PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Materiali e strutture. Problemi di conservazione is a peer reviewed journal and its ethics statement is based on COPE: Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the journal editor(s), the peer reviewer and the publisher) it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior.

DUTIES OF THE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Publication decisions
Editorial Board  members are responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play
Submitted manuscripts are evaluated for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality
The Editor-in-Chief and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers and the publisher.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an Editor's own research without the explicit written consent of the author(s).

DUTIES OF PEER REVIEWERS

Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

Promptness
Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. A reviewer should also call to the Editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submission.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given.

Authorship of a manuscript
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal’s Editor-in-Chief  and cooperate to publish an appropriate erratum.