About the Journal

Focus and Scope

«Italian Journal of Mycology» is a peer reviewed journal founded in 1972 by Gilberto Govi and Gabriele Goidanich as "Micologia italiana" (Italian Mycology). It was established at the University of Bologna, and it is organ of the “Unione Micologica Italiana”. Since 2015 it is an open access journal hosted and maintained by AlmaDL.
The journal publishes high quality original research studies on ecology, biology and taxonomy of fungi and false fungi. All mycologists, and plant pathologists working with fungal pathogens are invited to submit original manuscripts in English for sharing their knowledge with colleagues from different areas in the world. Conference reports and book reviews on the above mentioned fields are also welcome.
The journal is cited in the following databases:

SCOPUS (Scopus preview - Scopus - Italian Journal of Mycology)

DOAJ (Italian Journal of Mycology – DOAJ)

SCIMAGO (Scimago Journal & Country Rank)

 

Peer Review Process

Italian Journal of Mycology is a peer-reviewed open access journal. All publications undergo a blind peer review process.

Review Process

Submitted manuscripts will be assigned to one of the journal editors. The editor will promptly assess the manuscript and will decide if it is likely to meet the requirement of providing a major advance in a particular field and describing a sufficient body of work to support that claim; if so, it will be sent out for peer review. The editor then make a decision based on the reviewers' comments. There are several types of decision possible:

  • Accept the manuscript as submitted
  • Accept it with minor revision
  • Invite the authors to submit a major revision of the manuscript before a final decision is reached
  • Reject, typically because it does not fit the criteria outlined above of originality, importance to the field, cross-discipline interest, or sound methodology

When differences of opinion occur between reviewers, the editor weigh all comments and arrive at a balanced decision based on all comments. To assist in this process, the reviewer should provide the editor with as much information as possible. A review that clearly outlines reasons both for and against publication is therefore of as much, or even more, value as one that makes a direct recommendation.

If reviewers appear to disagree fundamentally, the editor may choose to share all the reviews with each of the reviewers and by this means elicit additional comment that may help the editor to make a decision. The editor then assess the recommendations and comments of the reviewers alongside comments by the authors and material that may not have been made available to those reviewers. The name of the reviewers are hidden from the authors.

When a paper has been revised in response to comments by reviewers or when authors feel their argument has been misconstrued in review, we ask reviewers to offer additional comments on the revised or contested manuscript. We request that reviewers make themselves available to provide such follow-up advice. We are nevertheless aware that reviewers do not wish to be involved in extended discussions over papers, and we keep such consultations to a minimum while still allowing authors a fair hearing.

Publication Frequency

Italian Journal of Mycology is an annual journal. The journal is updated regularly during the year so to offer an up-to-date overview of the research outcomes.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

It releases its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). It is not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or journal board, although you are kindly requested to inform the journal for every reuse of the papers.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copyrights.

Authors are welcome to post the final draft post-refereeing (postprint) on a personal website, a collaborative wiki, departmental website, social media websites, institutional repository or non-commercial subject-based repositories.

The journal has neither article processing charges nor submission processing fees.

Ethical conduct in scientific publishing

The following statement is inspired by COPE Code of Conduct: 
http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors.pdf

Duties for the Editors

Editors of Italian Journal of Mycology (formerly Micologia Italiana) are responsible for the selection process and the publication of articles submitted to the journal. They will take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the published material and to ensure a fair, unbiased and timely peer review process. Authors have the right to have manuscripts evaluated for their intellectual contents, without discrimination on grounds of their gender, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin.

The peer review process, as described in the journal policies, will be followed by Editors with accuracy. They will keep track of the process and will justify any important deviation of it.

The decision of the Editors as to accept or reject a paper for publication in the journal is based on subject relevance and originality, and is guided by the review of suitably qualified Reviewers. Editors will ensure that appropriate and qualified Reviewers are selected for each submission, and will send to Authors the entirety of their comments — unless their content is offensive.

The Editorial Team adopts a work-flow that ensure that material submitted to the Journal remains confidential while under review. Confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions must be guaranteed.

The Editorial Team provides guidance to Authors that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting, including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists.

Editors will manage their competing interests as well as those of the staff, Reviewers, and Authors.

Editors have a process for handling submissions from the Editors and members of the Editorial Team to ensure unbiased review and the blindness of the peer-review process.

Editors decision may be constrained by legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Editors ensure that contents are published on a timely basis, following the stated frequency. Editors take all reasonable steps to guarantee that the published material is securely preserved and all articles are published in open access, freely available to anyone. Permanent identifiers as DOI and an archiving policy guarantee tracking and preservation of articles in the long term.

Duties for Authors

Author(s) should understand and scrupulously uphold high standards for ethical behaviour in the conduct of research, particularly in relation to the verification and truthful reporting of data, the granting of proper credit, and referencing of the work of others in publication. Plagiarism of another’s work is a form of theft and constitutes serious misconduct.

In publication it is essential that each co-author contributes significantly to the research reported and openly accepts joint responsibility for the work. If these conditions cannot be met, the person should not be included as an author.

Simultaneous submissions of an article describing the same research to more than one publication constitutes misconduct because it wastes editorial and referees’ time for the author’s own purposes. Similarly, publishing the same results in more than one primary research journal is a form of misconduct and is not acceptable. At submission an author is bound to disclose any prior appearance of the work so that the journal may make an informed decision about whether to accept it for peer review.

Authors must declare all the financial and non-financial support for their research. Authors must declare any potential competing interest and must comply with the peer-review process by submitting a properly anonymized manuscript.

Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review. Authors are encouraged to deposit the underlying data in a public or institutional data repository for public accessibility and long-term preservation. Authors are also asked to provide full citation and a link to the deposited underlying data in the accepted manuscript. In case the underlying data cannot be shared on account of ethical or commercial restrictions, Authors should be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication and provide a suitable data availability statement.

Authors are asked to follow the Authors Guidelines published by the Journal, therefore ensuring accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting, including technical editing.

Authors have the responsibility to notify promptly the Editor if a significant error in their articles, both published and unpublished, is identified. Authors will cooperate with Editors in case any issue is raised with their articles.

Duties for Reviewers

Reviewers are provided guidance on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence.

Reviewers are required to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.

Reviewers are encouraged to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publications and plagiarism. They will alert Editors regarding intellectual property issues and plagiarism and work to handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions.

Reviewers should help identifying relevant published work that has not been cited by the Authors. 

Handling of errors and misconducts

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.

The Journal policies will be reviewed periodically, particularly with respect to new recommendations from the COPE (last update: November 2019).

Archiving Policy

The University of Bologna has an archival arrangement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.
http://www.depositolegale.it/editori-aderenti/

Publication Fees

The journal has neither article processing charges nor submission processing fees.

Journal History

The “Italian Journal of Mycology” was founded by prof. Gilberto Govi and by Prof. Gabriele Goidanich in 1972 as “Micologia Italiana” (Italian Mycology). It was established at the University of Bologna, and it is the official organ of the Italian Mycological Society (Unione Micologica Italiana – UMI). Until 2014 it published only in Italian but to increase its circulation it currently publishes in English.

From 1972, it was published by Edagricole S.P.A. and then from 2002 until 2014 by Patron publisher (“Micologia Italiana”, ISSN 0390-0460 (print)). Since 2015, it has been published by the University of Bologna as an open access journal hosted and maintained by ABIS-AlmaDL (“Micologia Italiana”, ISSN 2465-311X (online); from 2016 as “Italian Journal of Mycology” ISSN 2531-7342 (online)).

The first Editor-in-Chief was Prof. Gilberto Govi (University of Bologna) who relinquished this role in 2002 to Dr. Gloria Innocenti (University of Bologna) and Prof. Alessandro Ragazzi (University of Florence). Since 2018 the Editors-in-Chief are Prof. Alessandra Zambonelli (University of Bologna) and Prof. Mirco Iotti (University of L’Aquila).

Publisher

Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-alimentari – DISTAL
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Viale Giuseppe Fanin, 44
40127 - Bologna (Italy)