Policies

Contents

Peer review

Each paper submitted to SAIR will be peer-reviewed by at least two anonymous peer reviewers in a double-blind process. Authors should remove all identifying information from the typescript, such as author and contributor names, affiliations and funding acknowledgements.

The Managing Editor is responsible for creating reviewer guidelines for the Society’s scholarly publications.

All submissions are peer reviewed regardless open access. Reviewers are not informed of the funding status of any publication.

The Managing Editor will mediate all exchanges between authors and peer reviewers before publication. If agreement cannot be reached, the Managing Editor will invite comments from additional reviewer(s).

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Publication frequency

SAIR is published throughout the year when new issues are ready.

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The copyright of each paper published in SAIR remains the property of the author(s). The author(s) assigns an exclusive right to the Society to publish the paper while the author’s copyright subsists.

It is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce any third-party material used in their paper.

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland retains the copyright of the layout and typography of SAIR.

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Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse open access papers published if reuse is in line with the stipulated Creative Commons licences assigned to the paper. Any reuse should include attribution to the author(s) and original publication.

Please note that these terms do not extend to any material that has separate licensing terms specified or any material that is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Permission to reproduce third-party material must be obtained directly from the copyright holders concerned.

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Open access

SAIR is a fully open access journal. Accepted papers will be subject to a publication charge payable at the end of the production process, before publication. We are happy to work within the requirements of different research funders.

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Publication charges

A charge applies to all reports accepted after peer review to cover the costs of production and online distribution. The charge amount is calculated using the following formula:

(word-count/600) + (image-count/2) + (table-count/2) = (estimated page-count)
(estimated page-count) x £28 = total charge

For example, if your submission is 42,000 words long with 30 images and 10 tables, then the report will cost £2,520 to publish.

(42,000 words/600) + (30 images/2) + (10 tables/2) = 90 pages
90 x £28 = £2,520

Here is a breakdown of how the funds are used:

Service function Amount Rounded percentage of total
Editorial & admin £220 9%
Pre-production £36 1%
Copy-editing £770 31%
Typesetting £460 18%
Proof-reading £440 17%
Online distribution £470 19%
Long-term preservation £120 5%
Domain name registration £4 0%
Total £2,520 100%

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Archiving

All papers published in SAIR are archived with the Archaeology Data Service, a Trusted Digital Repository, to ensure their long-term preservation.

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Book reviews

SAIR does not publish book reviews. However, the Society publishes reviews from external publishers on titles of interest to our Fellows in the Resources section of our website.

If you would like to submit a title for review by the Society, please contact publications@socantscot.org with details of your publication.

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Take-down policy

We make every effort to ensure that published content does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK and Scots laws.

Should you discover published content that you believe to be illegal, or infringes any of your statutory rights, you may contact the Managing Editor who will review the complaint.

On receipt of your complaint, the editorial team will:

  1. Make an initial assessment of its validity
  2. Acknowledge receipt of the complaint by email
  3. For all but spurious complaints, cease access to the item that is subject to complaint
  4. Refer the complaint to the Society's Legal Advisor for comment and advice
  5. Seek to verify your identity and authority as complainant.

When the authenticity of your complaint has been verified and the Editor has been advised that it is ostensibly legitimate, the item will be removed from public access.

If a Legal Advisor confirms that it does not breach any law then the item will be reinstated.

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