Publication Policy

The Sacred Texts child Readers project is an interdisciplinary project based at the University of Sheffield investigating how sacred texts are read with children and why. We aim to make cutting-edge work in the area of faith formation and religious education across faith traditions and cultures available to academics, faith communities, and the general public.

The project’s main platform is a multi-author blog published via humanities commons at: https://sacredtexts.hcommons.org/.  Proposals or blog posts can be submitted in word format for consideration by the editorial team via e-mail at: sacredtextschildreaders@gmail.com.

Copyright 

Copyright is retained by the author of each item, and a permission to publish form must be completed in order for their contribution to appear. Items are accepted for consideration on the understanding that they are not currently under consideration offered for publication elsewhere. Where an item comprises previously published material, either in whole or in part, this must be indicated within the copy submitted for editorial approval by us, and this information will appear within the published piece. Wherever possible, we will include links to this prior publication as part of your post.

All items on Sacred Texts Child Readers are published under a creative commons CC BY-ND 4.0 licence (non-commercial, non-derivative, attribution only). Should an author wish to request publication under a less restrictive creative commons licence they should indicate this on the permission form prior to publication. Details can be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.

Any photographs or illustrations must be the copyright property of the author, or subject to specific internet usage permission, or else be freely available under a suitable creative commons licence. The responsibility for obtaining this permission, and all licencing information about images included in their submission, falls to the author. In case of doubt, authors benefiting from institutional affiliation are recommended to contact their open access specialist via their institution’s library. Where no illustrations are provided by the author the editorial board may choose to provide illustrations in line with this policy.

It is understood that authors submitting work for editorial consideration include only their own, original work, adequately acknowledging all citations, references, quotations, and derivations within their copy.

Takedown policy

Should the editorial board receive a complaint regarding the legitimacy, accuracy, or licencing status of any item published by us, in whole or in part, that item will be removed promptly from the platform pending our inquiry. We will take a view as to its reinstatement, possibly in a suitably modified form, as soon as is reasonably practical. Responsibility for making the required modifications will fall to the author, who is free to withdraw their item from publication should they prefer to do so.

Authors’ Rights Post-Publication

As stated above, authors retain their copyright. They are therefore free to circulate their publication as they wish. In case of subsequent publication elsewhere, we ask that they acknowledge Sacred Texts Child Readers as the original publisher of their piece.

Sacred Texts Child Readers recommends that all authors benefiting from institutional affiliation upload their finished, published article to their institutional repository as soon as possible. In case of doubt, we advise they contact the relevant library services. All authors, including those not currently affiliated, have the option of uploading their finished publication to the Humanities Commons ‘Core’ repository. This is free of charge and issues authors with a durable url for their piece.

The attribution of a creative commons 4.0 licence gives maximum protection to our authors’ work. However, it precludes subsequent publication on commercial platforms such as Academia.edu and Research Gate, although we would not seek to prevent such publication. Authors should consider their post-publication choices as early as possible so as to avoid confusion.