Historical Social Research

Authors' Rights

Please take note of the following principles that settle the relationship between the HSR and the author:

1. The contributions submitted are expected to be original pieces of research that have not been previously published or submitted to another journal for publication. It is also expected that articles submitted have not been previously submitted to other journals that contain a similar form of generally the same content. Reprints of contributions already published elsewhere are only accepted in justified, exceptional cases. As a measure of quality control, we randomly check selected texts using a plagiarism software.

2. The author confirms that the contribution is free from third party rights. It is the responsibility of the author, not of the HSR, to obtain permission to use any previously published and/or copyrighted material (e.g., photos, maps, tables).

3. No liability is accepted for unsolicited manuscripts; no claim may be made for unsolicited manuscripts to be reviewed.

4. By submitting, the author transfers to HSR – with no restrictions regarding space and time – the right to duplicate and distribute the work, and the right to make the work accessible to the journal’s users. This right is given as exclusive right for the duration of 6 months following publication, and after that as non-exclusive rights. 6 months following publication, authors may grant non-exclusive rights of use to third parties with reference to the original place of publication. 

5. With regard to Item 4, the author grants the HSR the rights of use for all publication forms including: print, digital, on storage media, or online use in or from storage media, particularly databases. This includes: a) electronic storing, b) the public availability and of the contribution including: providing the opportunity to download the contribution, making the publication accessible to the general public, allowing authorized third parties and the general public to access the contribution on-screen, or to store or print the contribution, c) for the indexing and coverage by those specialized information and documentation services and online databases, the HSR grants non-exclusive rights of use (e.g., JSTOR, SocINDEX with FullText and SSOAR with Creative Commons Lizenz CC-BY 4.0). The author also grants the HSR the rights for  d) reprints, e) abstracts (also for the translation into other languages, in either pre-print or digital form), f)  special editions of the HSR, g) photomechanical copying including telecopies, microcopies, microfiches, and microform copies, h) recorded image and sound recording carriers of all kinds, and i) utilization in e-commerce (this all includes possible master illustrations, drawings, plans, maps, layouts, and charts).

6. In case quantitative empirical data are used in an article that is submitted to the HSR, the opportunity for replication should be given. Accordingly, the author(s) commit themselves to grant, upon request, access to data and corresponding analysis scripts. The editorial team will support the author(s) to archive empirical data for replication. The location and access conditions of the data and analysis scripts will be indicated in the article. The data sets and analysis scripts used and quoted in the article should be indicated in the references (ideally with digital object identifier - doi).

7. Immediately after the publication of the contribution, authors have the right to upload the published HSR print version on their institutional website, or on academic social networks such as academia.edu or researchgate.com. This presupposes, however, that the contribution will neither be sold nor distributed commercially in any way. When the author chooses to upload his or her contribution onto academic social networks or an institutional homepage, the original place of publication must be referenced. 

8. After the contribution has been published in the HSR, reprints are possible with permission of the HSR and a reference to the original place of publication.

9. As a service of GESIS/HSR, the guest editors and contributors of an issue receive a certain number of free copies of the HSR issue (at the moment, authors can receive 2 free copies, and guest editors 20 free copies), as well as the PDF file of the particular article (for authors) or the entire HSR Special Issue or Forum (for editors) for private and academic use.

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