Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
1. Responsibilities of Editors and Editorial Board
The Editors and Editorial Board of Medievalista agree to:
- give to each manuscript submitted for publication unbiased consideration, regardless of the gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic and geographical origin, or institutional affiliation of the Author(s).
- review all submitted manuscripts to determine their suitability for publication according to the objectives, specifications and thematic concerns of the journal. Accordingly, the Editors may refuse a submitted manuscript without formal peer review if they consider it to be outside the scope of the journal. Only articles that meet the editorial standards and are within the aims and scope of the journal, will be forwarded for double-blind peer review.
- treat each manuscript submitted for publication objectively, with assessment of fulfilment of acceptance criteria being based solely on academic merit, free from influences personal, institutional, financial political or commercial, according to the results of double-blind peer review.
- ensure a minimum of two reviewers per article, each being specialists in the subject-matter of the article, with names of Reviewers and of Author(s) being mutually withheld. Nevertheless, a Reviewer may at his/her discretion reveal his/her name to the Author in the review.
- ensure confidentiality in the peer-review process.
- publish texts considered by the Editors to be of special relevance for Medieval Studies (in the Highlights or Varia rubrics), without submitting them to the formal peer review process.
- accept manuscripts from Editors or members of the Editorial Board for possible publication in the journal, whereas in such cases alternative members will manage the peer review process without involvement of the submitting Editor/Board- member.
– duly investigate any credible allegation of misconduct by an Editor, Author or Reviewer and to inform all parties involved of the progress of the investigation and its findings, giving them equal and reasonable opportunity to respond.
2. Authors responsibilities
Authors submitting their manuscripts to Medievalista agree to:
- submit their manuscript in the requisite format.
- declare that all work in the submitted manuscript is original; duly cite content, data, statistics and other materials reproduced from other sources; acknowledge all authors that have contributed to the research; publish a complete list of bibliographical references; acknowledge their financial support and interests; obtain permission to reproduce any content from other sources, including images.
- bestow upon Medievalista the right to the first publication of the article;
- declare any potential conflicts of interest, be they personal, institutional, financial, political, commercial or of any other nature.
- declare immediately if any noteworthy mistake or fault is identified in the article, collaborating with the Editors to make the necessary correction(s) or in the retraction of the article.
- participate in the peer review process making the Reviewers recommended alterations as necessary.
- consent to Medievalista reserving the right to publish, reproduce and disseminate the article(s) at its electronic html address, in pdf and in open access repositories, platforms and directories, according to the CC BY, Creative-Commons license (efective from 1 July 2022).
- agree to the Rules for Submission of Articles and to Rules for Presentation of Texts, stated in the Instructions for Authors.
3. Peer-Review Process and Responsibilities of Reviewers
All submissions are subject both to a similarity check program and to an initial determination by the Editors and the Editorial Board as to suitability for publication according to the objectives, specifications and thematic interests of the journal. Once Authors have been notified of the results of the initial determination, accepted manuscripts are processed in conformity with their categorization. Accordingly, articles are presented for double anonymous scientific evaluation by two specialist reviewers. Whenever they disagree in their assessments, Medievalist will request a third review from another researcher.
Reviewers collaborating with Medievalista agree to:
- submit their review in the required format.
- evaluate the article objectively based on scientific value alone without discrimination or influence.
- declare any potential conflicts of interest, be they personal, institutional, financial, political, commercial or of any other nature.
- provide objective and fair judgments of the article under scrutiny, using a proper language, indicating any relevant published work in need of citation and recommending any appropriate action for improvement of the quality of the text.
- treat reviewed articles as confidential until publication. Nevertheless, a Reviewer may at his/her discretion reveal his/her name to the Author in the review.
4. Publication Ethics
- Any information relating to misconduct should be reported to:
medievalista@fcsh.unl.pt
- Any misconduct or unethical behaviour reported to Medievalista or to the Publisher (Instituto de Estudos Medievais) will be subject to an inquiry and subsequent investigation. Examples of misconduct or unethical behaviour include allegations of plagiarism; dual submission; authorship disputes; author / editor / reviewer conflict of interest.
- All allegations will be respected and taken seriously. Until adequately proved, all information relating to the process will be held in confidence and kept private.
- The Editors and Editor in Chief shall make primary decisions. If necessary, decisions will be discussed with the Publisher and with the scientific committee of the Research Unit.
- All parties involved will be notified of the phases of the process and the findings of the investigation.
- All parties are entitled to an equal and reasonable opportunity to respond.
- If research or content misconduct is identified in the article, the Author will be allowed an opportunity to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and/or apologies.
5. Copyright and Open Access Policy
Medievalista uses the CC BY, "Creative-Commons" license. The content of the journal is made available free of charge to authors, readers and institutions.
Medievalista does not charge for submission or processing of articles.
Authors and readers are authorized to read, download, distribute, print and refer to articles in any circumstances without the prior permission of the Publisher or the Author, provided that acknowledgment of authorship and place of publication are made clear.
It is the sole responsibility of Authors to obtain permission for the reproduction of images or of any other copyrighted material.
Authors are the copyright holders of their works and retain unrestricted publication rights. Medievalista will retain the right to the first publication of their works and the right to reproduce and disseminate them in its HTML e-mail address, in PDF and in repositories, platforms and directories of open access.
Medievalista likewise assumes that Authors have the right to deposit, without any embargo, all versions of their work in thematic or institutional repositories, including the submitted version, the article in the form accepted by the journal and the published article.
6. Archiving policy
Medievalista content is available at RCAPP (Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto em Portugal). RCAPP is a public and national electronic Open Access Archive, thereby ensuring backup and preservation of the entire journal content by a free, permanent and disinterested party.
Medievalista content is also available at RUN (Repositório Universidade Nova), the institutional and public repository of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the owner of the journal.
7. Ownership and management
Medievalista is edited by the Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM), a research unit of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal.
8. Medievalista official website
https://medievalista.iem.fcsh.unl.pt/
Medievalista at SciELO Portugal:
http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_serial&lng=pt&pid=1646-740X
Medievalista at OpenEdition:
https://journals.openedition.org/medievalista/
9. Publishing schedule
Medievalista is a biannual journal. The first issue of the year is launched on January 1st (Jan-Jun), the second on July 1st (Jul-Dec).
10. Aims and Scope
Medievalista, the electronic journal of the Instituto de Estudos Medievais, was founded in 2005 in order to supply the need for a Portuguese scholarly journal devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages. The journal publishes two issues per year (January and July) and it is aimed at all researchers and those simply interested in medieval studies. As such, the articles may be in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, Italian or German. Medievalista aims to create an international space for sharing and debating ideas, open to everyone, from renowned authors to young researchers.
Medievalista embraces an editorial policy whereby issues will usually comprise articles on a variety of subjects, along with publication of thematic dossiers and monographic or special issues. Texts from all disciplines on any medieval topic are welcome.
Medievalista is an open access journal, available free of charge, which publishes original research in the form of scholarly articles, conference papers, book reviews, overviews of recent academic researchs and items detailing the state-of-the-art of Medieval Studies. Medievalista does not charge for submission or processing of articles.
Following an initial determination by the Editors of the appropriateness of a submission for publication in the Medievalista including verification of due compliance with the journal’s Style Specifications, articles are presented for double– blind peer review, with acceptance for publication being contingent on the obtaining of two positive peer evaluations. Other contributions are subject to the Editors’ approval. All articles and other contributions accepted for publication will be made freely available online and will be downloadable as pdf files.
