About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) provides a platform for scholars and experts in the area of humanities (art and culture, digital humanities, music, health and medical humanities) and social studies (business, demography study, media and communication, international relations, psychology, political science, technology, sociology, urban studies and Language and literature). Our scope opens to theoretical, methodological, quantitative, and qualitative studies that contribute to the literature.

Peer Review Process

The suitability of manuscripts for publication of the Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) is judged by peer reviewers and the editorial board. All the review processes are conducted in a double-blind / double anonymous peer review where both authors and reviewers' identities remain anonymous. Editor in Chief and Editorial board arrange editorial meetings together to make the final decision as to whether the paper is recommended for acceptance or rejection for each edition.

Editor in Chief and Editorial Board will evaluate the submitted papers on the prequalification step for the suitability of further review process. The manuscripts will be evaluated by qualified peer reviewers selected by the Editor in Chief and editorial board. The peer reviewers should examine the manuscript and return it with their recommendation to the journal as soon as possible, usually within 3 weeks.

Papers needing revision will be returned to the authors, and the author must return the revised manuscript to the via OJS of the Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC). The editor in Chief sends the revised manuscript to the Editorial Board to check whether the manuscript is revised as suggested by peer reviewers. Editorial Board could give a recommendation to the Editor in Chief that the manuscript should return to authors, accept, or reject within at least 2 weeks. They can also arrange editorial meetings to discuss accepted, rejected or potential manuscripts in each edition. Editor in Chief would send an acceptance letter (LoA) announcing the publication issue attached with manuscript reprint to authors before publication.

After the LoA release by the decision of the editorial meeting, the manuscript will go to the language editor to check the readability and grammar. After the language editing process, the journal manager will prepare for layout and publish as well the publication schedule in Open Journal System (OJS).

Publication Frequency

Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) is a journal published twice a year in May and December.

Open Access Policy

Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) is a peer-reviewed journal with open access. The article processing or delivery of the manuscript submitted to the manager or editor through an online system or by using the OJS Open Access publishing model, and 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.

This journal is an open-access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or / institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full-text articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or author. This is in accordance with Budapest Open Access Initiative.

 

 

 

Budapest Open Access Initiative
An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.

For various reasons, this kind of free and unrestricted online availability, which we will call open access, has so far been limited to small portions of the journal literature. But even in these limited collections, many different initiatives have shown that open access is economically feasible, that it gives readers extraordinary power to find and make use of relevant literature, and that it gives authors and their works vast and measurable new visibility, readership, and impact. To secure these benefits for all, we call on all interested institutions and individuals to help open up access to the rest of this literature and remove the barriers, especially the price barriers, that stand in the way. The more who join the effort to advance this cause, the sooner we will all enjoy the benefits of open access.

The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment. Primarily, this category encompasses their peer-reviewed journal articles, but it also includes any unreviewed preprints that they might wish to put online for comment or to alert colleagues to important research findings. There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

While the peer-reviewed journal literature should be accessible online without cost to readers, it is not costless to produce. However, experiments show that the overall costs of providing open access to this literature are far lower than the costs of traditional forms of dissemination. With such an opportunity to save money and expand the scope of dissemination at the same time, there is today a strong incentive for professional associations, universities, libraries, foundations, and others to embrace open access as a means of advancing their missions. Achieving open access will require new cost recovery models and financing mechanisms, but the significantly lower overall cost of dissemination is a reason to be confident that the goal is attainable and not merely preferable or utopian. To achieve open access to scholarly journal literature, we recommend two complementary strategies. 

  • I. Self-Archiving: First, scholars need the tools and assistance to deposit their refereed journal articles in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving. When these archives conform to standards created by the Open Archives Initiative, then search engines and other tools can treat the separate archives as one. Users then need not know which archives exist or where they are located in order to find and make use of their contents.
  • II. Open-access Journals: Second, scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access. Because journal articles should be disseminated as widely as possible, these new journals will no longer invoke copyright to restrict access to and use of the material they publish. Instead they will use copyright and other tools to ensure permanent open access to all the articles they publish. Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not charge subscription or access fees, and will turn to other methods for covering their expenses. There are many alternative sources of funds for this purpose, including the foundations and governments that fund research, the universities and laboratories that employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline or institution, friends of the cause of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts, funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals charging traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions from the researchers themselves. There is no need to favor one of these solutions over the others for all disciplines or nations, and no need to stop looking for other, creative alternatives.

Open access to peer-reviewed journal literature is the goal. Self-archiving (I.) and a new generation of open-access journals (II.) are the ways to attain this goal. They are not only direct and effective means to this end, but they are also within the reach of scholars themselves, immediately, and need not wait on changes brought about by markets or legislation. While we endorse the two strategies just outlined, we also encourage experimentation with further ways to make the transition from the present methods of dissemination to open access. Flexibility, experimentation, and adaptation to local circumstances are the best ways to assure that progress in diverse settings will be rapid, secure, and long-lived.

The Open Society Institute, the foundation network founded by philanthropist George Soros, is committed to providing initial help and funding to realize this goal. It will use its resources and influence to extend and promote institutional self-archiving, to launch new open-access journals, and to help an open-access journal system to become economically self-sustaining. While the Open Society Institute's commitment and resources are substantial, this initiative is very much in need of other organizations to lend their effort and resources.

We invite governments, universities, libraries, journal editors, publishers, foundations, learned societies, professional associations, and individual scholars who share our vision to join us in the task of removing the barriers to open access and building a future in which research and education in every part of the world are that much more free to flourish.

February 14, 2002
Budapest, Hungary

Leslie Chan: Bioline International
Darius Cuplinskas: Director, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Michael Eisen: Public Library of Science
Fred Friend: Director of Scholarly Communication, University College London
Yana Genova: Next Page Foundation
Jean-Claude Guédon: University of Montreal
Melissa Hagemann: Program Officer, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Stevan Harnad: Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Rick Johnson: Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Rima Kupryte: Open Society Institute
Manfredi La Manna: Electronic Society for Social Scientists 
István Rév: Open Society Institute, Open Society Archives
Monika Segbert: eIFL Project consultant 
Sidnei de Souza: Informatics Director at CRIA, Bioline International
Peter Suber: Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College & The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter
Jan Velterop: Publisher, BioMed Central

Archiving

This journal utilizes the Portico. Portico was the first digital preservation service to be independently audited by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) and certified as a trusted, reliable digital preservation solution that serves the needs of the library community (following the general metrics found in their Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification). The stated purpose of the CRL audit was to promote understanding of and, where justified, confidence in, digital repositories.

Publication Ethics

Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) is a peer-reviewed journal published by Research Synergy Foundation. This statement clarifies the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of posting an article in this journal, including the author, the chief editor, the Editorial Board, the peer-reviewed and the publisher. This statement based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines.

Ethical Guideline for Journal Publication
The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore essential to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher, and the society.

Research Synergy Foundation as the publisher of the Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC), take its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing exceptionally seriously, and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or additional commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.

Duties of Editors

  • Fair Play
    An editor at any time evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
  • Confidentiality
    The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
  • Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
    Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
  • Publication Decisions
    The editor board journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
  • Review of Manuscripts
    The editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality. The editor should organize and use peer review fairly and wisely. Editors should explain their peer review processes in the information for authors and also indicate which parts of the journal are peer-reviewed. The editor should use appropriate peer reviewers for papers that are considered for publication by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest.

Duties of Reviewers

  • Contribution to Editorial Decisions
    Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also help the author in improving the paper.
  • Promptness
    Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
  • Confidentiality
    Any manuscripts received for review must treat as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
  • Standards of Objectivity
    Reviews should conduct objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
  • Acknowledgement of Sources
    Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument reported should accompany by the appropriate citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
  • Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
    Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

  • Reporting standards
    Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
  • Data Access and Retention
    Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
  • Originality and Plagiarism
    The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original actions and if the authors have used the works, or words of others that this has appropriately cited or quoted.
  • Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication
    An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same paper concurrently to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
  • Acknowledgement of Sources
    Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
  • Authorship of the Paper
    Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the article and have agreed to its submission for publication.
  • Fundamental errors in published works
    When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
 

Screening for Plagiarism

All work in the manuscript should be avoided of any plagiarism, falsification, fabrications, or omission of significant material.  Authors are expected to explicitly cite others' work and ideas, even if the work or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased. This standard applies whether the previous work is published, unpublished, or electronically available. Failure to properly cite the work of others may constitute plagiarism. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) applies a minimum standard of similarity score of the manuscript under 20%. If the manuscript performs above 20%, the article should be revised or rejected. Humanities, Society, and Community (HSC) applies a screening for plagiarism using Turnitin.