Code of Ethics

Preamble and Scope

1. Quaderni di Comunità. Persone, Educazione e Welfare nella società 5.0 (Community notebooks. People, Education and Welfare in Society 5.0) aims to create a public space for debate in social sciences, involving experts, scholars, practitioners, communities and networks, political decision-makers and stakeholders who recognize the person at the centre any process and context.

2. All the Journal activities are inspired by “the principle of care”, defined as a model towards which to strive to favour a culture of both quality and co-responsibility.

3. Quaderni di Comunità. Persone, Educazione e Welfare nella società 5.0 aspires to select and publish the highest quality research in social sciences. To achieve this goal, all the processes and the activities conducted by the actors involved in the Journal should be thorough, objective and fair.

4. The adoption of a formal Code of Ethics outlining guidelines for good behaviour and proposing solutions to ethical dilemmas facing Editors, Authors and Reviewers can build stakeholder trust and improve the journal's reputation.

5. This Code is inspired by the Code of Ethics for Publications developed by the COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines) and provides the most essential principles for ensuring the ethical treatment of all participants in the peer review and publication process.

6. All persons involved in matters or activities related to Quaderni di Comunità are encouraged to study the Code and address any questions or concerns to the respective Journal Editor-in-Chief.

Responsibilities of the Editorial and Scientific bodies

1. The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Committee are committed to assure that every submitted paper will receive an unbiased and impartial evaluation to guarantee the Authors an accurate, impartial and comprehensive scientific judgment.

2. The editorial team of the Journal (Editor in Chief, Advisory Board, Scientific Board and Editorial Committee) must maintain their editorial independence. In particular, the Editorial team ensures the correctness of the procedures for the evaluation, acceptance or rejection of the contributions proposed by the Authors.

3. The Editor has complete responsibility to accept a submitted paper, or reject it. Doing so normally entails advice from Reviewers; however, manuscripts that Editor deem clearly inappropriate may be rejected without such review.

4. The Editor must evaluate the articles submitted for publication based on the scientific merit of the content, without discrimination on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or political opinion of the authors.

5. The Journal follow a double-blind review process, whereby Authors do not know Reviewers and vice versa. Moreover, the Editorial team is expected to ensure the confidentiality of the double-blind review process and not divulge any information that might identify Authors to Reviewers or vice versa.

6. Two Reviewers should be invited to comment on a manuscript. In complex cases, the Editor may decide to invite an additional Reviewer or outside Expert to provide an additional, confidential assessment to the Editor.

7. The Editor and the Editorial Committee will not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than the Reviewers, the Authors and Scientific Board. In any case, the Authors' identities will not be disclosed to Reviewers.

8. The Editorial team have the duty to avoid any conflict of interest or any practice that gives rise to a conflict of interest or the reasonable appearance of one. The conflicts may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial.

9. The Editor and the Editorial Committee ensure that the contents of a contribution submitted for publication cannot be used by the publisher without the author’s express written permission, even in the absence of publication. Confidential information or ideas obtained through peer review are confidential and unusable.

Responsibilities of the Authors

1. Authors should submit an accurately written and original paper, along with the Guidelines for Authors, ensuring the topic is relevant in regard to the Journal scope and/or the Call for Papers.

2. Authors must not submit the same work - in whole or in part - to two places of publication at the same time or at any time while the manuscript is under review for this Journal and vice versa (i.e. Authors may not submit to this Journal a work that is in whole or in part under review elsewhere). It is also improper for Authors to submit a manuscript describing essentially the same research/results to more than one place of publication, unless it is a resubmission of a manuscript rejected for/withdrawn from publication.

3. The submitted manuscript must not have been published previously or accepted for publication elsewhere, either in whole (including book chapters) or in part (including paragraphs of text or exhibits).

4. The submitted manuscript should be free of any plagiarism, falsification, fabrications, or omission of significant material. Also, “self-plagiarism” is considered unacceptable publishing behaviour.

5. All authors should declare that there are no conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the interpretations proposed. Authors must also indicate any research funding agencies and/or the project from which arise the article.

6. All those who have contributed substantially to the writing of the contribution, who have approved the final version of the contribution and who agree with the publication should be listed as co-authors or contributors of the paper.

7. Authors should check their manuscripts for possible breaches of copyright law (e.g., where permissions are needed for quotations, artwork, tables or any protected content taken from other publications) and secure the necessary permissions before submission.

8. Authors should avoid anything in the text of the manuscript that might be actionable, such as defamation. Authors should avoid using sexist and biased language that could be interpreted as denigrating ethnic or other groups.

9. Authors should be prompt with their manuscript revisions. If an Author cannot meet the deadline given, the Author should contact the Managing Editor as soon as possible and be truthful about the reasons for the delay so that the Managing Editor can determine whether a longer time or withdrawal from the review process should be chosen.
   
   

Responsibilities of the Reviewers

1. This Journal adopts a double-blind review process. If the Reviewer knows the identity of the Author(s), the Reviewer should inform the Editor and discuss whether this knowledge would be grounds for a refusal to review. Reviewers are also responsible for avoiding writing, doing or saying anything that could identify them with an Author.

2. The Reviewer who does not feel adequate to judge a manuscript, as the content does not deals with his/her specialist subject or who is not able to finish the evaluation of the proposed contribution in the scheduled time is required to notify the Editor promptly.

3. The Reviewer should evaluate manuscripts objectively, fairly and professionally and respect scientific (intellectual) independence. The Reviewer should avoid personal biases in their comments and judgments.

4. The Reviewer must respect the confidentiality of the review process. The Reviewer should not discuss the manuscript with anyone other than the Editor, nor should they discuss any information from the manuscript without permission.

5. Privileged information or ideas obtained by the Reviewer through peer review should be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

6. The reviewer will avoid any situation of real or potential conflict of interest and, in this case, refrain from evaluating the paper. The Reviewers who might have a conflict of interest in a manuscript should reveal that conflict to the Editor, who will then determine their appropriate level of involvement.

7. In evaluating the manuscript and crafting comments to the Author(s), the Reviewer should adequately explain and support their scholarly judgments providing sufficient detail to the Author(s) to justify their recommendation to the Editor.

8. The Reviewer must read and follow the Journal Guidelines for Reviewers when completing reviews for the Journal.

Final Notes

1. Authors, Reviewers and Editorial and Scientific bodies of the Journal should note and promote this Code of Ethics. Lack of awareness or misunderstanding of an ethical standard is not a defence to a charge of unethical conduct.

2. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the interpretation, application and enforcement of the Code of Ethics.

3. Any Author, Reviewer and Auditor who believes this Code of Ethics has been breached may send a complaint to the Editorial staff.