The Revue des sciences sociales Code of Ethics
Plan
Haut de pageThe present code takes into account the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), decisions and opinions expressed by the Ethics Committee of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS – Centre national de recherche scientifique) (see their guide Pratiquer une recherche intègre et responsable (Practicing research with integrity and responbility) and the Charte nationale de déontologie des métiers de la recherche (National charter of deontology in research).
By applying these standards of good practice, the Revue’s editorial board and committees aim to guarantee scientific integrity and quality, as well as taking an ethical and responsible stance in promoting research.
Rules Applicable to the Editorial Board, the Editing Committee and Peer Reviewers
Peer Review
The Revue des sciences sociales fully subscribes to peer review principles. At the Revue, peer review is divided between the editorial board, the editing committee and the peer reviewers solicited by the Revue.
Apart from articles that review other works (and which are assessed by members of the editorial board), any manuscript submitted with a view to being published as an article is evaluated by two anonymous peers who deliver separate assessments.
Contributions may receive a second round of peer review if this is deemed necessary by the editorial committee and/or the coordinators of the thematic issue, especially in cases of doubt or where there is significant divergence between peer assessments.
Peer reviewers are selected by the editorial board, under the supervision of the editing committee. The coordinators of the issue can also propose peer reviewers.
Anonymity
At the Revue des sciences sociales peer review happens completely anonymously. Before the review begins, the editing committee ensures that the author has provided a completely anonymous article, including in citations and bibliographical references. The manuscript of the text that is presented to the peers does not mention the name of its author, and the author cannot be informed of the identity of the peers who review their manuscript.
Objectivity/Impartiality
Peer reviewers use a standardized evaluation method available from the review’s website. Any peer reviewer who does not feel qualified to evaluate a manuscript or who knows they will not be able to do so within a reasonable time frame, should inform the editorial board of these impediments.
The revision process aims for impartiality and objectivity. The peer reviewer who recognises the identity of the author they are reviewing should recuse themselves from the assessment, and another peer reviewer will then be found.
We do not accept any type of discrimination based on social origins or institutional belonging, professional status, gender, sexual orientation, religious views or political opinions that can be attributed to the author under review.
Peers are called upon to assess a text and not a researcher. Personal attacks or criticism of the author’s person are strictly forbidden.
Peer review reports should be written clearly and should use constructive arguments that may allow the author to rework the article, if necessary.
Relationship with Authors
The chief editors of the Revue des sciences sociales will inform the authors of the editing committee’s decisions, following the recommendations given by the peer reviewers.
All submissions that have been accepted will be edited in collaboration with their authors. The final version of the article is the result of a mutual agreement for publication.
Conflicts of Interest
The institutional affiliations of the members of the editing committee and those of the editorial board are indicated in the Revue and on our website.
When selecting peer reviewers, the editorial board aims to avoid any possible conflict of interest that may arise from collaborative or competitive links between authors, partners or institutions connected to the article under review. Specifically, a professional conflict of interests arises when the author and the reviewer (or a member of the editorial committee) belong to the same university department, or to the same research unit or centre. Cases where one party supervises or co-supervises the doctoral thesis of another are also considered to potentially generate a conflict of interest.
Use of Data and Confidentiality
Manuscripts submitted for review are confidential and their contents are not made public. They are not discussed outside of the editorial board. Articles that have been refused for publication are not archived.
Before any publication of the article, the data presented in manuscripts that are submitted for review cannot be presented elsewhere, whether that be in the research of a member of the editorial board or that of a peer reviewer, without the explicit consent of the author.
Rules for Authors
Originality and Plagiarism
Authors who submit an article for review agree not to submit their manuscript to any other publication for the duration of their connection to the Revue des sciences sociales. If an author wants to retract their proposal, they must warn the review as soon as possible. Authors must guarantee the originality of their article and agree not to publish any other manuscripts that might present possible acts of counterfeit or plagiarism, as defined by French Intellectual Property Law.
Plagiarism means fully or partially appropriating ideas or contents (text, images, tables, graphics…) without the author’s consent or without citing sources in an appropriate manner. Authors should obtain all necessary copyright agreements themselves.
Making fraudulent or knowingly false statements constitutes behaviour that is counter to the ethics of scientific publication.
The articles that are published are the sole responsibility of their authors.
Research Ethics
The review encourages authors to describe the ethical framework of their research, as well as possible approval by the Ethics Committee. If the author of the article works in a country where ethical evaluation is obligatory, authors will explicitly mention that they have received authorisation to publish.
References
Any citation or usage of works by other authors must be identified as such and must be accompanied by appropriate references, presented according to the editorial norms of the review.
Mentioning the Authors
All the authors of the article must be mentioned, with their affiliation, either in alphabetical order or ranked according to their implication in the research or in the redaction of the text. These criteria apply without considering the professional status of the contributors, who may be researchers, teachers, students, experts and amateurs without any university affiliation.
The author who is the review’s contact person must ensure that only the appropriate co-authors are included in the list, and that all co-authors having seen and approved the final version of their text, and agree to submit the article for publication.
Defamatory Statements
The authors guarantee that their article proposal does not contain defamatory, fraudulent or knowingly incorrect information.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors must declare any potential professional or financial conflict of interest. All sources of funding for the research presented in the submitted manuscript must be mentioned explicitly.
Online Publication and Registration in Open-access Archives
The paper version of the Revue des sciences sociales is published by Presses universitaires de Strasbourg and the online version is published on the freely accessible Open Edition Journal platform. Both issues are published simultaneously.
Policy on Open Archive Records
The author can freely register the final version of the manuscript that has been accepted for publication in an open archive (e.g. HAL) or in an institutional archive (a permanent open-access platform that does not require user registration), without any financial compensation and without any commercial interests, and provided that the complete bibliographical information leading to the text as it is published in the Revue des sciences sociales, is clearly mentioned.
Social networks for academics such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu are not open archives or institutional depositories. Registering the publication on these websites is therefore prohibited. However, authors who wish to announce the publication of the article on such platforms can insert the link of their publication on the website of the Revue des sciences sociales.