Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Surveillance & Society exists to:

  • publish innovative and transdisciplinary work on surveillance;
  • encourage understanding of approaches to surveillance in different academic disciplines;
  • promote understanding of surveillance in wider society;
  • encourage policy and political debate about surveillance.

Surveillance & Society is the premier journal of surveillance studies.

Surveillance & Society publishes rigorously peer-reviewed academic work of the highest quality.

Surveillance & Society is a free-to-access electronic journal.

Surveillance & Society charges no fees for publication.

Surveillance & Society encourages submissions that could not be published in conventional paper journals such as html, photographic, video and new media work.

 

Section Policies

Editorial

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Review Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Opinion / Research Notes

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Interviews

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Book Reviews

Editors
  • Kevin Haggerty, University of Alberta
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Artistic Presentations

Editors
  • David Murakami Wood, Queen's University
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

All submissions and referees' reports are fully anonymous, and known only to the Editors.

The final decision on any submission rests with the Editors.

All submissions to Surveillance & Society will be subject to the rigorous quality standards:

  • Articles are reviewed by two reviewers who will be either full-time academic faculty with a specialism in surveillance studies and/or the particular field in question, or an otherwise recognised expert. In the case of disagreement, a third reviewer of similar standing will be appointed. The initial reviewing process will take no more than three months. We would generally prefer to publish articles within a year of submission and usually less.
  • Review Articles will be reviewed by one external referee, who will be an expert in the particular field. The review process will take no more than three months. We would generally prefer to publish review articles within 8 months of submission.
  • Opinion Pieces and Responses will be moderated by the Editors for legally and ethically acceptable content only. The moderation process will take no more than one month. We would generally prefer to publish Opinion Pieces and Responses within 4 months of submission.
  • Book Reviews will be moderated by the Book Review Editor. The moderation process will take no more than one month. We would generally prefer to publish Book Reviews within 4 months of submission.
  • For Artistic Presentations, please contact the Arts Editor.

 

Open Access Policy

Surveillance & Society 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. However please also see our copyright statement.

Surveillance & Society actively encourages authors to deposit a copy of their paper in their institution's Open Access Repository.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Surveillance & Society Annual Paper Prizes

The Surveillance Studies Network will award up to 4 prizes of £100 each for papers that demonstrate exceptional promise in Surveillance Studies.

Rules

1. To be eligible for the SSN Annual Paper Prize, all authors must:

  • be paid-up members of the SSN;
  • be within 5 years after completion of a PhD on submission of the paper;
  • specify entry for the prize on submission of the paper;

2. To be eligible for the SSN Annual Paper Prize, your paper must:

  • be published in Surveillance & Society (S&S);
  • be an 'Article' (i.e. a fully peer-reviewed piece conforming to the guidelines on the S&S website).

3. Adjudication

  • will be carried out by the Editorial Board of S&S, or a sub-committee of no less than 3 members appointed for this purpose by Editorial Board;
  • the judges will meet annually in person or online, and the minutes of their meeting will be available to all members of the SSN,and subject to approval at the following Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the SSN;
  • the judges will award up to four prizes of £100 annually (the numbers and amount of the prizes will be subject to review at the SSN AGM);
  • the judges' decision will be final;
  • the judges will not enter into any personal correspondance with authors.

 

Metrics

We don't support the march of metrics and crude counts of the impact of scholarship, however we recognise that many of you are required to provide such information. So here are some facts and figures:

Acceptance / Rejection rates (2009)

Crude acceptance / rejection rate (from initial submission): 59% / 41%

Acceptance / rejection rate of articles sent out for review: 72% / 18%

Articles accepted without revisions or resubmission required: 0%

What these figures mean:

We operate a two-stage reviewing process. First editorial sorting to remove any clearly unpublishable or inappropriate articles. Secondly, high quality double-blind peer reviewing, which always results in suggested revisions or full resubmission. We almost never publish a piece as it is, or with only minor corrections. However we also receive a relatively high quality of submissions in the first place.

Impact Factor (2008)

0.75

What this means:

Calulated using the strict Thompson ISI impact factor methodology from Google Scholar figures (number of citations of published refereed articles for two consecutive years in the year following publication, divided by the number of refereed published refereed articles for those two years).

A caveat is that the figure for 2008 refers to the years 2006-7, which was our 'crisis' period - we published only one issue in 2006 and two in 2007. Our previous impact factor was 1.4 and it will be back nearer to this again in 2010. Even so, 0.75 still puts us in the average range for specialist social science journals.

Top 10 most highly cited articles in Surveillance & Society (to 2008):

Our opinion pieces and editorials get well-cited too! The Top Three:

What these figures mean: these are total citatations for the time period since publication until the end of 2008. They are not adjusted for 'impact' or any other factor.

 

Indexing and Directories

Surveillance & Society is indexed by Google Scholar and the International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS), and is listed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), SocioSite, and OJS journals. From late 2009, DOAJ will also be indexing us fully.

From some time in 2010 we will also be indexed by EBCSO SocINDEX™ (and Academic Search™), and both CSA Sociological Abstracts and CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts.

We are currently undergoing assessment by Scopus for inclusion.

 


Surveillance & Society, ISSN 1477-7487 © Surveillance Studies Network, 2009. E-mail Webmaster.