Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how personal data are processed in connection with The Scholarship of Research (SOR), its journal website, online submission system, peer-review activities, editorial communications, and related scholarly publishing services.

Contact Information

Data Controller
iEditore
Via Baccio Bandinelli, 40
50142 Florence (FI), Italy
Email of Data Controller: info@ieditore.com

For journal-related and editorial enquiries concerning The Scholarship of Research, please contact: sor@ieditore.com.

Scope of this Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to users of the The Scholarship of Research website and manuscript submission platform, including authors, co-authors, reviewers, editors, Editorial Board members, readers, registered users, and individuals who communicate with the Journal or its publisher.

The processing of personal data is carried out by iEditore as Data Controller in accordance with applicable data-protection legislation, including Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR).

Types of Data Collected

Depending on the services used and the role of the individual within the Journal, the following categories of Personal Data may be processed:

name and surname;
email address and other contact information;
username and account credentials;
institutional affiliation, department, city, and country;
academic and professional role;
ORCID iD and other researcher identifiers;
areas of scientific and methodological expertise;
authorship and contributor information;
manuscript and submission metadata;
peer-review assignments and reviewer reports;
editorial decisions and correspondence;
conflict-of-interest, funding, and disclosure information;
information contained in files voluntarily submitted to the Journal;
IP address, Usage Data, log information, and Tracking Tools;
information provided through contact forms or direct correspondence.

Personal Data may be provided directly by Users, generated through participation in the editorial and peer-review process, or collected automatically when Users interact with the website.

Unless otherwise specified, information identified as mandatory is necessary for the Journal to provide the relevant service. Failure to provide required information may make it impossible to create an account, submit or review a manuscript, participate in the editorial process, or use certain website functions.

Where information is indicated as optional, Users may choose not to provide it without affecting access to services for which that information is not necessary.

Users who submit Personal Data relating to third parties, including co-authors, collaborators, or suggested reviewers, are responsible for ensuring that they are entitled to provide such information for the relevant scholarly publishing purpose.

Purposes of Data Processing

Personal Data may be processed for purposes including:

creating and administering user accounts;
receiving and managing manuscript submissions;
administering editorial assessment and peer review;
identifying and inviting qualified peer reviewers;
communicating with authors, reviewers, editors, and readers;
producing and publishing scholarly articles and their metadata;
registering and disseminating publication metadata;
maintaining the integrity and provenance of the scholarly record;
preventing plagiarism, fraud, research misconduct, and peer-review manipulation;
managing corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, complaints, and appeals;
fulfilling legal, regulatory, contractual, and scholarly publishing obligations;
maintaining website security and preventing malicious activity;
providing technical support;
monitoring and improving website performance and usability;
producing aggregated or anonymised statistics concerning journal activity;
preserving published content and associated scholarly metadata.

Editorial and Peer-Review Data

Participation in scholarly publishing requires the processing of information that is necessary for submission, editorial evaluation, peer review, publication, and preservation of the scholarly record.

For authors, this may include names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, contact information, authorship information, contribution statements, funding disclosures, conflicts of interest, submission history, correspondence, manuscript files, and editorial decisions.

For reviewers, this may include names, affiliations, contact details, areas of expertise, ORCID iDs where supplied, review invitations, responses to invitations, reviewer reports, recommendations, and information required to assess potential conflicts of interest.

For editors and Editorial Board members, the Journal may process professional information, contact details, institutional affiliations, areas of expertise, editorial assignments, decisions, and related correspondence.

Such information is used solely for legitimate scholarly publishing, editorial, research-integrity, administrative, and record-keeping purposes.

Peer-Review Confidentiality

The Scholarship of Research normally operates a double-anonymous peer-review process for standard externally reviewed manuscripts.

Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors as part of the ordinary double-anonymous review process, and reviewers do not receive identifying author information through the review manuscript where appropriate anonymisation has been provided.

Access to confidential peer-review information is restricted to authorised members of the Editorial Office, Editors, and other individuals who require access for legitimate editorial or technical purposes.

Peer-review information may nevertheless need to be disclosed when required by law, during formal research-integrity investigations, or where disclosure is otherwise necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Published Personal Data

Certain Personal Data are intentionally published as part of the permanent scholarly record. These may include:

author names;
institutional affiliations;
ORCID iDs;
corresponding-author details;
author contribution statements;
funding information;
conflict-of-interest declarations;
acknowledgements;
article metadata and bibliographic information.

Once legitimately published as part of the scholarly record, such information may also be distributed to scholarly infrastructure providers, indexing services, libraries, repositories, metadata registries, preservation systems, search engines, and research discovery services.

The Journal has an obligation to preserve the accuracy, integrity, provenance, and permanence of the scholarly record. Requests affecting information contained in published articles will therefore be considered in accordance with applicable data-protection law, publication-ethics principles, and the Journal's correction and retraction policies.

Methods of Data Processing

The Data Controller adopts appropriate technical and organisational measures intended to prevent unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, loss, misuse, or destruction of Personal Data.

Processing is carried out using electronic, digital, and organisational systems appropriate to the purposes described in this Policy.

In addition to the Data Controller, Personal Data may be accessible to authorised personnel involved in journal administration, editorial management, publishing, production, technical support, legal compliance, information technology, and system administration.

External service providers, including hosting providers, information-technology suppliers, digital preservation services, scholarly infrastructure providers, email services, and other technical partners, may process Personal Data on behalf of the Data Controller where necessary.

Where required by applicable law, such parties are appointed as Data Processors or are otherwise subject to appropriate contractual and data-protection obligations.

Location of Processing and International Transfers

Personal Data are processed at the operating locations of the Data Controller and at locations where authorised service providers involved in processing operate.

Some technical, scholarly infrastructure, hosting, analytics, or communication providers may process information outside the country in which the User is located.

Where Personal Data are transferred outside the European Economic Area, the Data Controller applies appropriate safeguards where required under applicable data-protection law.

Users may contact the Data Controller for further information concerning international data transfers and applicable safeguards.

Retention Period

Personal Data are retained for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes for which they were collected and may be retained for longer where required by law, contractual obligations, legitimate scholarly publishing requirements, research-integrity obligations, or the need to preserve the scholarly record.

Certain information associated with published articles, editorial decisions, peer review, corrections, retractions, authorship, and publication history may need to be retained for extended periods in order to preserve an accurate and reliable scholarly record.

Inactive user accounts and other administrative data may be periodically reviewed and deleted or anonymised when continued retention is no longer necessary, subject to applicable legal and scholarly record-keeping requirements.

Research Integrity and Publication Ethics

Personal Data may be processed when necessary to investigate concerns relating to research integrity, publication ethics, authorship, peer-review manipulation, plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, conflicts of interest, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, or other forms of suspected misconduct.

Where reasonably necessary, relevant information may be exchanged with authors, reviewers, Editors, academic institutions, research organisations, funding bodies, publishers, ethics committees, or other competent organisations in accordance with applicable law and recognised publication-ethics procedures.

Such processing is undertaken only to the extent reasonably necessary to investigate and resolve legitimate concerns and protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

External Scholarly Services and Metadata Distribution

In order to publish, identify, disseminate, preserve, and increase the discoverability of scholarly content, the Journal may provide article metadata and relevant published information to external scholarly infrastructure services.

These may include, where applicable:

DOI registration agencies;
indexing and abstracting databases;
library catalogues;
research discovery platforms;
digital repositories;
long-term preservation and archiving services;
researcher identifier systems;
citation and metadata services.

Only information appropriate to the relevant scholarly purpose is transmitted.

Contacting the User

The Journal may contact Users when necessary for purposes connected with manuscript submission, peer review, editorial evaluation, publication, account administration, research integrity, technical support, or other activities directly related to the scholarly publishing service.

Users may also voluntarily contact the Journal through forms or email.

Personal Data processed may include name, email address, professional information, and any information voluntarily included in the communication.

Scholarly and Editorial Communications

The Journal may send communications directly related to its scholarly activities, including:

submission and editorial notifications;
peer-review invitations and reminders;
publication and production communications;
calls for papers;
special issue announcements;
relevant journal news and scholarly initiatives.

Promotional or informational communications must comply with the Journal's Direct Marketing Policy and applicable data-protection requirements.

Recipients may request not to receive non-essential promotional communications. Operational communications necessary for an active manuscript, review assignment, editorial responsibility, or user account may nevertheless continue where required to provide the requested service.

Spam and Security Protection

The Journal website may use technical systems intended to prevent spam, automated attacks, fraudulent activity, unauthorised access, and other malicious use.

Where Google reCAPTCHA or another comparable service is used, the provider may process technical and Usage Data necessary to determine whether interactions originate from legitimate Users or automated systems.

Google reCAPTCHA – Google Ireland Limited

Google reCAPTCHA is a service intended to protect websites from spam and automated abuse.

Personal Data potentially processed may include Usage Data, Tracking Tools, clicks, keypress events, mouse movements, scroll position, touch events, responses to security questions, and other technical interaction information.

Location of processing: Ireland. For further information, see Google Privacy Policy.

Analytics and Website Statistics

The Journal may use analytics services to understand how its website is accessed and used, monitor technical performance, identify errors, improve usability, and produce aggregated usage statistics.

Depending on the technologies enabled on the website, such services may process Usage Data and Tracking Tools in accordance with the relevant Cookie Policy and consent requirements.

Displaying Content from External Platforms

The Journal website may incorporate content or technical resources provided by external platforms.

Such services may process technical information relating to Users who visit pages on which the external resource is integrated, even where the User does not directly interact with that content.

Google Fonts – Google Ireland Limited

Where externally hosted Google Fonts are used, Google may receive Usage Data and technical information necessary to provide the requested font resources.

Location of processing: Ireland. For further information, see Google Privacy Policy.

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

The website may use cookies and similar technologies that are necessary for authentication, security, user sessions, preferences, analytics, or other functions described in this Policy.

Where consent is legally required for non-essential tracking technologies, such technologies should not be activated until the User has provided the required consent.

Further information concerning cookies, individual tracking technologies, retention periods, and available consent controls is provided in the applicable Cookie Policy.

Defense of Legal Claims

Personal Data may be used by the Data Controller where necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims, including during preparatory stages of potential litigation or proceedings arising from misuse of the Journal website or associated services.

The Data Controller may also be required to disclose information where legally required by courts, public authorities, regulatory bodies, or other competent authorities.

User Rights under the GDPR

Subject to the conditions and limitations established by applicable law, Users may exercise the following rights:

Right of access to Personal Data (Article 15 GDPR);
Right to rectification of inaccurate Personal Data (Article 16 GDPR);
Right to erasure in applicable circumstances (Article 17 GDPR);
Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR);
Right to data portability where applicable (Article 20 GDPR);
Right to object to certain processing activities (Article 21 GDPR);
Right to withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal;
Right to lodge a complaint with the competent Data Protection Authority.

Certain rights, including erasure and rectification, may be subject to limitations when Personal Data form part of the permanent scholarly record or when continued processing is necessary to comply with legal obligations, establish or defend legal claims, investigate research-integrity matters, or preserve the accuracy and integrity of published scholarly content.

Exercising Data-Protection Rights

Requests concerning Personal Data or the exercise of GDPR rights should be addressed to the Data Controller:

iEditore
Via Baccio Bandinelli, 40
50142 Florence (FI), Italy
Email: info@ieditore.com

The Data Controller may request information reasonably necessary to verify the identity of the individual making the request before acting on it.

Journal Contact

For matters relating specifically to submissions, peer review, editorial procedures, or publications in The Scholarship of Research, please contact: sor@ieditore.com.

Requests concerning personal-data rights or the exercise of GDPR rights must instead be addressed to the Data Controller at info@ieditore.com.

Last modified: September 15, 2026