Ethical Code

Temi di Psicologia dell’Ordine degli Psicologi della Campania (TOPIC) is a scientific journal strongly committed to promoting publications with high ethical value and requires authors and reviewers to respect the ethical standards established by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any instances of ethical misconduct will be dealt with in accordance with COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).

Authorship

Authors must ensure that the manuscript is original and that there is no risk of total or partial plagiarism. Authors also need to ensure that the submitted manuscript is not a full or partial republication of previous work and does not contain fraudulent data. It is also the responsibility of the Authors to verify that all copyrighted material within the article has permission for publication.

If the work submitted received funding, Authors must provide all details in a separate section named "Funding".

Responsibility of the authors

Temi di Psicologia dell’Ordine degli Psicologi della Campania (TOPIC) is a double-blind peer review journal. The Authors are required to respect this review process. They also should ensure that the article is accurately written, with adequate cited references, and that the content of the manuscript is relevant to the journal and/or call for paper’s scopes.

Authors must ensure that all data in the submitted article is authentic, that all Authors have made significant contributions to the manuscript, and that only real contributors are listed as Authors.

It is their responsibility to ensure that no participants are harmed, physically or mentally, during the research which results in the article, and that personal details of the participants are fully anonymized. Authors should also ensure that all authors provide manuscript revisions or corrections. Manuscripts sent to other journals or already published cannot be sent to the journal.

Once Reviewers comments have been received, the Authors must provide the requested modifications. If the manuscript is not sufficiently edited according to the indications of the Reviewers, the document may not be accepted for publication.

Peer review and reviewers' responsibilities

Both reviewers and authors remain anonymous throughout the double-blind review process. Reviewers are selected based on their experience by the members of the Editorial Board and by the Section Editors. Submitted articles are reviewed by at least two independent reviewers and by the editors.

If the Reviewer does not feel able to judge a manuscript, because the content does not fit with his area of expertise, or he/she needs more time to complete the review, he/she must inform the Editorial Board.

Reviewers are encouraged to evaluate whether the manuscript has already been published in another journal, is methodologically sound, contains clearly presented results that support the conclusions, contains an appropriate bibliography, and makes a significant contribution to the existing literature. The Reviewers' decision is sent to the corresponding author. The editorial board is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the manuscript.

Authors have the right to expect reviewers or others familiar with the manuscript not to plagiarize their work. Additionally, reviewers have a responsibility to be fair in their judgments; to have no conflicts of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funders of the research; to highlight any relevant published research that has not been cited by the authors; to treat revised manuscripts confidentially.

Editorial responsibility

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

Editors have full authority to reject or accept an article; promote the publication of corrections or withdrawals when errors are found; preserve the anonymity of Reviewers and Authors.

Furthermore, there must be no conflicts of interest regarding the manuscripts they reject or accept. In case of potential conflicts of interest, the Editors will pass the decision-making authority to another Section Editor.

If, after publication, errors are identified, the Editors will facilitate the publication of an erratum.

Ethics issues in publishing

The members of the Editorial Committee ensure the control and protection of editorial ethics. This includes strict plagiarism and data fraud policy, strong commitment to post corrections, clarifications and retractions when needed. Whenever a published document is acknowledged to contain a material inaccuracy, misleading statement, or distorted data, it will be promptly corrected. If, upon proper investigation, an item is found to be fraudulent, it will be withdrawn. The withdrawal will be clearly identifiable by readers and by any indexing systems.

Any author or reviewer who believes that this code of ethics has been violated may submit a complaint to the Editorial Board (redazionetopic@oprc.it).