Author guidelines

All submissions should be edited according to the Formazione & insegnamento format: DOWNLOAD HERE THE STYLESHEET AND EDITING GUIDE. The journal encourages self-editing, which helps keeping it free of charges.

 

NEW POLICY ON THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Users are invited to consult the Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence available in the concluding section of the Journal's Ethical Statement (click here).

 

EDITING INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS: CLICK HERE!

 

TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS, MAXIMUM LENGTH, OTHER DETAILS: CLICK HERE!

F.A.Q. MOTIVATIONS FOR DESK REJECTION

Formazione & insegnamento adopts double-blind review, which is a type of anonymous review in which the reviewers do not know the names and affiliations or other identifying details of the authors, and vice versa. This is the most common peer review in the humanities and social sciences.

In order to submit a manuscript ready for peer review, corresponding Authors must ensure it is properly anonymized.

Languages

Formazione & insegnamento's working languages are currently: English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. In the past, it published articles in all the following languages: French and German. Each article shall be accompained by titles, abstract, and keywords in both English and in the original language of the paper. For submissions that are not in English, please use the English forms for your translated title and the forms in the original language for the content in the original language of the paper (other than English). In fact, a user interface in languages other than English, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese is not available. The Indexers of our Editorial Team will take care of metadata, in order to ensure your article is appropriately indexed upon publication.

Authorship

Formazione & insegnamento’s definition of authorship is broadly construed to account for the different contributor roles in academic research. Drawing on Yale University guidelines, each listed author of a paper must meet the following requirements:

  1. Having contributed to some component of the research (concept, design, conduction of the research, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of data).
  2. Having either written the draft or revised it (revision must be content-wise, not mere proof-reading).
  3. Having approved the final version of the paper.

It is the duty of the corresponding author to ensure all involved parties have given confirmation to the publication.

Given the transdisciplinary nature of education research, specific roles might vary. However, each author is required to meet the above criteria. Formazione & insegnamento is not an official member of the CRediT system but it recognizes its importance. Hence, it conceives of the following roles it describes:

  • Conceptualization
  • Data curation (e.g., data storage)
  • Formal analysis
  • Funding acquisition
  • Investigation
  • Methodology
  • Project administration
  • Resources (e.g., creation of study materials, tools, etc.)
  • Software
  • Supervision
  • Validation
  • Visualization (e.g., creation of graphs, slides, presentation of published work)
  • Writing – original draft
  • Writing – review & editing

The editorial board invites authors not to abuse the system. For instance, most theoretical articles will be more than fine with attributions of “conceptualization”, “investigation”, “methodology”, “writing – original draft”, and “writing – review & editing”.

Formazione & insegnamento does also recognize that, on occasion, national evaluation boards (such as the ones appointed by the Italian ANVUR) might require a more detailed identification of the contribution of each Author in relation to the different parts of the text. In that case, authors are invited to acknowledge the authorship of each section separately, as it is customary in “Class A” Italian publications.

Corresponding author

The term “corresponding author” is not a special form of acknowledgement but is used to define the author who takes responsibility for communication with the editorial board (e.g., manuscript submission, answering emails, etc.). The corresponding author’s responsibilities are:

  • Ensure deadlines are met;
  • Ensure the manuscript is publication-ready;
  • Submit the manuscript and all supporting materials;
  • Ensure the author details are correct;
  • Ensure ethical practices are duly followed;
  • Communicate promptly to the editorial board any change, correction, or irregularity she is aware of.

Changes of authorship

After a submitted manuscript is accepted, it might be necessary to change the authors of the paper. However, all authors mentioned in the original manuscript shall agree to the change.

Authorship disputes

Authors should be aware that it is not up to the journal to solve authorship disputes. However, the journal will take action in case an authorship dispute results in a breach of the principles of the Ethical Statement.

Acknowledgments

Anyone who contributed to the article in ways that do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged in the manuscript. Examples are technical assistants, proof-readers, translators, or scholars that contributed to the discussion. To ensure these individuals consent to their inclusion in the article, the corresponding Author should share the manuscript with them.

Errors

Although Formazione & insegnamento encourages corresponding Authors to ensure no mistakes are present in the manuscript, the journal acknowledges that mistakes might happen bona fide and invites Authors to promptly notify the editorial board of any error they might become aware of. Errors will be dealt with as critiques to the published article. The ethical guidelines of the journal determine the procedure to address critiques.

Editing the manuscript for peer review

The submitted manuscript should be “blinded” (anonymized) for peer review. To do so, authors must ensure the following:

  • The third person is always used to refer to their previously published work.
  • Affiliations and names are removed from the submitted tables and figures.
  • Their published work is referenced as Author (e.g., “Author, 2020”).
  • The same should be referenced in the reference list (bibliography). Omitting the Authors' names and surnames is not enough: the entire entry should be removed.
  • Acknowledgments and funding sources are removed from the submitted manuscript (they could be disclosed to the editors in the submission form, but they shall not be put in the blinded manuscript. Authors will be able to update their manuscripts after reviews are received).
  • All identifying information is removed from the document (file) properties.

Tables, figures, and supplementary materials

Tables and figures should be kept to a minimum. Usually, F&I does not print more than five (5) tables and figures (overall). This mirrors the international habits of scientific journals, such as those which have been surveyed by Hartley et al. in 2015. Higher numbers should be justified by the Authors with a cover letter. Hence, we invite Authors to select those figures that best represent their results, either qualitative or quantitative, according to the adopted methodology. Yet, as a thumb rule, the article paper should be as lean as possible.

Nevertheless, we invite Authors to provide reviewers with all those supplementary materials that are necessary to carry out a review. For example, in case of quantitative research, reviewers might need to look up your database to verify if the results of your analysis match the raw data. This means you can upload more than one file with your submission, and it will be considered as part of your study.

If you want your supplementary materials to be published along your articles, please say so during the copyediting stage. Supplementary materials are files that might contain any number of collected figures, graphs, images, and/or tables. Supplementary materials are not subject to typesetting by the publisher and will be published as they are (provided they meet the scientific and ethical standards of the journal). Alternatively, if your data, figures, or tables, are stored in a different repository, you might ask to link it. However, in this last case, the external repository will not be considered part of your publication with Formazione & insegnamento and should be properly referenced in your article text (even if the editor agrees to have your link included in the article's front-page).

When editing figures, graphs, and tables, please follow these guidelines:

  • Remove all identifying information for the peer-review stage.
  • Always include a caption.
  • Do not include captions inside the image, figure, or table. Captions should always be dealt with as normal text. Keep captions external to the figure.
  • The caption should be explanatory of the content.
  • The caption should contain appropriate parenthetical citations of its sources, if applicable.
  • Graph elements should be appropriately labelled. The journal will not accept figures without labels. Labels could be superimposed or rendered in a separate legend within the figure.
  • If the results can be translated with (up to) a copule of statements, it is very likely you do not need a graph or figure. For example, you do not need a graph or figure to inform the reader that your sample includes 55 males and 45 females. A statement will suffice.
  • Datasets (full or partial) can only be published as supplementary materials.
  • Formazione & insegnamento encourages common sense when it comes to graphs, figures, or tables. For example, Authors should avoid producing figures for each item in a scale, especially if the goal of the scale is to identify high-order properties or constructs. Especially in the main paper, Authors should aim for a synthesis of data and renderings that could fuel interpretation and discussion.
  • All figures should be numbered (Figure 1 to Figure n).
  • All tables should be numbered separately from figures (Table 1 to Table N).
  • All pictures are called "figures" and numbered as figures.
  • All graphs are called "figures" and numbered as figures.
  • If Figure x is not referenced in the text (e.g., parenthetically, or as part of the discussion), then it will be dealt with as redundant during the copyediting stage and treated as a supplementary material. A notification will be sent to the Author. This means all figures and tables shall have some "use" within the article's text.
  • Numbering applies also to supplementary materials, following this pattern: Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Figure 2, etc.
  • Authors are encouraged to use common sense when presenting tables. For example, the publication of absolute frequencies should be done only when the methodology requires it.
  • When choosing colours, Authors are invited to consider readability and accessibility to a diverse audience (e.g., colorblind-friendly palettes).
  • Ensure images are "scalable". Eventually, provide the images in a lossless format as a separate file. Editable formats should be preferred; they include: *.AI, *.SVG, *.EPS, and *.AF. Non-editable formats are the second-best choice; they include: *.TIFF, *.PNG, and *.JPEG. Among the latter, TIFF are the best lossless format. All images should be at least 300 PPI/DPI.
  • As noted above, the highest ethical standards must always be followed. As usual: respect the privacy of your research participants, blur their faces in the pictures, seek permission when required, verify licensing and copyright, etc. Finally, even when the law does not prohibit the publication of an image, consult with the Editor if you have reasons to believe its publication could be of any prejudice to vulnerable segments of the population.

When in doubt, do not hesitate to contact your editor by opening a discussion within the editorial process or by writing at f&i@pensamultimedia.it

All submissions should be edited according to the Formazione & insegnamento format. The instructions could be downloaded here.