
The authors retain the right to their works, assigning the right of publication on a non-exclusive basis to Mediaeval Sophia.
Authorship of the contribution
The authorship of the contribution has to be correctly attributed and one must indicate as co-authors all those who have provided a contribution to the conception, organization, realization and reworking of the research which is the basis of the article. In the case of contributions written by multiple authors, the one who sends the text to the journal is required to declare that he has correctly indicated the names of all other co-authors, and has obtained their approval of the final version of the article and their consent to its publication in Mediaeval Sophia.
Conflict of interest and dissemination
All authors are required to explicitly declare that there are no conflicts of interest that could have conditioned the results or interpretations proposed. The authors must also indicate any Funding Agency for the research and/or project from which the article originates.
Errors in published articles
When an author identifies a significant error or inaccuracy in one of his/her articles, he/she is required to promptly inform the Director and members of the Editorial Board of the journal, and to provide them with all the information necessary to report the necessary corrections.
