Evaluations are made on a double-blind basis, internally and externally, except when a member of the editorial board submits an article. In this case the two evaluations are carried out by external experts.
Evaluation is carried out in an impartial manner, according to strictly scientific criteria, without taking into account, should these be known, considerations of gender, language, religion, nationality, institutional affiliation or any other form of bias which might influence the reviewer’s opinion.
The evaluation criteria are openly available on the journal’s website. Experts are required to complete an evaluation grid and provide a more detailed report, to be submitted to the journal’s management board or to the person in charge of the specific section concerned.
An article may be accepted without modifications, accepted subject to modifications (minor or major) or refused outright. In the case of disagreement between two experts, an evaluation by a third person may be requested. The evaluation reports are conveyed anonymously to the authors should their text require changes for publication.
Experts are chosen on grounds of scientific competence. If, despite efforts taken to avoid any conflict of interest, one of them considers he or she might be in such a situation, he or she is required to inform the editorial board of the journal who will then contact someone else.
The articles entrusted to the experts remain strictly confidential. In the same manner, the expertise reports are conveyed only to members of the editorial board, to the person in charge of the section concerned or of the special issue and to the authors of the text.
When submitting an article to Viatica, authors may not submit it simultaneously to another journal. Their article must be original. Any detected form of plagiarism will immediately result in the text’s rejection.
When an article has been accepted, Viatica commits to publishing it within a maximum period of 18 months. Authors retain the possibility of publishing their text again in an edited volume or in a collection of articles, provided they mention that it was first published in Viatica.
Each author receives a contract to be signed at the end of the reviewing process and before publication.
In the case of a blatant error discovered after on-line publication, the author may request from the journal’s management board that a change be made and the board may likewise, in the case of an error being found (an incorrect reference, an obvious typing error, etc.), request the author to correct the error. Such occurrences, however, should remain exceptional.
