Code of Ethics
Plan
Haut de pageThe journal Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, which is supported by the InSHS and published under the responsibility of Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, follows the principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). In the context of the journal’s Open-SHS project that was awarded funding in the second call for projects by France’s national fund for open science (Fonds national pour la science ouverte), Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods has drawn up the following Code of Ethics, outlining the reciprocal duties and responsibilities of all the actors involved in the editorial process: members of the editorial board, editors-in-chief, assistant editor, authors, reviewers, and translators.
1. The journal’s duties and responsibilities
1. 1. Members of the scientific committee
The scientific committee of Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is made up of members who give their academic endorsement to the publication and who help with both running it and promoting it nationally and internationally. The committee is composed of academics from France and abroad who are recognized specialists in the various fields covered by the journal and who ensure its national and international presence in these disciplines. Its members are nominated and nominations are then validated by the editorial board. Members can pass on advice and opinions to the editorial board at any time.
1. 2. Members and roles of the editorial board
The editorial board, with the support of an editorial assistant, runs the journal Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods in keeping with its editorial policy. The list of its members, along with those of the scientific committee, is provided on a separate page. The editorial board comprises around fifteen French-speaking researchers from several disciplines. They are co-opted and any current board member can nominate a researcher who works on topics that fall under the journal’s remit (the arts, culture, ideas, symbolic goods more generally). Each nomination is discussed by the board. The editorial board is committed, as far as possible, to achieving gender parity, to maintaining a balance between the disciplines of its members, and to ensuring that the latter all enjoy equal status.
The members of the Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods editorial board meet once every two months, in hybrid mode. As far as possible, decisions are made by consensus or, when this is not possible, by relative majority vote among those present, with the exception of votes on issues relating to the journal’s future which require an absolute majority. Any member of the editorial board can choose to resign, or to suspend their position temporarily, by informing the whole board.
With a view to division of labour, the members of the editorial board undertake to participate equally in the journal’s activities. This includes involvement in publication processes but also in related tasks in connection with the journal’s activities (organizing academic events, doing budget management, applying for funding, contributing to indexation, etc.) Members of the editorial board regularly review article submissions, call upon outside experts, supervise the production of special issues in collaboration with the coordinators, and are responsible for the editorial management of the Sections as well as of the journal’s Hypothèses blog. Each member contributes to enhancing the visibility of the journal and its issues.
1. 3 Editors-in-chief
The editors-in-chief coordinate the journal’s activities and serve as its official representatives. They also supervise the work of the assistant editor.
There are two editors-in-chief. The editorial board elects them by relative majority vote. Their mandate is limited to two years, renewable twice. The editors-in-chief are free to resign during their mandate. In such a case, an election is held to appoint their successor(s).
1. 4. Peer review process
The editorial board of Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is committed to ensuring scientific excellence at all times and applies the same rigour and criteria to all submissions, whatever their authors’ status in the academic world. That being said, the board gives particular attention to early career researchers and strives to support them as best as possible; while they are subject to the same stringent requirements as any other authors, they may receive more editorial and writing assistance.
A ‘first read’ is performed on every spontaneous submission for a Miscellany issue by one member of the editorial board; this member is designated on a rotating basis following alphabetical order. All articles are systematically be run through anti-plagiarism software (Compilatio).
This initial reading, guided by a form, allows the journal to determine whether articles fall under its scope and whether they meet the minimum academic standards. When this is the case, the articles are then passed on for peer review. Authors are informed of this, within one to two months of submission. Articles submitted as part of a thematic issue go straight to peer review without passing through this stage, since the initial selection process has already been carried out by the coordinators, in discussion with the editorial board.
The journal has opted for one internal review and one external review. The peer review process usually takes six weeks. The peer review form given to reviewers is available in appendix. The journal undertakes to pass on anonymized versions of articles to external reviewers and, in return, also to preserve reviewers’ anonymity with authors. Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is committed to recognizing the work done by reviewers and therefore makes public the full list of people who are not on the editorial board and who have reviewed at least one article for the journal. In addition to this double peer review, articles are frequently read by other members of the board in order to encourage open and informed academic debate around submissions. After peer review, the editorial board decides whether or not articles are publishable: articles may be ‘rejected’, ‘accepted without revisions’, ‘accepted with minor revisions’, or ‘accepted with major revisions’ (with or without a further round of reviews). In cases where opinions diverge, the editorial board reserves the right to call upon another internal and/or external reviewer to carry out a further peer review. The board then produces a synthesis of the different reviews. If major revisions are requested, the revised version may be reviewed internally or both internally and externally. The peer review process usually takes six weeks at each stage.
The editorial board undertakes to avoid any conflict of interest in the peer review process for its articles and thematic issues. When an article or a thematic issue is submitted by a member of the editorial board, that member is not involved in the discussions. Similarly, with a view to maintaining anonymity and avoiding any bias in the peer review process, external reviewers are selected so as to avoid any close ties with authors (for example, an author’s PhD supervisor cannot review their submission).
The articles submitted to be published in the other sections are not peer reviewed through the double-blind peer reviewing process. These articles are examined by members of the editorial board in charge of the relevant section.
1. 5. Publishing timeframe
At each stage in the publication process, the journal undertakes to update authors in a timely fashion so as to avoid extending the publication timeframe. However, that timeframe does include all the different stages mentioned above: the article goes through a ‘first read’, reviewers are contacted, the article is reviewed, the board discusses and synthesizes the peer reviews, feedback is provided to the author(s), the author(s) produce(s) a new version, a second round of peer reviews takes place, reviews are discussed and a second round of feedback is provided to the author(s), another new version is potentially produced (the number of versions varies from one article to another), the final version is validated, formal proofreading is performed before translation, the article is translated, the translation is checked, and finally the article is formatted and published online. The timeframe may be extended by difficulties in finding external reviewers, by unforeseen circumstances for either authors or reviewers, or by outside events (social movements, pandemic, etc.).
1. 6. Translation of articles
For the translation of academic articles from and into English, the journal commits to working as systematically as possible with professional translators specializing in the social sciences and humanities, in keeping with the values of ATESS (association of translators and editors specializing in the social sciences). The selected translators are paid 17 cents per word (2023 rate) and are systematically cited at the beginning of the articles they have translated. The translations are attentively compared to the originals by the assistant editor and, when possible, by the author(s) of the original version.
As an exception, the journal may sometimes publish articles translated into French by specialist researchers on the editorial board with a view to making available in French important contributions to an area of research that were initially written in other languages.
1. 7. Editing
The editorial board undertakes to carry out careful editing work preparing the articles accepted for publication. Members of the editorial board may make suggestions for rewriting certain passages in order to improve the legibility and clarity of the arguments being made. The assistant editor may also revise punctuation and syntax. She proofreads and corrects articles based on the style guide determined by the journal. She also ensures that bibliographical references are homogeneous.
Before publication, article proofs are sent to authors to check within a timeframe of a few weeks. The assistant editor undertakes to integrate authors’ requests for corrections, although these must remain minor at this stage in the publication process (no substantial portions can be deleted and the text cannot be restructured). The proofs are also read by a member of the editorial board who also only requests formal corrections at this stage.
At the end of the process, the journal undertakes to provide authors with the final version of the manuscript accepted for publication (pre-mock up), in accordance with article L533-4 of the Code de la recherche [Research code], resulting from article 30 of the loi du 7 octobre 2016 pour une République digitale [the Act of 7 October 2016, for a Digital Republic]. It also provides authors with the formatted version of their article (known as the ‘publisher’s PDF’) which it authorizes – and encourages – them to upload to an open public archive (in particular HAL).
1. 8. Dissemination
When an issue is published online, the journal undertakes to ensure its broad dissemination, through the work of its assistant editor and board members. Its publication is announced on both academic and non-academic social networks, via the appropriate academic e-mail lists, and directly to specifically targeted non-French-speaking researchers with a view to enhancing international visibility.
2. Authors’ duties and responsibilities
2. 1. Academic quality
Authors undertake only to submit original articles of which they are the authors. Articles submitted must not have been published in another journal or as part of a book. They must also not be submitted in parallel to another journal or publisher.
In the case of thematic issues only, it is possible to submit an article that has already been published in a foreign language when its publication in Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is justified by the contribution it makes to the thematic issue and by the value of making it accessible to a French-language readership. In this case, the version put forward for publication in BS / SG should be reworked and should present some originality, for example a previously unpublished introduction. The new article must reference the initial publication, with precise references, and can only be published in Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods with the initial publisher’s permission.
The journal can also accept manuscripts that are available elsewhere (particularly on HAL) in the form of working documents (or ‘preprints’).
Whatever their academic ranks, any authors who have made a significant contribution to the writing of an article, and these authors alone, must be mentioned as authors. Authors are encouraged to mention in a footnote any person outside the journal who read the contribution either before submission or during the publication process, as well as any bodies that funded the research leading to the production of the article.
Authors undertake to cite all sources and bibliographical references used in producing the article. References must be cited according to the journal’s style guide, from the very first version of the article.
Authors undertake to follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and to ensure the anonymization, and more generally the protection of personal data, of the people encountered during the investigation leading to the article submitted (see the French national data protection agency’s recommendations).
Authors are encouraged to deposit the data linked to their contribution, as early as possible, in a dedicated repository (see the recommendations for open research data). Making the data linked to the publication available remains, however, the authors’ responsibility and is in no way a prerequisite to a manuscript being accepted. The journal encourages authors to deposit their data with a view to other researchers being able to make use of them (with appropriate source citation) and because these data (such as questionnaires, databases, or audio/audio-visual material) may provide readers with enlightening supplementary material to which authors can refer throughout their articles.
Finally, authors guarantee that their manuscript respects the standards of academic debate and contains no defamatory statements that might be interpreted as an attack on the reputation of a third party.
2. 2. Funding and conflicts of interest
Authors undertake to declare any potential conflict of interest and to state explicitly their position and links within the field on which their work is based.
2. 3. Publication process
When submitting their articles, authors should take care to include an abstract of approximately 1,000 characters, a bibliography, and an illustration, and should follow the style guide for authors. They are responsible for ensuring they have the rights to all the illustrations they provide and for including exact references for each.
Throughout the publication process, authors undertake to take into account the reviews they receive. When they submit a new version after a request for major revisions, they must outline explicitly the changes they have made, either in a separate document or in the body of the email sent to the editorial board.
Finally, authors undertake to meet the deadlines negotiated by the journal, particularly when their contribution is part of a thematic issue. In the case of difficulties respecting these deadlines, authors are asked to inform the editorial board as soon as possible.
2. 4. Dissemination
Authors undertake to play a role in disseminating their contribution by announcing its publication to their network(s) and by providing the journal with a list of non-French-speaking researchers likely to be interested in their article, with a view to encouraging the international circulation of academic publications and knowledge.
3. Reviewers’ duties and responsibilities
3. 1. Contents of the review
Internal and external reviewers undertake to produce a detailed review of the article given to them, according to the peer review form provided by the journal. All remarks about substance and form must be constructive and help the authors as much as possible in revising their article; concrete suggestions for rewording or additional references are strongly encouraged.
3. 2. Confidentiality
Reviewers undertake to respect the confidentiality of the content submitted to them for review, not to make any personal use of it, and not to divulge it to anyone else before the article is published.
3. 3. Conflicts of interest
Reviewers undertake to inform the Editorial Board of any potential conflict of interest as soon as they are approached. If the reviewer believes that he or she recognises the author of the article to be reviewed, he or she must inform the Editorial Board, in particular in the following cases: investigation relationship (if the reviewer was one of the author’s respondents, for example as part of an investigation of the sociology of science and intellectuals), intimate links, links as a member of the jury for the author’s PhD thesis or HDR (habilitation à diriger des recherche) defence.
4. Translators’ duties and responsibilities
Translators undertake to produce a careful translation within the timeframe determined with the assistant editor and to follow the instructions for translators (in appendix).
Like the reviewers, the translators undertake to respect the confidentiality of the content provided to them and not to divulge it, under any circumstances, to anyone else before publication.
(translated from French by Lucy Garnier; last updated in March 2025)
Documents annexes
-
“First read” grid (application/pdf – 209k)
-
Peer review form (application/pdf – 179k)
-
Translation Guidelines (application/pdf – 243k)
-
Modèle de contrat revue-auteurs (application/pdf – 371k)