Italian Journal of Animal Science

Focus and Scope

The Italian Journal of Animal Science is an international peer-reviewed journal publishing original scientific papers, reviews and short communications on animal science, animal production and related areas. It includes sections on: animal derived food quality; reproduction and physiology (ruminants and non-ruminants); animal production (management, behaviour, welfare, health); nutrition and feeding (ruminant and non-ruminant); genetics (quantitative and molecular) and breeding; aquaculture.

Upon request to the Editor, announcements of congresses, presentations of universities, research institutes, books and proceedings may also be published, as well as news regarding the members of the Animal Science and Production Association (ASPA). The Association will be glad to receive proposals for your admission as ordinary or corresponding member: please read regulations and procedures in the ASPA statute.

The publication of manuscripts is subject to the approval of referees and in agreement with the Advisory Board’s opinions; referees will be selected from among qualified scientists in the international scientific community.

Articles must be written in English and must adhere to the guidelines and details contained in the Instructions to Authors. Animal experimentation must meet the International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals, issued by the Council for the International Organisation of Medical Sciences (http://www.cioms.ch).

Section Policies

Peer Review Process

Submission of a manuscript implies that all authors have viewed and approved the paper for release and that each author is responsible for its content. To facilitate the reviewing process, authors are encouraged to have the manuscript reviewed by others before submission. When submitting the manuscript to the journal, authors may indicate reviewers they consider not acceptable because of possible bias in manuscript evaluation or, on the contrary, propose experts as possible reviewers. After a preliminary check of the article, the Editor-in-Chief assigns it to a member of the Editorial Board (Sector Editor), who identifies two reviewers for assistance in the evaluation of the paper submitted and to recommend the acceptance or the rejection of the manuscript. If all referees recommend acceptance or rejection, the decision stands. If the opinions of the referees tie, the Editor-in-Chief and the Sector Editors have the authority to decide upon the acceptance or rejection of the paper.
Reviewers are asked to maintain confidentiality with respect to the information presented in the manuscript and should inform the editor of any possible conflict of interest which may bias their judgement. Reviewers should render their opinions in an unbiased and fair manner, provide helpful guidance to authors in writing and return the manuscript to the journal within 3 weeks. Manuscripts that require revisions are returned by the journal to the corresponding author for improvement.
The revised manuscript, edited in .DOC format, should be resubmitted electronically to the Sector Editor (on ijas.pagepress.org) within 28 days from the date of receipt by the author. If the revised manuscript is returned to the journal after the allotted time, it will be considered a new submission.

Type of the article
The journal publishes original scientific articles in two sections:
⁃ Papers;
⁃ Short communications.
Both should contain data and results that have not appeared in print elsewhere, except in form of abstracts, local reports or partial communications in conference proceedings. Rigid limitations to the length of acceptable contributions will not be applied; in the case of very long articles, authors should consider the possibility of presenting their work in the form of companion papers. Obviously, a short communication is basically brief, but chiefly it has a simple layout and a small number of citations.
⁃ Review articles
The Editorial Board will also welcome clearly written and detailed review articles of topics within the scope of the journal, but authors of such reviews should contact the Editor-in Chief at an early stage in their preparation. The Editor can also request such contributions (invited papers).

Refusal or Acceptance
The corresponding author is notified when his manuscript is refused or accepted by the Editor-in-Chief. In the case of acceptance, manuscripts undergo scientific copyediting and linguistic revision: at this step the office can request additional adjustments and completes the manuscript accepted for publication in the Journal with the date of arrival and the date of final acceptance.
Finally, the corresponding author will receive galley proofs from the publisher for corrections. The author(s) is (are) responsible for the accuracy of the galley proofs.

Publishing costs
The cost for publication in IJAS is € 500,00 (+ 20% IVA/VAT tax) per article, without any limitation in pages number or in coloured figures, completely free; for teams of authors that include one ASPA member or Advisory Board’s member as corresponding author, the cost is € 250,00 (+ 20% IVA/VAT tax) per article. In both cases the publication charge includes the cost of the linguistic revision.

Publication Frequency

All papers are published as soon as they have been accepted, by adding them to the "current" volume's Table of Contents.

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.