About the Journal

AIMS AND SCOPE
Rivista italiana di informatica e diritto (RIID) is an online international scientific journal published by the Institute of Legal Informatics and Judicial Systems of the National Research Council of Italy (IGSG-CNR).
RIID accepts contributions on the subjects of legal informatics and information and communication technologies (ICTs) law. These two scientific fields intersect and overlap. They include studies and critical analyses both on the application of ICTs in the field of law and on the regulation of ICTs in contemporary societies. The journal includes papers on legal informatics (e.g., inter alia, automatic legal documentation; legal information systems; digital tools for public administration and legal professions; artificial intelligence techniques and knowledge representation applied to law; ejustice; etc.) and computer law – in the fields of both public law (e.g., Internet and human rights; Internet governance; use of ICTs in the public sphere; etc.) and private law (e.g., regulation of social network, contracts for ICTs services, smart contracts, data protection and privacy, etc.). RIID welcomes papers in Italian and also in French, English, Portuguese, Spanish and German.

PUBLISHING SCHEDULE
RIID is a semi-annual journal.

EDITORIAL TEAM
The governing bodies of RIID, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal scope, are as follows: the Editors in chief, the Scientific editorial board and the Scientific committee.
Manuscripts submitted for publication are evaluated by external experts.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY
All contents of RIID are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Readers have free online access to the contents of all issues of the Journal.
RIID is indexed in DOAJ – Directory of open access journals.

PUBLICATION EXPENSES, FEES AND REVENUE SOURCES
RIID does not charge authors fees for submitting, processing or publishing papers. The journal’s expenses are fully covered by the publisher (IGSG-CNR). RIID does not publish any advertising material.

PEER REVIEW
Papers published in the "Studies and Research", "Notes and Discussions", "Systems and Applications" sections as well as in monograph sections and issues are subject to double-blind peer review (except those sent to the Journal at the invitation of the Editors in Chief).

HISTORY
With the publication of the new Rivista Italiana di Informatica e Diritto, the IGSG-CNR continues its publishing activity, started way back in 1972 with the publication firstly of the Bollettino bibliografico d’informatica generale e applicata al diritto and, then, since 1975 of Informatica e Diritto, journal of the then Istituto per la Documentazione Giuridica (IDG-CNR), which later became Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell'Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG-CNR), now merged into IGSG-CNR.
For many years Informatica e diritto represented in Italy the only journal dedicated to the scientific deepening of quite unexplored research topics, such as legal informatics and computer law.
At the time of its birth, in 1975, the aspiration of the promoters of Informatica e diritto was to «begin in Italy a critical, scientifically grounded, discourse on information technology and on the relationship of this new discipline and social reality with law» with the conviction of «filling the cultural void existing in the panorama of Italian journals and, in particular, of legal journals» (as written by the editors of the journal Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, Mario G. Losano and Costantino Ciampi). The Journal aimed to respond to the «need for a unified approach to information technology on the part of the jurist and no longer separated by sphere of interest», following a model that was emerging in other countries, continuing the experience already begun in 1972 with Bollettino bibliografico d'informatica generale e applicata al diritto.
Over the course of more than forty years, Informatica e Diritto has successfully fulfilled the functions envisioned by its founders. From an informational perspective, the Journal has provided readers with insights into ideas, issues, and developments in the field of legal informatics and IT law, while also offering an overview of research in what was then an emerging sector, along with its legal, political, and social implications. Equally significant has been its role in scientific analysis, the promotion of research, and the aggregation of specialized and sectoral studies. The Journal has served as a platform for ideas and reflections that have played a crucial role in the evolution of legal informatics, both in Italy and internationally. Some essays published in Informatica e Diritto remain milestones in the history of the discipline, attesting to the importance and impact the Journal has had on the scientific debate concerning the relationship between law and information and communication technologies. Throughout its history, the Journal has benefited from the collaboration of a distinguished group of international correspondents, including: Y. Amoroso, T.J.M. Bench Capon, D. Bourcier, W.E. Boyd, V. De Mulder, J. Dumortier, F. Galindo, A. Gardner, T. Gordon, G. Greenleaf, O.P. Hance, W. Kilian, F. Lachmayer, P. Leith, E. Mackaay, A. Macintosh, P. Maharg, J. Mayor, L.T. McCarty, F. Novak, A. Paliwala, A.E. Perez-Luño, R. Petrauskas, L. Philipps, Y. Poullet, A. Saarempaa, E. Schweighofer, P. Seipel, R. Susskind, W.R. Svoboda, H. Yoshino, T. Van Engers, M.A. Wimmer, R. Winkels, J. Zeleznikow.
In 2019, the Institute of Legal Informatics and Judicial Systems (IGSG) has opened a new page in the history of its journal, now published via Internet following an open access policy to scientific publications (according to the "Diamond Open Access" model): thus, Rivista italiana di informatica e diritto was born, representing the direct continuation of Informatica e diritto from which it inherits the scientific program, the approach and the wide openness to the international reality, as well as the members of the governing bodies, which other scholars has agreed to join, enriching these bodies with their expertise.

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTISE STATEMENT
The Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement of Rivista italiana di informatica e diritto follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on ethics practices in scholarly publications.
It is expected of Authors, Reviewers, Editorial Team and Publisher that they follow the guidelines on ethical behaviour laid down in this document.

Duties of Editorial Team (Editors, Scientifc Editorial Board, Editorial Staff)
Publication decisions
The Editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo double blind peer-review.
The Editors, supported by the Scientific Editorial Board, preliminarily examine the submitted manuscripts to assess their relevance to the scientific disciplines of interest to the Journal and, in case of positive evaluation, assign them to two reviewers expert in the field, according to the criteria of competence and rotation, so as to ensure adequate evaluation of the submitted manuscripts for the purpose of publication.
The Editors are responsible for the decision to publish manuscripts submitted to the Journal that pass the reviewers’ evaluation positively.
The Editors commit to clearly identify any papers that have been invited for publication; such papers are not submitted for reviewers’ evaluation.
The Editors will respect the rules into force regarding copyright infringement, plagiarism and defamation.

Fairness and non-discrimination
Submitted manuscripts are evaluated exclusively on the basis of their academic merit and its relevance to the Journal’s scope, without regard to the Authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation.

Confidentiality and conflict of interest
Editors, Scientific Editorial Board members and Editorial Staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author and the reviewers.
Editorial Team will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the Authors’ explicit written consent.

Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist Authors in improving their manuscripts.

Promptness
Any invited Reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the Editors and decline the invitation to review.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others than the Editors, the Editorial Staff and the Reviewers.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that Authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the Authors is inappropriate.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the Authors. A Reviewer should also notify the Editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the Reviewer’s personal advantage.
Any invited Reviewer who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the Authors (in case the Authors although unknown could be identified by deduction), companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a Reviewer’s own research without the explicit written consent of the Authors.

Duties of Authors
Originality and plagiarism
Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and not submitted at the same time to other journal or volumes, unless expressly allowed by the Editors.
Authors should ensure, if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited.
Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, Authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Authorship of the manuscript
The people listed as Authors of a submitted manuscript shall only be those individuals who have made a significant contribution to the reported research and/or to the drafting of the paper itself.
All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript should be acknowledged.
The corresponding Author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors are included in the Authors list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Conflict of interest
Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript.
All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works
When Authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the Journal’s Editors or Publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the Editors or Publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the Authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the Journal Editors of the correctness of the paper.

Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable.

Duties of the Publisher
Handling of unethical publishing behaviour
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the Publisher, in close collaboration with the Editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The Publisher, together with the Editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

Access to Journal content
The Publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining its own digital archive.

Download Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement pdf.