Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

AIMS AND SCOPES

The journal is aimed at researchers, educators, trainers and teachers; publishes original empirical research papers, case studies and experiences, critical and systematic studies, adapted translations and brief reports on recent developments in the sectors. The goal is to spread scientific and methodological culture, encourage debate and stimulate new research.

 

Section Policies

Papers

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

REFEREES’ EVALUATION

The journal started an evaluation system of the articles to be published setting up a extern committee of referees. The Referees Committee’s objective is to examine publications and researches that may have an academic and scientific value.

We are committed to upholding the integrity of the work we publish. We encourage our authors, editors, and reviewers to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website. COPE has published a set of Guidelines for Peer Reviewers that we recommend reading prior to beginning a review.  

In accordance with the international guidelines, the journal adopted the following criteria:

1. Choice of referees: the choice is made by the Editor among University teachers and researchers of national and / or international level. The Referees’ Committee is updated annually. At least two members of the Referees’ Committee are chosen among University teachers and researchers belonging to Universities or research centres abroad.

2. Anonymity of the referees’ system (double-blind review): to preserve the integrity of the process of peer review, the authors of the papers do not know the identity of referees. Referees, instead, will know the identity of the authors.

3. Evaluation methods: the Editor will collect the papers of the authors, ensuring that articles meet the technical requirements of the journal (requiring changes and / or additions in case these requirements have not been met). The Editor will, then, make the articles available to the referees using a reserved area within the website of the journal (Reserved Area for Referees). An e-mail from the journal’s administration announces then to referees the presence of the items in the reserved area, and which items should be assessed. Referees thus read the assigned articles and provide their assessment through an evaluation grid, whose template is made available by the Editor within the restricted area. Referees will be able to fill out the template directly online within the reserved area (through the use of lime survey software) within the deadlines set by the Editor. The evaluation will remain anonymous and advice included in it may be communicated by the editorial board to the author of the paper.

4. Traceability of the assessment and Electronic Archive: the reserved area, within the journal website, is planned and organized in order to have traceability of electronic exchanges between Editor and referees. In addition, evaluated papers and recap of evaluation forms will be also included in an electronic archive within the author’s personal area. This allows the Journal to maintain transparency in the procedures adopted, in case of assessments by external assessors and accredited institutions. The latter may require access to the private area to check the actual activation of the evaluation of the papers by the Referees’ Committee.

5. Type of evaluation: referees will express their assessments only through the evaluation template, previously placed in the restricted online area by the Editor of the Journal. Foreign referees will use an English version of the template. The evaluation board consists of a quantitative part (giving a score from 1 to 5 to a series of statements that meet criteria of originality, accuracy, methodology, relevance to readers, and structure of content) and a qualitative part (discursive and analytical judgments about strengths and weaknesses of the paper). In a third part, referees will express approval about the publication of the article, or advice about a publication after revision. In the latter case, referees will be able to provide guidance or suggestions to the author, in order to improve the paper. The evaluation template is available to authors, in order to have transparency of evaluation criteria.

6. Limitations of the evaluation: the referees’ power is advisory only: the editor may decide to publish the paper anyway, regardless of the assessment provided by referees (though still taking it into account).

7. Acknowledgements to referees: The list of referees who contributed to the journal is published in the first issue of the following year (without specifying which issue of the journal and for what items) as acknowledgements for their cooperation, and as an instance of transparency policy about the procedures adopted (open peer review).

 

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides open access to its contents, believing that making research freely available to the public improves the global exchange of knowledge.

 

Archiving

This journal participates in LOCKSS to create a distributed archiving system between libraries and enables them to create permanent archives of the journal for preservation purposes.

 

Code of Ethics

CODE OF ETHICS

The Italian Journal of Health Education, Sports and Inclusive Didactics is committed to upholding the integrity of the work we publish. The code of ethics describes the journal policies for ensuring the ethical treatment of authors and the publication process. We encourage our authors, editors, and reviewers to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website.
Commitment to ethical professional conduct is expected from every researcher. The research work should neither neglect nor discriminate against individuals and groups who may benefit from advances in research.
It is the duty of authors to protect the life, health, dignity, integrity, right to self-determination, privacy, and confidentiality of personal information of research subjects. Authors who submit their papers to our journal accept the Helsinki Declaration and the ethical guidelines here stated.

DUTIES OF EDITORS

Transparency: The “Italian Journal of Health Education, Sport and Inclusive Didactics” follows the principles of transparency and good academic publishing practices defined by COPE in the document Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Decisions on publication: The Editors of the “Italian Journal of Health Education, Sport and Inclusive Didactics” are responsible for deciding whether or not to publish the proposed articles.

Honesty: The Editors evaluate the articles submitted for publication only on the basis of the scientific merit of the content, without discrimination of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, nationality, political opinion of the authors.

Confidentiality: The Editors and members of the working group undertake not to disclose information relating to the articles submitted for publication to other persons other than the author, the referees and the editor.

Conflict of interest and disclosure: The editors undertake not to use in their research content of articles submitted for publication without the written consent of the author.

DUTIES OF REFEREES

Contribution to the editorial decision: Peer review is a procedure that helps editors to make decisions on the proposed articles and also allows the author to improve the contribution submitted for publication.

Respect of Time: The referee who does not feel adequate to the task proposed or who is not able to finish the evaluation of the proposed contribution in the scheduled time is required to promptly notify the coordinators.

Confidentiality: Each assigned reading should be considered as confidential. Therefore, these texts must not be discussed with other people without the explicit permission of the editors.

Objectivity: The peer-review must be conducted in an objective manner. Any personal judgment about the authors of contributions is considered inappropriate. The referees are required to give adequate reasons for their judgments.

Text display: The referees undertake to accurately indicate the bibliographical references of fundamental works possibly neglected by the author. The referee must also report to the editors any similarities or overlaps between the text received in reading and other works known to her/him.

Conflict of interest and disclosure: Confidential information or information obtained during the process of peer-review must be considered confidential and may not be used for personal purposes. The referee shall not accept in reading articles for which there is a conflict of interest due to previous collaboration or competition with the author and /or her/his institution.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Access and Retention: If the editors deem it appropriate, the authors of the articles should make available also the sources or the data on which research is based, so that they can be kept for a reasonable period of time after the publication and possibly be made accessible.

Originality and plagiarism: The authors are required to declare to have composed an original work in its entirety and citing all the texts used.
The “Italian Journal of Health Education, Sport and Inclusive Didactics” does not tolerate plagiarism, duplicate publication and self-plagiarism in any of its publications and reserves the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected.

Publications multiple, repetitive and/or competitors: The author should not publish articles that repeat the same search results in more than a scientific journal: the simultaneous proposal of the same contribution to multiple scientific journal is to be considered an ethically improper and reprehensible.

List of sources: The author should always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article.

Authorship: It should be correctly attributed the authorship of the work and shall be referred to as co-authors all those who have made a significant contribution to the design, organization, implementation and revision of the research that forms the basis of the article. If other people have participated significantly in some stages of the research, their contribution must be explicitly recognized. In the case of contributions written by many hands, the author who sends the text to the journal is required to declare that she/he had correctly stated the names of all the other co-authors, have obtained their approval of the final version of the article and their consent for publication in the "Giornale Italiano di Educazione alla Salute, sports e Didattica Inclusiva - Italian Journal of Health Education, Sport and Inclusive Didactics".
All authors whose names appear on the submission

  1. made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;
  2. drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
  3. approved the version to be published; and
  4. agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Conflict of interest and disclosure: All authors are required to declare explicitly 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.

Errors in published articles: Editors will consider retractions and corrections in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines. When an author in her/his article identifies a significant error or inaccuracy, he/she shall promptly inform the journal editors and provide them with all the information required to let the journal correct the content. Any article found that includes fraudulent results will be retracted or an appropriate correction will be issued

Misconduct: The journal supports initiatives designed to reduce academic misconduct and assess the effects of their journal policies on author and reviewer behaviour and revise policies, as required, to  encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct. If misconduct is suspected, the Managing Editor should be notified in confidence and concerns should not be shared with other parties unless officially notified by the Managing Editor, that it should be done so.

Post publication: The journal holds the copyright to all published articles and permits the Author to use the paper elsewhere after  publication without restriction, including posting the final post-acceptance manuscript version on the author’s personal web pages or in an institutional repository maintained by the institution to  which the Author is affiliated, in other works or for the purposes of the Author’s teaching and research, provided acknowledgement is given to the journal as the original source of publication.

Studies involving vulnerable populations

Our research integrity team may request extra information from authors conducting research on vulnerable populations. This may include:

  • the recruitment procedures and rationale for population use

  • a copy of the consent form that was read and signed by participants

  • the study protocol approved by the ethics committee

  • any other standard documents such as ethical approval certificate of consent form(s). 

For studies on vulnerable populations, authors must ensure that the data is summarised and does not include any individual data. The following data availability statement can be used to direct researchers to access your data: 'The datasets for this article are not publicly available due to concerns regarding participant/patient anonymity. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the corresponding author.'

 

 

 

Informed consent policy

GSD requires that informed consent be obtained from all human subjects prior to their participation in any research.

General Considerations: Before involving a human subject in research covered by this policy, a researcher must obtain legally valid informed consent from the subject or their authorized legal representative. Informed consent must be conducted in a language understandable to the subject. The subject must be provided with the information a reasonable person would want to have to make an informed decision about participation and must be given the opportunity to discuss this information. Informed consent may not include any exculpatory language through which the subject waives or appears to waive any of their legal rights, or releases or appears to release the researcher, sponsor, institution, or its agents from liability for negligence.
Informed Consent Document: Informed consent must begin with a concise and focused presentation of the key information most likely to assist a prospective subject or authorized legal representative in understanding the reasons why one might or might not want to participate in the research. This part of the informed consent must be organized and presented in a way that facilitates comprehension. The informed consent as a whole must present detailed information about the research and must be organized and presented in a way that does not merely provide isolated facts but rather facilitates the prospective subject’s or authorized legal representative's understanding of the reasons why one might or might not want to participate.
The consent document should be drafted in the second person so that it conveys a dialogue with the information provided and presents a choice for the subject rather than presuming the subject’s consent through the use of first-person language. Technical and scientific terms should be adequately explained using common or everyday language.
Basic Elements of Informed Consent: The following information must be provided to each subject in presenting informed consent:
1. A statement that the study involves research, an explanation of the purposes of the research and the expected duration of the subject’s participation, a description of the procedures to be followed, and identification of any experimental procedures;
2. A description of any reasonably foreseeable risks or discomforts to the subject;
3. A description of any benefits to the subject or to others that may reasonably be expected from the research;
4. A disclosure of appropriate alternative procedures or courses of treatment, if any, that might be advantageous to the subject;
5. A statement describing the extent, if any, to which confidentiality of records identifying the subject will be maintained;
6. An explanation of whom to contact for answers to pertinent questions about the research and research subjects' rights, and whom to contact in the event of a research-related injury to the subject;
7. A statement that participation is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefits to which the subject is otherwise entitled, and the subject may discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which the subject is otherwise entitled.
Review of Informed Consent
GSD will ensure that the information in the protocol matches the information in the informed consent document regarding the purpose, risks, and benefits of the research. When the research proposal is approved, GSD will date all approved informed consent documents and ensure that copies of these dated documents are used to obtain consent.