1. Focus and Scope
   

«AOQU. Achilles Orlando Quixote Ulysses» is the offspring of «Ottava rima», a team of four scholars based at University of Milan interested in Italian epic poetry in ottavas.

The Journal aims to be a forum for scholars from multiple disciplines to discuss Epics beyond linguistic, cultural and chronological boundaries. Epic poetry will be seen as a cultural, moral and ideological model, defining self-perception in history and society, in relationship with other cultures, ideologies as well as collective imagination.

The Journal welcomes essays in Italian, English, French or Spanish, exploring the role of the Epic model (either as a genre proper or as a register) in different cultures up to our days, including non-literary approaches. The Journal will also welcome proposals for monographic issues on specific topics.

The Journal is biannual and is Open Access on OJS 3 platform within a project sponsored by the Faculty of Studi umanistici (Humanities) of the University of Milan.

 

2. Peer review process
   

Each submitted manuscript must be approved by the Editors-in-Chief or by a member of the Scientific Committee and it is then reviewed by two external reviewers under a double-blind peer review process. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript based on its originality and methodological rigour. The reviewers are asked to submit a report motivating one of the following publication recommendations: accept as it is, reject or revisions required. In case of acceptance subject to revisions, the reviewers' report will be sent to the author by the Editorial Staff.

 

3. Publication Frequency
   

«AOQU» publishes twice a year.

 

4. Open access Policy

The journal «AOQU» provides immediate open access to its content on the principles that publicly funded research must be freely accessible to the public and that making research freely available supports a greater global exchange of knowledge and fosters progress. «AOQU» is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0). With the licence CC-BY-SA, authors retain the copyright, allowing anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy their contribution.

Preprint and postprint version of the articles can be archived anywhere under the same license.

The work must be properly attributed to its author. «AOQU» does not charge either submission or publication fees nor article-processing expenses. 

The journal is indexed DOAJ: https://www.doaj.org/toc/2724-3346.

 

5. Publication Ethics
   

AOQU is a peer-reviewed journal, informed by the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All parties involved in the act of publishing (the Authors, the Editors, the Reviewers) agree to the following standards of expected ethical behavior.

Editors

• Accountability and Responsibility for Journal Content
  
• The Editors take full responsibility for everything published in the Journal. The Editors may confer with the Scientific Committee or Reviewers in making their decision. The Editors are constrained by the requirements of current laws about libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
• Fair Play
• The Editors evaluate manuscripts on academic merit alone, without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• Editorial Confidentiality
  
• The Editors and any Editorial Staff strive to protect the confidentiality of Authors’ material. They must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, the reviewers or potential reviewers, the Editorial Staff.
• Conflicts of Interest
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in Editors’ own research without the express written consent of the Author.

Peer Reviewers

• Professional Responsibility
  
• The peer review process is an essential model for AOQU. The peer review process assists the Editors in accepting or rejecting a manuscript and the Authors in improving their paper.
• Timeliness
  
• Referees who feel unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that a prompt review will be impossible, should promptly notify the editor and excuse themselves from the review process.
• Confidentiality
• Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editors.
• Bias and competing interests
• The Referee provides a fair, honest, and unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. Any personal judgment on the author is inappropriate.
• Bibliographical Advice
  
• The Referee should explain what additional analyses would clarify the work submitted. The Referee should also call to the Editors’ attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
• Conflicts of Interest
  
• Any information obtained through the peer review process is confidential and can’t be used for personal interests.

Authors

• Authorship and Responsibility
  
• All Authors take responsibility for the conduct and validity of their research, and must always appropriately quote from their sources.
• Multiple or Concurrent Publication
  
• An Author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour.
• Authorship of the Paper
  
• All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
• Rights
• The Authors maintain their rights to intellectual property, granting the Journal the non exclusive right of publishing the paper.
• Conflict of Interest
• The Authors should reveal in their abstract and manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretations of the abstract/article. All sources for financial support for the project should be unveiled and inserted in the METADATA information sheet.
• Errors and Corrections
  
• If an Author detects a substantial error, he must promptly inform the Editors.

 

6. Archiving

The University of Milan has an archival arrangement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.

The journal has enabled the PKP PN (Preservation Network) plugin, in order to preserve digital contents through LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)  project

 

7. Plagiarism

Editors have a duty to act promptly in case of errors and misconducts, both proven and alleged. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. In case such as errors in articles or in the publication process, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate steps will be taken, following the recommendations, guidelines and flowcharts from COPE.  Corrections will happen with due prominence, including the publication of an erratum (errors from the publication process), corrigendum (errors from the Author(s)) or, in the most severe cases, the retraction of the affected work. Retracted papers will be retained online, and they will be prominently marked as a retraction in all online versions, including the PDF, for the benefit of future readers.