Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

The LaborEst scientific journal, published twice a year, was established in 2008 by Edoardo Mollica within the homonymous LaborEst research lab - Economic Evaluations and Real Estate Appraisals Lab. The scope of the journal is to strengthen the vital link between scientific research and territorial needs.

The estimation culture and the economic evaluation of programs, plans and projects are driving disciplines and core topics of the scientific journal.

The LaborEst scientific journal is a place of interdisciplinary discussion on issues affecting Metropolitan Cities, and a room for dialogue among different researchers at national and international levels, sharing experiences on issues concerning the Inner Areas of the less-developed regions, in a perspective of competitive territorial growth and broadly of local development.

In particular, the published contributions disclaim general issues relating to:

  1. Heritage and Identity
  2. Local Development: Urban Space, Rural Area, Inner Areas
  3. Urban Regeneration, PPP, Smart Cities
  4. Mobility, Accessibility, Infrastructure
  5. Environment, Energy, Landscape

 

Section Policies

Summary

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Editorial

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Heritage and Identity

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Local Development: Urban space, Rural space, Inner areas

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Urban Regeneration, PPP, Smart Cities

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Mobility, Accessibility, Infrastructures

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Environment, Energy, Landscape

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Special Insert

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

The proposals for contribution are first evaluated by the Editorial Committee: if the manuscript is considered suitable for publication, it is subject to an evaluation procedure according to a “double-blind peer review process” by at least two referees from Italian and foreign universities.

In order to ensure a fair, objective and unbiased process, even if the authors are members of the editorial board, the evaluation of proposals will follow the same procedure.

The authors are invited to suggest up to three scientists qualified to act as reviewers, although the Editorial Committee will not necessarily approach them. The proposed reviewers should be neither current collaborators or co-authors over the past five years. They should be with different affiliation of authors. Members of the editorial board can be used as reviewers.

Potential reviewers can be chosen among authors who frequently cite articles.

If the reviews are positive, but the manuscript requires to be revised and resubmitted, the author is expected to submit the revised version.

If the reviews are discordant, is appointed a third reviewer.

Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of:

- Scientific Quality in relation to the following criteria: Coherence with the issues of the journal, Originality of the paper, clarity of objectives, coherence between objectives and results. Relevance of the results in terms of contribution to the intellectual advancement of the state of the art.

- Organization and Clarity in relation to the following criteria: Consistency between title and content; Abstract, representative of the entire paper; readability of images, figures, tables, etc. and captions.

Editors verifies, through a specific check-list, compliance of paper to the journal format.

 

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

LaborEst does not ask for articles and submissions processing charges APC

Authors who publish on this journal implicitly accepts the publication under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the PKP Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration (more on the LOCKSS Program).

 

LaborEst - Code of Conduct

LaborEst is a on-line Open Access peer-reviewed scientific journal, that inspires its ethical editorial code to the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf) framed by COPE -Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/).  

The LaborEst journal will take all necessary measures against any fraud that may occur in the submission, review and publication phases of the proposed articles.

We invite authors, editors and referees - as parties involved - to view and share the following ethical requirements.

Duties of the Scientific Heads and Editorial Committee

The Scientific Heads and the Editorial Committee must comply with the COPE guidelines.

In particular, the Scientific Heads and the Editorial Committee are solely responsible for the decision to publish the articles submitted to the journal itself. The Editorial Board is driven by the journal editorial policy and under the current legal provisions on defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Under this procedure, it is therefore up to the Editorial Committee to take a decision, supported by at least two reviewers chosen among scholars of Italian and foreign universities under a procedure of double-blind peer review.

The members of the Editorial Committee must evaluate manuscripts for their scientific content, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, as well as scientific guidance, academic or political convictions of the authors.

The Editorial Committee and the Editorial staff are required not to disclose any information on the manuscripts sent to any other party other than the authors, editors and potential reviewers, editorial consultant and publisher, as appropriate. The unpublished material contained in the manuscripts submitted to the journal can not be used by members of the Editorial Committee for their research without express written consent. If the Editorial Board finds or receives reports about errors or inaccuracies, conflict of interest or plagiarism in an article published, will promptly notify the author and the publisher. In this case, the Editorial Committee will take the necessary steps to clarify the matter and, if necessary, withdraw it or publish a retraction, according to the COPE guidelines.

Duties of reviewers (peer reviewers)

The reviewers assist the Editorial Committee in editorial decisions and, through the communications transmitted by the Editorial Committee, may eventually support the author to improve the manuscript. The selected reviewer who does not feel qualified to review the manuscript assigned, or who can not be able to perform the review on time, must notify his decision to the Editorial Committee and cease to participate in the review process. The manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. The manuscripts must not be shown or discussed with anyone not previously authorized by the Editorial Committee. The review must be conducted objectively. Is not allowed to criticize or offend an author personally. Referees should express their views clearly and accompanied by documented arguments. 

The reviewer shall have the task of identifying the presence of relevant bibliographic material for the work to be evaluated, but not mentioned by the authors. Each statement, observation or argument set should preferably be accompanied by a corresponding quote. The reviewer shall draw the attention of the Editorial Committee while considering a substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other document published which he is aware. Information or ideas obtained through the review of the manuscripts must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers must not accept manuscripts if they are in a position of conflicts of interest resulting from competitive relationships, collaboration, or other type of connection to the authors, companies or entities who have connected with the subject of the manuscript.

Duties of the authors

Authors must ensure that their works are completely original and, where they used to work and / or words of other authors, that these are properly paraphrased or quoted literally, and the correct reference to the work of other authors must be indicated. The authors are required to cite all publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the proposed work.

The authors of articles based on original research should present an accurate review of the work done, as well as an objective discussion of its significance. The data must be accurately represented in the manuscript. Manuscripts should contain sufficient detail and references to allow others reproduction of the research conducted. Fraudulent misrepresentation or willfully inaccurate constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable

The proposed manuscripts must not have been published as copyrighted material in other journals. The manuscripts under review by the journal should not be subjected to other journals for publication. By submitting a manuscript, the author / authors agree that, if the manuscript is accepted for publication, all the rights of economic exploitation, without limits of space and with all the methods and technologies currently existing and / or future developed, will be regulated by the International Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC bY 4.0)

 

The authorship of the manuscript is limited to those who have made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution and interpretation of the study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. If there are others who have participated in the substantive aspects of the research project, must be recognized and listed as contributors in the acknowledgments.

The corresponding author must ensure that all of its co-authors are included in the manuscript, which have seen and approved the final version of the same and that they agree on the submission for publication. Authors must indicate in the manuscript the financial conflicts or other types of conflict that are interest and may influence the results or interpretation of the manuscript. All sources of financial support to the project should be indicated. If an author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the published manuscript has a duty to promptly notify the Editorial Committee or the Publisher and cooperate with them in order to retract or correct the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the institution), a referee or a member of the Editorial Committee have financial or personal relationships that may improperly influence their behavior. This conflict can exist even if the subject believes that these relationships do not influence it. It’ s duty of the Scientific Heads of the journal to manage as best as possible any conflicts of interest (for example, through the double-blind peer review system), and a statement on the matter may be requested to the authors.

 

Publication Frequency

The journal is published twice a year, issued in June and December.

 

Information for authors

If interested in submitting a manuscript to this journal, please visit our policy section as well as the guidelines www.laborest.unirc.it

Before the final publication, after the acceptance of the manuscript, authors have to sign a publication agreement with LaborEst under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)