The old Lectures charter
Plan
Haut de page1. General remarks
1.1. Lectures is an online resource whose aim is to provide information on recent publications in the social sciences and reviews of books and articles published in the various fields involved. The rules governing its activities, editorial content and the responsibilities of contributors are described in the present document.
1.2. The charter has been elaborated by the editorial committee and the members of the Lectures team in order to explain their requirements as clearly as possible. Account has been taken whenever appropriate of current practices in commercial and academic publishing, both paper-based and electronic. The members of the Lectures team reserve the right to adapt the rules outlined here in the light of specific situations which might arise. New rules will be added at the end of the present document as and when they come to be applied. Specific or occasional decisions will be mentioned as ‘Editors comments’ at the beginning or end of any article involved.
1.3. Informative articles, reviews and other articles published in Lectures are written by ‘contributors’ who agree to respect the present charter. The contributors agree to respect the charter for a given article from the moment it is submitted for publication.
2. Author’s rights
2.1. Contributors make over, exclusively and definitively, their entire economic rights deriving from the intellectual and artistic property of their contribution. These rights cover: adaptation (including, translation, correction and evolution); performance; reproduction; integration (in whole or in part) and direct or indirect distribution in media of all kinds (electronic and otherwise) by all existing and future techniques; and use of the contribution and its adaptations to promote Lectures. The contributor guarantees Lectures against all interference, claims or evictions. These rights can be exploited by Lectures or by a third party assignee for the entire term of the literary and artistic copyright for all languages and in all countries.
2.2. Contributors give permission to the editors of Lectures to make any necessary changes to their texts in order to respect the journal’s editorial approach. Changes are submitted to contributors for approval before publication.
2.3. In the event that, after due discussion, a contributor’s article is considered to be unsuitable for Lectures on the grounds of quality, non-conformity with the purpose and spirit of the journal, or non-respect of the terms of the present charter, it will not be published and the contributor will recover full rights to the publication of the article elsewhere.
3. Verification and responsibility for the content of articles
3.1. The Lectures team and its editorial committee are responsible for all scientific and editorial questions concerning the content of the journal.
3.2. Articles submitted to Lectures are read and checked by the editorial team and, if necessary, they are submitted to the editorial committee for comment.
3.3. Readers, users and other visitors to the Lectures website are asked to draw the editors’ attention to any content which they considered to be at variance with the present charter, to contain factual errors, or to be contrary to more general ethical or legal considerations. This can be done by sending an email using the ‘Report a problem’ link which features at the bottom of each page on the website. The Lectures team reserves the right to consult the editorial committee before making any necessary changes. Any such modifications are indicated at the end of the article in question.
4.2. Publication
4.1. Once an article has been submitted and accepted by the editors, Lectures undertakes to publish it as quickly as is reasonably possible, not more than two months after the date at which the final version of the text was accepted.
4.2. Articles published by Lectures are freely available without cost to readers. For this reason, articles are contributed free of charge. Authors do not receive any royalties in return for publication of their article by Lectures. They are, however, entitled to keep the review copy of the work which was provided by the journal.
5. Quoting reviews published by Lectures
5.1. Reviews published by Lectures can be quoted within the terms of article L122-5 of intellectual property law which defines the conditions of ‘fair use’. Thus, the quotation should be brief and should not be used for commercial purposes; the name of the original author must be cited along with the Lectures website and a full reference to the article as it appears at the head or foot of the article; the hyperlink to the article in the Lectures website must be given; it is forbidden to alter the original text of the revue; and any cuts in the original article have to be explicitly indicated.
5.2. In the event that one or more of these rules are cannot be respected, reproduction of material for Lectures reviews is forbidden in any form and in any country without written permission from the editors of Lectures.
6. Editorial considerations
6.1. Reviewers undertake to read the work which is the object of their review in its entirety. In the event that the reviewer has not read certain sections of the work in question, this should be explicitly indicated in their review.
6.2. Reviewers have to guarantee that their contribution is entirely original, that it is not covered by any existing publishing contract, and that it does not contain matter (text, diagrams, tables, artwork, etc.) borrowed from a work likely to engage the responsibility of Lectures.
6.3. Quotations should be accurately credited and should be in conformity with the rules of ‘fair use’ as indicated in section 5.1 of the present charter.
6.4. Reviews should present the publication in question, its content and the main ideas which are put forward in it. The presentation should be impartial: which is not to say that the reviewer should avoid being critical or forego a certain freedom of tone. Once the content of the publication has been outlined, reviewers can freely give their own point of view along with the necessary arguments to back it up. Reviews should be between 5,000 and 10,000 characters, including spaces. Lectures may publish longer reviews can as commentaries, depending on the importance and interest of the work in question.
7. Presentation
7.1. Lectures encourages reviewers to make optimal use of the fact that it is an online publication by the use of hypertext links to other articles on the Lectures website as well as to any other appropriate online content.
7.2. Reviews must be signed by their author under their true first and last names. The signature appears at the head and foot of the review.
7.3. The presentation of reviews should be in conformity with the Lectures house style, particularly with respect to the use of titles and subtitles. The editors reserve the right to modify the typographical presentation and harmonise the use of subtitles.
8. Code of conduct
8.1. It is forbidden for contributors to review works by authors or publishers with whom they have either financial or institutional relations. Thus Lectures will systematically decline reviews in the following circumstances: if the reviewer is editor of a series with the publisher of the work in question; if the reviewer is the author’s hierarchical superior; if the reviewer works in the same research team or teaching department as the author; if the reviewer is or was the author’s research supervisor, or is a contributor to the work under review; and similarly if the author, or one of the authors of the work, was the research director of the reviewer. In general contributors should not review works written by colleagues or produced by editors with whom they have regular professional dealings or particularly significant personal relations.
8.2. Reviewers should inform Lectures of any other relations which they have with authors or publishers whose works they are offering to review. The editors of Lectures reserve the right to accept or decline the review in the light of any such information, or to mention it in an editorial note at the head or foot of the review when published.
8.3. Because it aims to publish as broad a spectrum of reviewers as possible, Lectures cannot avoid publishing reviews of works written by its numerous reviewers. That said, reviews of the works of Lectures reviewers must conform to the same code of conduct as any other review. In addition, the fact that the author, or one of the authors of a publication is currently or has been a reviewer for Lectures, will be mentioned in an editorial note at the head or the foot of the published review.
8.4. Reviews cannot be accepted for publications involving members of the Lectures team or editorial committee – whether as authors, co-authors or editors – during the time they were actively involved with Lectures. Strictly informational details of such publications can however be published so long as they include a mention of the author’s involvement with Lectures.
8.5. In order to preserve its editorial independence Lecture is not involved in any way with publishers whose titles are likely to be reviewed.
8.6. In general Lectures reserves the right to add an editor’s note at the head or foot of reviews in the event that they might appear to be in contradiction with the editorial code of conduct as presented here.
8.7. Editors and authors of books or articles reviewed by Lectures and, more generally, anyone whose work has been discussed or commented upon in review articles have a right of reply. Any such replies are subject to the same rules as those applied to review articles and are published at the end of the review in question. The reviewer can in turn reply to any published comments. As a general rule, the editors of Lectures reserve the right to publish any follow-up remarks, replies or commentaries which they receive only if they are likely to contribute to a balanced and clearly argued debate on the questions raised by reviews.
9. Review copies
9.1. The quality of the service provided by Lectures is dependent on the provision of review copies of recent social science publications by publishers and authors which are then distributed to specialists for review. This allows Lectures to guarantee its editorial independence with respect to publishers, authors and reviewers while at the same time helping to keep costs at a minimum. For this reason, Lectures announces the publication and publishes reviews of only those works for which it has received a review copy.
9.2. Lectures announces and reviews works for which it has received a review copy if it considers them to be within its remit which is to cover the latest publications in the field of the social sciences. The editors and the editorial committee of Lectures are the final judges of what should be announced and reviewed. As a result, Lectures reserves the right not to announce or review any publication for which it has received a review copy if it deems it to be beyond its remit, for example if it does not concern the social sciences or if in the opinion of the editors its scientific content is insufficient.
9.3. On request, Lectures provides the review copy to the contributor who, in exchange, undertakes to review the work. Contributors cannot ask for a new work to review if they already have a review in progress which has not been accepted by the editors and published on the Lectures web site.
9.4. In the event that the editors decide not to announce or review a title which they have received, the review copy is not returned to the sender.
9.5. Under no circumstances can books received from publishers or authors, but which have not been reviewed, be sold by members of the Lectures editorial team or bytheir collaborators. They can however be offered to libraries or to other appropriate not-for-profit organisations.
10. Addenda
10.1. [added 15/12/2011 and modified 17/03/2014] Addendum to articles 8.1 and 8.4. By ‘author of the publication’ should be understood anyone considered to be one of the principal authors of a publication or one of the coordinators or editors of a collective publication (collective work, special or thematic issue of a journal, conference proceedings). As a result, a contributor cannot review a publication if they have a relationship (as defined in paragraph 8.1) with the author or several authors of the publication as defined by this addendum. More generally speaking, Lectures cannot publish reviews of works whose author or authors, as defined by the addendum, are members of the editorial committee. Publications containing simply a contribution (chapter in a collective work, article in a journal, preface, etc.) by a member of the editorial committee, are however excepted from this condition: thus a collective work can be reviewed even if the reviewer has professional relations with one of the contributors to the publication; and Lectures can publish a review of a work which includes a contribution by a member of its editorial committee. Lectures can also review works published in a series edited by a member of the editorial committee, or in an issue of a journal coordinated or edited by a member of the editorial committee: in which cases the role of the committee member has to be mentioned in an editorial note placed at the head or foot of the review and the reviewer should refrain from mentioning specifically the contribution in question.