Code of Ethics

The Code of Ethics of the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales, which is detailed in the following points, is mainly based on the Code of Conduct and the guidelines on best practices for journal editors published by the Committee of publication ethics (COPE). Details of this Committee's publications are available on the following sites: https://publicationethics.org.  https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guideline.

The Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales works according to a process of reviewing to ensure that everything published constitutes scientific novelty in the fields of knowledge and publishing, and that the rules and ethics of scientific research and publishing are respected. The journal therefore wishes to protect its content from unethical acts such as plagiarism, falsification of data and non-referencing of citations, etc. The Journal does not tolerate such behaviour and uses appropriate tools to compare content manuscripts sent to it with published research, in order to guarantee authenticity. It is important to emphasize that if there is the slightest doubt about the authenticity of all or part of the content of any manuscript, a thorough and careful examination of the manuscript in question is always carried out until satisfactory and clear observations are obtained, on the basis of which appropriate decisions are taken.

3.1. Responsibilities of the Editorial Board ⁄ Editor

1. a) Responsibilities

- The editorial committee of the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales is made up of experts (highly qualified professors with extensive experience in scientific research) from various specializations in human and social sciences, and letters, belonging to various universities. The Journal is represented by its director, its editor-in-chief and its associate editors-in-chief, whose names, specializations, academic ranks, CVs and contact details are available on the Journal's web page.

- The editorial committee of the Journal is responsible for receiving the manuscripts submitted to the Journal, evaluating them, determining which articles will be published and which will be rejected, and providing arguments. In carrying out those tasks, the committee aims to ensure the confidentiality of the identity of the authors of the manuscripts it receives, as well as the identity of the experts. Furthermore, the reception, assessment and acceptance/rejection decisions processes are also carried out in complete confidentiality. The Journal also aims not to use information and data from manuscripts rejected after review.

- The Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales also adheres to the legal and ethical requirements of scientific publishing, particularly in matters of plagiarism. The Journal Director, Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors work collaboratively with the experts to prevent such unethical behavior by taking objective measures and addressing them in accordance with COPE guidelines.

1. b) Peer-reviewing Process

All manuscripts that reach the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales are subject to an examination and expertise process. This appraisal process includes several interacting stages, and at each stage, the appraisals are carried out confidentially and anonymously. The steps in this process, which can take more than a year, are defined below. Please note that all exchanges and correspondence that take place during the appraisal process are done remotely, by digital correspondence, and via the Journal's electronic system.

First: Notification of receipt of the manuscript and initial evaluation

- Notification of receipt of a manuscript sent to the journal is immediate and automatic, after the successful completion of the sending process to the Journal via the ASJP electronic portal, following which a confirmation notification appears on the screen.

Once the manuscript arrives at the Journal, the editor-in-chief, in cooperation with his associated assistants, examines it in order to verify the following two points: - Has the author attached the required commitment to the manuscript? Does the manuscript have a clear relationship with the Journal’s interests and areas of knowledge? The editor-in-chief may reject the manuscript if its subject strays from the scope of the Journal or if it appears that the manuscript lacks material. Authors who have not sent a commitment document are requested to do so as soon as possible, so that verification of the manuscript can progress.

Second: internal evaluation (initial assessment)

Manuscripts that pass the rapid stage of first review at the editor-in-chief level are directly submitted for in-house review. The internal expertise includes two important processes: 1- The first process consists of checking the similarities of the content of each of these manuscripts with the content of existing publications on the ASJP portal or publications outside it. This is done using the program approved for this purpose by this portal.

2- The second process only applies to manuscripts with no similarities with previous publications or whose similarity percentages are low (less than 15% and correctable). In this second process, all manuscripts having passed the previous stage are subject to a complete and rapid expertise (by the editor-in-chief or one of his assistants in the specialty of the theme addressed in the manuscript). The benefit of this complete and rapid expertise is to verify the originality of the manuscript, respect for the structure, the scientific contribution, and whether the content is constructed in a way that respects recognized scientific principles.

The results of this internal expertise are as follows:

 The manuscript is accepted for external peer review.

 The manuscript will be accepted for external review after some minor modifications.

 The manuscript is rejected because it is not publishable as it stands. (A report justifying this decision must be attached.)

Authors are informed of the decisions made regarding their manuscripts at the end of this stage (whether their manuscripts are accepted for external review without any modifications, or with minor modifications, or rejected, explaining the reasons in all these cases).

External evaluation (peer-reviewing)

- During this process, there is great interaction between the editor-in-chief, associate editors, experts and authors, through the exchange of electronic correspondence. This interaction for some manuscripts can last more than a year before reaching the final decision (accept or reject the manuscript). We explain these interactions below:

- All manuscripts accepted for external expertise, after having gone through the internal expertise stage, are organized at the level of the editor-in-chief according to their specializations, then distributed to the associate editors-in-chief according to their specializations and their scientific interests. This involves supervising the external expertise stage (peer expertise).

- The associate editors-in-chief are called upon, at this stage, to carefully read the manuscripts sent and accepted for review, with the aim of understanding them in their entirety. Based on this understanding, they send each of these manuscripts to at least two experts, for the purpose of carrying out an anonymous external expertise. They choose these experts from among the most qualified researchers on the themes of these manuscripts.

- When the experts receive the manuscripts sent to them for expertise, each of them examines the content, based on their experience, their availability and the possibility of existence of conflicts of interest, and decides then either accept or refuse to review the manuscript. In the second case, he is replaced by another, more specialized expert.

- At the end of their expertise, experts are asked to complete the expertise form available on the ASJP Portal, specifying at the end of this form whether the manuscript is publishable without modification, publishable with minor modifications, publishable with major changes or unpublishable (rejected).

- In addition to this general expertise, they are also asked to write a separate and detailed report on the reviewed manuscript, in which they specify the nature of the required modifications, if they exist, the strong points and the weak points, as well as various comments that may concern the originality of the work, its importance and its contribution to knowledge; in addition to an evaluation of the design of the manuscript, the methodology and statistics used, and finally, the determination of scientific errors, if they exist.

- Once one of the experts chosen by the associate editor-in-chief has completed his review of any manuscript he has received and has agreed to review, he sends a copy of the report he has prepared to the editor-in-chief assistant to whom he sent the manuscript, and he also sends a form summarizing his general expertise of the manuscript.

- The next step of the reviewing is at the level of the deputy editor-in-chief who, after receiving the reviews (manuscripts for which he is responsible for supervising the monitoring of the peer review process), examines them and considers the decision, which is generally one of the following:

1- Two positive appraisals with little or no modifications, 2- two appraisals or one appraisal requiring substantial modifications, 3- one negative appraisal and one positive appraisal, 4- two negative appraisals.

- In general, the decision of the deputy editor-in-chief goes in the direction of those of the experts, who suggests to the editor-in-chief one of the following decisions. In the first case, he proposes to accept the manuscript after the author made the necessary slight modifications. In the second case, it is proposed to accept the manuscript with reservations (the author is asked to make the substantial modifications required before acceptance), but in the third case, a third expert is proposed, to whom the manuscript is sent for evaluation, to decide on its fate later. In the fourth case, it is proposed to reject the manuscript. It should be noted that in certain cases, the deputy editor-in-chief has an opinion that differs from that of the expert; in this case, he will have to provide all the necessary justifications and explanations.

When the associate editors have completed their reviews, they send them to the editor-in-chief to make final decisions on individual manuscripts for which they have overseen the peer review process.

- The next stage of the evaluation process takes place at the level of the editor-in-chief, who examines all the external evaluation files received (each file includes the report of at least two experts, sometimes three, or even more, as well as the decisions of the deputy editor-in-chief). He examines the various decisions and verifies the originality and contribution of the manuscripts to current knowledge. Then, final decisions are made concerning these manuscript files which have successfully passed the external evaluation process, namely:

The manuscript is accepted for publication, or it is accepted with reservations that will be lifted once the necessary modifications are made, or it is rejected and the reasons are explained. In certain cases, a third assessment is required, at the end of which the decision is made (accept or reject the manuscript). These decisions will be transmitted to the authors of these manuscripts. In many cases, the decisions are consistent with those of the deputy editor-in-chief.

1. c) Transparency of the Evaluation Process

• The assessment process includes several interactive stages, which are confidential and anonymous.
• The editor-in-chief, deputy editors-in-chief and experts evaluate the manuscripts received by the Journal with complete objectivity and regardless of the age, gender, religious beliefs, race, intellectual tendencies or political opinions of the authors.
• The decisions of the Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editor-in-Chief and the experts to accept or reject any manuscript received by the Journal are based solely on the importance and originality of the research work, as well as its relationship with the fields and aims of the Journal.

1. d) Processing of Manuscripts /Published Articles Integrity

  - Manuscripts

• The Journal intends to keep confidential all data contained in the manuscripts sent to it (data, images, figures, tables, analyses, ideas, etc.) in all circumstances. Therefore, they cannot be used in other research by anyone (editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief or experts) without the prior written permission of the author of the manuscript. In this case, the manuscript and its biometric data must be cited in the bibliography (provided that the remark “in progress” is added at the end of the reference).
• Experts must refuse to review any manuscript that presents a conflict of interest for them or if there are certain circumstances that do not allow objective evaluation of the latter. They must notify the editor-in-chief or deputy editor-in-chief who sent it to them. In this case, another expert is appointed so that the external assessment process is not disrupted.
• The Associate Editor must notify the Editor-in-Chief of any conflict of interest, if any, regarding any manuscript for which he or she is overseeing the peer review process. An associate editor-in-chief is appointed so that the external evaluation process is not disrupted.
• When conducting research or studies with samples consisting of human subjects, it is important that the principal investigator consider obtaining approval from the ethics committee of the affiliated institution (for example, the university) or any other competent ethics committee, even before proceeding with the application. This approval certifies that the researcher has respected the ethics of scientific research with regard to the principle of respect for the physical and moral rights of people. He may therefore subsequently attach a copy of this approval to any manuscript he prepares for this study.
• The editor-in-chief has the right to reject any manuscript received by the Journal if it goes against the ethics of scientific research.

- Published Articles

• In case real mistakes appear in a published article (which could have been reported by readers, authors or editors), the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales will correct these mistakes if this does not affect the general content or renders it invalid, and publish these corrections as soon as possible. The electronic version of the article will be corrected, indicating the date of correction and a link to the printed error. However, if correction of the error renders the work or a significant part of it invalid, the article will be withdrawn in its entirety and necessary clarification will be made regarding such withdrawal.

3.2. Responsibilities and Rights of Authors

1. a) Authors Responsibilities

The author must, on the one hand, respect the scientific and ethical rules of scientific research and publication, and on the other hand, adhere to the characteristics of a responsible author when preparing his/her manuscript and then sending them. For publication in the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales, which implies the following:

• S/he does not send the same manuscript that s/he sent to the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales to another journal. s/he can do this if the manuscript is rejected after internal or external review. s/he can also withdraw his manuscript at the start of the review process and send it to another journal.
• S/he mentions the references on which s/he relied on to write his/her manuscript.
• Avoids plagiarism and indicates the bibliographic data of all citations.
• Demonstrate objectivity in the presentation and analysis of results and data, and avoids subjective or defamatory interpretations.
• In case s/he relies on his/her previous work to prepare a new manuscript, s/he must highlight only the new information and data that s/he has not yet published, while indicating the references of the data that s/he previously published and on which s/he relied to write his/her new manuscript.
• Explains in detail the methodology used in the research or study presented in the manuscript, and presents the data clearly, so that other interested researchers can draw inspiration from it.
• If the manuscript includes images, figures or data previously published and which require authorization before publication, s/he is required to attach the permission of the copyright holder to the manuscript.
• Plagiarism involves copying text, ideas, images or data from another reference, including the author's own research, without referencing. Therefore, any copied content must be enclosed in quotation marks and the reference must be clearly indicated.
• Makes the modifications requested by the editorial committee in order to improve the quality of his/her manuscript before the final decision is made.
• Mentions the source(s) of financial support for his research project, if they exist (a word of thanks).
• Provides the raw data bank on which the study or research is based if the editorial committee requests it for examination.
• In case the author discovers an error in his work intended for publication or already published, it is his/her duty to inform the editor-in-chief directly and cooperate with him in withdrawing or correcting the research work in question (manuscript/article).

1. b) Authors’ rights

In exchange for the above-mentioned obligations and duties, the author obtains the following rights:

• His/her manuscript will be published if it successfully passes the internal and external review stages.
• He/she obtains from the editorial committee all the information that allows him/her to follow the process of reception of manuscript by the Journal, the verification and expertise processes, and the final decision of acceptance or rejection with the appropriate justifications.
• He/she may republish elsewhere his/her research published in the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales two years after its publication in the journal, provided that s/he obtains authorization from the journal and indicates the source when republishing.

3.3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

1. a) Objectives of the Reviewing

The work of experts aims to achieve multiple objectives. The careful examination the peers of the manuscripts submitted to them as part of the external evaluation benefit and help:

• The deputy editor-in-chief in making editorial decisions, through editorial correspondence between the deputy editor-in-chief and experts.
• Authors by helping them improve their manuscripts and raise their scientific level, thanks to editorial correspondence between experts and authors.
• The Editor-in-Chief in making final editorial decisions, through editorial correspondence between the Editor-in-Chief and the Deputy Editor-in-Chief.
• The experts themselves by developing their research capacities and satisfying their higher motivations by contributing to the development and dissemination of knowledge in the service of science and mankind.

Thus, the peer review process is considered a positive and essential process that benefits the different parties involved in the knowledge dissemination process, namely authors, experts, editors and the Journal.

1. b) Standards of Work of Reviwers

In order to ensure the achievement of the objectives expected from the work of reviewers, it is necessary that they respect a set of international standards, which aim to guarantee the confidentiality of the work, objectivity, accuracy, speed, mastery of the scientific field of the manuscripts reviewed and the declaration of any conflict of interest, if it exists.

Confidentiality. Reviewers must treat all manuscripts sent to them for evaluation with complete confidentiality. Consequently, they are required to consider these manuscripts as confidential documents whose content cannot be consulted by others. The same treatment of confidentiality is required during assessments carried out by reviewers. With the exception of the deputy editor-in-chief, responsible for monitoring peer reviews, no other party has the right to consult these manuscripts, their reviews or the various editorial decisions relating to them.

Objectivity and precision. The work of experts must be objective and precise, and distance itself from any subjective observations. This is why it is necessary to accompany the improvements or modifications proposed to the authors with scientific justifications, in order to create a scientific exchange with the authors based on respect and persuasion. In addition, the experts' observations must be clear and precise, and it is sometimes advisable for the expert to support his observation by citing references which help clarify the importance of the observations raised. It is also useful for experts to highlight important previous research and studies that authors have not paid attention to and encourage them to refer to them to enrich their manuscripts. In the same spirit, experts must inform the associate editors of any similarity or plagiarism between the content of the manuscripts being reviewed and any other published scientific work, of which they are personally aware, in order to take appropriate measures.

Speed. If the expert's work requires precision, it also requires speed in the response, by submitting his expertise within an acceptable time frame (after approximately three months), especially since the process of the evaluation can continue for more than a year, so that the various required modifications can be completed.

It should be noted that any expert may refuse to evaluate certain manuscripts sent to them and which they consider to be far from their scientific interests. In this case, he must notify the editor-in-chief or his deputies by clicking on the “Reject” icon in the portal, within the first days following receipt of the manuscript.

3.4. Ethics of Scientific Research

It is important to obtain approval from the ethics committee (e.g., that of the author's university) or other relevant ethics committee (Institutional Review Boards IRB) for any research or study that involves human subjects or data. This approval is of course prior to work in the field (application). The objective is to ensure that the study methodology and implementation steps comply with national and international standards in respecting the physical and moral rights of participants. On this basis, the author can declare that the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of Human Rights of 1975, as revised in 2013 (link: https://www.wma.net).

The researcher can attach a copy of this approval to his/her manuscript sent for publication in the Revue des Lettres et Sciences Sociales.

3.5. Measures taken against unethical behavior

Below are the measures on which the Review is based regarding unethical behaviour:

First. If unethical behaviour is reported during the review process (by the experts or the deputy editor-in-chief) or after publication of the manuscript (by the readers), the editor-in-chief must be informed directly and all documents and proofs which indicate the real existence thereof must be presented to him.

Second. When this type of behaviour occurs, the editor-in-chief must immediately open a thorough investigation into the matter. It takes all alerts seriously, even if they arise shortly after a job is published.

Third. If investigations show that this unethical behaviour is minor and has no significant impact on the credibility and image of the Journal, the matter will be decided internally at the Journal (editor-in-chief, director of the journal, editorial committee). However, if it is of a serious type, such as plagiarism, the editor-in-chief, in coordination with the director of the Journal, must inform the author of the manuscript and give him the opportunity to respond to know their opinion, then take appropriate action (in such cases, the following type of action should be considered, after withdrawing the manuscript/article from the Journal: send correspondence to the head of the author's department and to the dean of the faculty, put his name on a blacklist in order to permanently exclude him from the Review...).