RIDE – A Review Journal for Digital Editions and Resources is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal whose policy is inspired by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Ethical Code (see COPE’s Core Practices for editors, journals, publishers, and institutions). For more information on access, licensing and archiving of the articles in RIDE please see our Publishing Policy. We also provide Guidelines for writing and submitting articles for the authors.

Publisher’s responsibilities  

The Publisher, the Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE), must provide the Journal with adequate resources and the guidance of experts, in order to carry out its role in the most professional way, aiming at the highest quality standard. The tasks of the Publisher are carried out by a group of Managing Editors who are members of the IDE.

The relationship among the Managing Editors, the Editor(s) of the Journal’s issues, the Editorial Board, and the Publisher is based on the principle of publishing independence. Editors should make decisions on which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for readers.

Editors’ responsibilities 

The Editors and the Editorial Board of RIDE alone are responsible for the decision to publish the articles submitted.

Submitted articles, after having been checked for plagiarism, will undergo both internal review by the Editors and external peer review by at least one expert. Final acceptance presumes the implementation of possible amendments, as required by the reviewers and under the supervision of the RIDE Editor(s).

The RIDE Editor(s) and Editorial Board must evaluate each submitted paper in compliance with the Journalʼs policy, i.e. exclusively on the basis of its scholarly content, without discrimination of race, sex, gender, creed, ethnic origin, citizenship, or the scientific, academic, and political position of the Authors.

Allegations of misconduct

If the RIDE Editor(s) and Editorial  Board notice (or receive notifications of) mistakes or inaccuracies, conflict of interest or plagiarism in a published article, they will immediately warn the Author and the Publisher and will undertake the necessary actions to resolve the issue. They will do their best to correct the published content whenever they are informed that it contains scholarly errors or that the authors have committed unethical or illegal acts in connection with their published work. If necessary, they will withdraw the article or publish a recantation.

All complaints are handled in accordance with the guidelines published by the COPE.

Concerns and complaints must be addressed to the following e-mail ride-editors@i-d-e.de. The letter should contain the following information:

• complainant’s personal information;
• title, author(s), publication date, DOI;
• complaint(s);
• declaration that the complainant has no conflict of interest, or declaration of an actual or potential conflict of interest.

Authors’ responsibilities

Stylesheet

Authors must follow the Writing Guidelines and Submission Guidelines for Authors as provided on the RIDE website.

No multiple submissions

Authors must explicitly state that their work is original in all its parts and that the submitted paper has not been previously published, nor submitted to other journals, until the entire evaluation process is completed. Since no paper gets published without significant revision, earlier dissemination in conference proceedings or working papers does not preclude consideration for publication, but Authors are expected to fully disclose publication/dissemination of the material in other closely related publications, so that the overlap can be evaluated by the RIDE Editor(s).

Authorship

Authors are strongly encouraged to use their ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This will ensure the authors’ visibility and correct citation of their work.

Authorship must be correctly attributed; all those who have given a substantial contribution to the design, organisation and accomplishment of the research the article is based on, must be indicated as Co-Authors. Please ensure that: the order of the author names is correct; the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that affiliations are up-to-date.

The respective roles of each co-author should be described in a footnote when they have contributed  in different ways and to different extents to the publication. All authors should give their written approval for the publication of the article’s final version to the responsible Editor(s).

Conflicts of interest and financing

Authors, under their own responsibility, must avoid any conflict of interest affecting the results obtained or the interpretations suggested. The RIDE Editor(s) will give serious and careful consideration to suggestions of cases in which, due to possible conflict of interest, an Author’s work should not be reviewed by a specific scholar. Authors should indicate any financing agency or the project the article stems from.

Authors must not be involved in the creation or publication of the reviewed resource themselves, as reviews in RIDE are intended to be critical assessments made by external reviewers rather than self-introductions of resources and projects (as someone interested in getting their project reviewed, authors can instead suggest their projects for review.

Collaborative attitude

Reviews in RIDE should generally be done in a fair manner; i.e. criticism should be expressed in a comprehensible and constructive way. The range of advances in digital methodology is broad between different resources and projects. As RIDE in general aims to encourage the use of digital methods and techniques, but also to contribute to the discussion of the state-of-the art in the field, we recommend that the critique expressed in the reviews by the authors takes into account the circumstances of each digital resource and is formulated appropriately.

Quotations

Authors must ensure that all works consulted are properly cited. If works or words of others are used, they have to be properly paraphrased or duly quoted. Quotations between “double quotes” (or «angled quotation marks» if the text is written in a language other than English) must reproduce the exact wording of the source; under their own responsibility, Authors should carefully refrain from disguising a restyling of the source’s wording, as though it was the original formulation.

Any form of excessive, inappropriate or unnecessary self-citation, as well as any other form of citation manipulation, are strongly discouraged.

Emendations

When Authors find a mistake or an inaccuracy in their own article, they must immediately warn the RIDE Editor(s), providing all the information needed to make the due adjustments.

Peer Reviewers’ responsibilities

Goal

By means of the peer-review procedure, reviewers assist the RIDE Editor(s) and Editorial  Board in taking decisions on the articles submitted. They are expected to offer the Authors suggestions as to possible adjustments aimed at improving their contribution submission.

Timing and conflicts of interest

If a reviewer does not feel up to the task of doing a given review, or if she/he is unable to read the work within the agreed schedule, she/he should notify the RIDE Editor(s). Reviewers must not accept articles for which there is a conflict of interest due to previous contributions or to a competition with an author they believe to have identified.

Confidentiality

The content of the reviewed work must be considered confidential and must not be used without explicit authorisation by the Author, who is to be contacted via the Editor(s). Any confidential information obtained during the peer review process should not be used for other purposes.

Collaborative attitude

Reviewers should see themselves not as adversaries but as advocates for the field. Any comment must be done in a collaborative way and from an objective point of view. Reviewers should clearly motivate their comments and keep in mind the Golden Rule of Reviewing: “Review for others as you would have others review for you”.

Plagiarism

Reviewers should report any similarity or overlapping of the work under analysis with other works known to them.