General Overview

The Journal of Ethics and Legal Technology (JELT) is an open access journal that publishes original peer-reviewed articles and other material, assessed through review and control, dealing with ICT impact on Law and Ethics, as well with the philosophical and humanistic evaluation of those phenomena, aiming for a multi-disciplinary approach.

Non discrimination policy

JELT supports equal rights and opportunities: each paper is taken into account and assessed for its contents, regardless race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political view of the authors. Guest Editors, Reviewers and Authors are encouraged to study these guidelines and address any questions or concerns to the JELT Senior Editor (claudio.sarra@unipd.it).

General publication policy

JELT will not disclose any information about the processes of evaluation of an article to any of the cooperating parties in the publication’s preparation; same goes for the new material, unless specific consent is given from the authors. JELT does not allow the publication of a manuscript which has been published - in whole or in part - elsewhere. JELT follows a double-blind review process, whereby Authors do not know Reviewers and vice versa and is responsible for securing timely, independent and anonymous peer review from suitably qualified reviewers who have no disqualifying competing interests, of the manuscripts submitted to the journal which are in line with the Journal mission.

Ethical oversight - Allegations of Misconduct

The Editorial Board is responsible for the general ethical oversight of JELT; any information about possible ethical issues to be taken into account should be directed to Senior Editor (claudio.sarra@unipd.it). The Board will identify the issue, gather information and inform the Director.

When available, COPE flowchards and guidelines will be applied.

JELT will take any allegation of misconduct both pre-publication and post-publication seriously. Internal audits will take care of all the preliminary inquiry to collect the relevant facts and to assess the credibility and severity of the alleged misconduct. In case of legal relevance of the findings, the Authority is immediately reported. The publication is suspended (or - if already published - is temporarily made unaccessible) until the end of all the inquiries.

Internal audits will be directed by the Journal Director who will take all the consequent decisions.

Anonymous whistleblowing will not be taken into account unless supported by clear and promptly verifiable facts.

Complaints and appeals.

Any complaint and appeal based on misunderstanding or debatable interpretation of the Journal policies will be managed informally by the Editorial Board, which will assure collaboration and dialogue. In case of complaints revealing structural deficiencies and need for policy upgrade, the Editorial Board will refer immediately to the Director providing a full informed documentation of the case.

DUTIES OF EDITORS

The editors actively work to continuously improve the quality of the publications on JELT and are responsible for deciding which submitted article should be published. The auditors must follow the ethic code of JELT and provide an unbiased review, only evaluating papers for their intellectual scientific content. Assessments should be a tool to improve the quality of the submitted documents, so any criticism by auditors must be well-argued.

The auditors, the journal staff and any editorial board, must treat any document received by JELT as confidential, they should not use the contents to their personal advantage, and no information shall be revealed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

New materials described in a submitted paper should not be used by editors without the express written consent of the author.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

General policy

Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts objectively, fairly and professionally, following the specific guidelines and time scheduling given by JELT. Reviewers are asked to fill the evaluation form avoiding personal biases in their comments and judgments and they should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. These must avoid personal attack, sarcastic comments and not include any material that is defamatory, inaccurate, libellous, misleading, obscene, scandalous, unlawful, or otherwise objectionable, or that infringes any other person’s copyright, right of privacy, or other rights. Information regarding manuscripts submitted by authors should be kept confidential and be treated as privileged information. Reviewers should not discuss the manuscript with anyone other than the JELT Editorial Board, nor should they disclose any information about the manuscript and its content. The respect of timeliness is mandatory. In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within stipulated time, this information must be communicated to the Editorial Board. In case of unjustified delay the editorial board is allowed to send the manuscript to another reviewer. Reviewers should refuse to review manuscripts when they have provided written comments on the manuscript or an earlier version to the author, or in case of any conflict of interest with any of the companies, institutions, or people connected to the papers.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

General ethical policy for Authors

The authors of original researches and studies should present an accurate account of the work done, an objective discussion of purpose, as well as of the methods and/or the theoretical point of view endorsed. They must avoid any conflict of interest and should be ready to show evidence of their situation.

Where applicable, authors should also keep the data that appeared in articles on JELT for at least five years after publication. All work in the manuscript should be free of any plagiarism, falsification, fabrications, or omission of significant material. Plagiarism constitutes unethical publishing behavior and will lead to the denial of publication as well as the cancellation from the archive of the article when already published.

Authorship and Co-Authorship

The authors should guarantee the originality of their work and the correct and full reference from the work of others used in their own, both in terms of specific contribution and as a general reference or theoretical orientation, including people who have been influential in determining the nature the work reported. The authors should ensure that all co-authors that gave significant contribution to the work are mentioned, and that any of them have seen and approved the final version of the document, as well as they agreed for submission. If applicable, the author must demonstrate that his/her article has met fundamental ethical issues (including informed consent for interviews). The author should indicate explicitly all sources that have supported the research and also declare any conflict(s) of interest. The author must avoid to submit a manuscript already published (whole or partially) or to submit the same article simultaneously on several journals. If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, he is required to immediately report to JELT in order to allow the withdrawal or the correction of the paper.

Post publication discussion and corrections

JELT encourages post-publication discussions in the form of letters to the editors to be sent to jeltsubmission@gmail.com. Any request, question, opinion or criticism must be expressed in appropriate and respectful way. The Editorial Board will manage all the requests and will decide whether Authors need to be involved to collaborate to an academic enriching dialogue when discussion are generated by their work.

Data Ethics

JELT does not ask Authors or Correspondants for their personal data except name, affiliation and a valid (and preferably institutional) email address which are shown in the published papers.

Since JELT is a humanistic Journal, no laboratory data are used or stored in JELT servers.

Authors are the only responsible for the data used in their papers (see above) and any misconduct in gathering, use, sharing, will be treated by JELT along with the general policy for misconduct.

Closing policy

For any other issue not dealt with in this section or in the “For Authors” one, JELT will resort to the COPE Guidelines and flowcharts if available and applicable.