Revue des Traditions Musicales

ISSN:3071-3226

Journal Insights | Publishing Model: Platinum Open Access | APC: Waived by the Publisher

Editor-in-Chief View Editorial Board

Nidaa Abou Mrad

On this Page

Editorial Policies

 

1. Manuscript Submission and Peer-review Process

The Revue des Traditions Musicales (RTM) welcomes submission of unsolicited as well as invited manuscripts. The journal may also call for manuscripts related to its aim and scope as part of a special issue. All submissions are subject to initial screening by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The initial screening process focuses on the fit of the manuscript's topic with the focus of RTM. Lack of fit, as well as lack of scientific rigor or very unprofessional writing, may also lead to a desk rejection by the EIC. If the EIC rejects a manuscript, a detailed letter will be sent to the author(s) explaining the reasons for this action.

Following initial screening, the EIC will assign two independent reviewers who have expertise in the manuscript's content area. Reviewers will assess the manuscript's theoretical basis, appropriate use of methods (if empirical methods are used), discussion of implications, and overall contribution to the field of musical traditions. To facilitate the review process, author(s) are asked to provide two or three potential peer reviewers, who are not collaborators, but who are familiar with the manuscript's content area. There is no guarantee that the names submitted by the author(s) will be selected. The peer-review process usually takes four to six weeks.

Reviews are double-blind. That is, RTM maintains the anonymity of the author(s) as well as the peer reviewers. If there is a potential conflict of interest affecting the ability of peer reviewers to provide an unbiased review of the manuscript, peer reviewers must disclose the conflict of interest (see Conflicts of Interest Policy). The main goal of the peer review process is to add scientific value to the manuscript. Reviewers are required to submit their comments, including notes for the editor and specific recommendations for the author(s), through the Manuscript Manager submission system.

Author(s) are asked to include detailed responses to the reviewers' recommendations in "Notes to Reviewers." Please copy, paste, and number reviewer recommendations into "Notes to Reviewers" and then provide explanations of changes made or reasons for not making changes to the original manuscript. Please include both a clean copy and a "track changes" copy upon submission of revisions.

The manuscript may be accepted at any stage of the submission and review process.

Decisions to reject, revise, or accept are made based on reviewer recommendations and the EIC's evaluation. In case of rejection, author(s) have the right to submit an appeal outlining reasons for believing that reviewers and/or the EIC have erred in rejecting the paper. The reasons should be compelling, detailed, and specific. The EIC will consider the appeal and determine whether resubmission to the originally assigned reviewers or to additional, new reviewers is warranted.

2. What Happens After Submitting a Manuscript?

RTM uses Manuscript Manager (MM) for peer review. After technical screening (format, anonymity, similarity), your manuscript is assigned to an editor. Manuscripts outside scope may be desk-rejected. Suitable submissions enter double-blind peer review. Once reviews are received, the editor may reject, request major or minor revision, conditionally accept, or accept. Status updates appear in MM throughout the process.

3. Disclosure Policy and Conflicts of Interest

RTM's disclosure and conflict of interest policy is designed to ensure that author(s)' manuscript content, as well as external reviewers' evaluations of such manuscripts, are not biased by certain pre-existing relationships. In this regard, author(s) must explicitly identify any potential conflicts (such as personal relationships or financial dependencies that may affect their actions). Likewise, external reviewers must disclose all conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from reviewing a given manuscript if they believe a conflict may exist, e.g., knowledge of one or more of the authors based on a prior professional relationship. If a conflict of interest is declared, the EIC will judge whether the reviewer is eligible to conduct the review.

Upon initial submission, author(s) are asked to disclose sources of funding. Author(s) must identify all affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity that has a financial interest or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. Examples of financial dependency include: employment, advisory, fees, ownership of shares or financial options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending and royalties. This list is not exclusive. Relevant conflicts of interest (or lack thereof) must be made public in the "Disclosure" section of the manuscript for all listed authors.

4. Post-acceptance

The Revue des Traditions Musicales supports the free availability of articles to the public under CC BY 4.0. The journal encourages authors to post copies of their published articles in PDF format on their websites, blogs, or institutional repositories at any time without embargo. Whether distributed on the web or in printed form, RTM requests that author(s) refer to the journal's website via a link to the Version of Record (see the shared Open Access Policy).

Publication policies for RTM support compliance with public-access requirements of major funding agencies. Authors are responsible for ensuring compliance with their funder’s conditions. All published articles are licensed under CC BY 4.0 only; see the Copyright & License page.

5. Ensuring the Right to Privacy - Human Subjects/Studies Review

The right to privacy must include individual research participants and others who were sources of information. Thus, it is very important that all research involving human subjects be submitted to and approved by the Human Subjects/Studies Organization or Committee within lead author(s)' organization. Compliance with this requirement must be stated in the manuscript. Such compliance is not required for conceptual manuscripts or empirical manuscripts that do not involve collection of data from human subjects. Please note that data collection from human subjects may involve qualitative (e.g., focus groups) or quantitative (e.g., cross-sectional surveys or experiments). Also, author(s) should check with the Human Subjects organization in the case of secondary data collected by third parties to determine whether review and approval are required. If author(s) decide that including identification information is important for scientific purposes, permission from their institution's Human Subjects/Studies Review organization or committee must be obtained. Furthermore, author(s) must disclose such information in a manner that is fully compliant with requirements set forth by the Human Subjects/Studies organization.

6. Use of Unpublished Data

Author(s) can cite an accepted manuscript that has not yet been published on the RTM website. Note that, with the exception of Masters' theses, PhD dissertations, and university-affiliated "Working Papers," citations of unpublished data should not appear in the list of references. Author(s) should not cite personal correspondence unless necessary scientific information is provided and is not available in public sources. In such cases, the source and nature of the information resources should be declared and identified as personal correspondence in the reference section of the manuscript.

7. Plagiarism, Scientific Misconduct

All articles submitted to the Revue des Traditions Musicales are screened for plagiarism and text similarity using iThenticate. Author(s) must guarantee that the submitted manuscript has not been previously published or under review for possible publication elsewhere. Author(s) are also required to certify that their work is original and does not contain substantially similar content from other publications.

RTM considers use of others' ideas or words that are protected as intellectual property, whether published or unpublished, without citation or permission, as scientific theft and misconduct. If such conduct is suspected, the person(s) involved will be asked to show that this did not occur, and in the event of failure to respond or respond satisfactorily, referral to the appropriate legal authority will occur. The publisher has the full right to act according to the decisions of the legal authority with the measures it deems appropriate, such as retraction or withdrawing the publication of the article if required. See also the Publication Ethics statement.

8. In-house Production

Accepted manuscripts are processed for publication as rapidly as possible. Author(s) will be informed of post-acceptance stages such as professional copyediting and final proof review and approval. As part of this process, RTM will provide author(s) with specific target dates for initial publication.

All articles published in RTM are open access and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Author(s) retain copyright of their work, with articles licensed to Luminous Insights for publication and distribution.

For full copyright, licensing, and reuse terms—see the dedicated Copyright & License and Open Access Policy pages.

10. Responsibilities

All parties involved in the editorial process share a commitment to integrity, confidentiality, fairness, timeliness, and quality in scholarly publishing.

10.1. Editor-in-Chief

  • Provides overall editorial leadership and safeguards academic quality.
  • Makes final editorial decisions based on scope, rigor, and reviewer input.
  • Ensures impartial treatment of submissions and proper management of conflicts of interest.
  • Oversees ethical concerns (plagiarism, misconduct, corrections, and retractions when needed).

10.2. Associate Editor

  • Manages assigned manuscripts through screening, reviewer selection, and decision recommendations.
  • Monitors review quality, relevance, and timeliness.
  • Communicates constructive guidance to authors based on reviewer and editorial comments.
  • Maintains confidentiality and reports any ethical or conflict-related concerns.

10.3. Reviewers

  • Provide objective, evidence-based, and respectful assessments of manuscripts.
  • Evaluate originality, methodological quality, clarity, contribution, and relevance.
  • Submit reviews within agreed timelines or promptly decline when unavailable.
  • Disclose conflicts of interest and preserve strict confidentiality of manuscript content.

10.4. Authors

  • Submit original work that is accurate, ethical, and within the journal's scope.
  • Ensure proper citation, authorship transparency, and disclosure of funding/conflicts.
  • Respond to editorial and reviewer comments clearly and professionally, with documented revisions.
  • Respect journal policies on ethics, data privacy, and publication standards.

11. Special Issues Policy

RTM may publish special issues or themed collections curated by guest editors. The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) retains final responsibility for all journal content, including special issues. All special-issue topics must fall within the journal’s aims and scope.

Special-issue articles receive the same editorial oversight as regular papers, including external double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers, and are clearly labelled as part of a special issue upon publication. Guest editors’ credentials are verified by the EIC before commissioning.

Manuscripts in which a guest editor is an author are handled under an independent review process managed by the EIC or an assigned handling editor with no conflict of interest. Papers authored by guest editor(s) must not exceed 25% of the total articles published in that special issue.

12. Editorial Endogeny Policy

RTM actively monitors and minimises endogeny—the concentration of published research in which editors, editorial board members, or assigned reviewers are authors—to protect editorial independence.

The proportion of published research papers in which at least one author is an editor, editorial board member, or reviewer assigned to that manuscript must not exceed 25% in either of the journal’s latest two published issues (annual December issues).

Editor- and board-authored submissions are handled by an independent editor without conflict of interest and undergo the same rigorous external peer-review process as all other submissions.

13. Citation Ethics and Prevention of Citation Manipulation

Citations must acknowledge relevant prior work and support the scholarly foundations of a manuscript. The following are not permitted: excessive unjustified self-citation; targeted citation without scholarly relevance; citation stacking; promotional citations; and coercive citation by reviewers or editors.

Editors and reviewers assess reference lists for relevance and balance. Failure to comply may result in revision requests, rejection, or post-publication correction, in line with COPE standards.

14. Authorship Policy

RTM adheres to internationally recognized authorship standards, including ICMJE and COPE recommendations. All listed authors must meet authorship criteria, approve the final manuscript, and accept public responsibility for the work.

Ghost, gift, and honorary authorship are prohibited. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. All submissions must include an author contribution statement. Authorship disputes are referred to the authors’ institution; the journal does not adjudicate such disputes.

Authorship changes after acceptance are not permitted. See the full Publication Ethics statement for details.

15. AI and Automated Tools Policy

Authors must disclose use of generative AI or automated tools beyond straightforward language correction, editing, and formatting. AI cannot be listed as an author or cited as a source. Authors remain fully responsible for verifying all AI-assisted output. Undeclared use may result in rejection.

Reviewers and editors must not use generative AI to produce review reports or editorial decisions, due to confidentiality risks. Manuscript materials must not be uploaded to public AI tools.

The journal and publisher use iThenticate to screen submissions for text similarity. Automated integrity outputs are verified by editorial staff (human in the loop) before editorial action is taken.

16. Multilingual publication

RTM publishes in French, English, and Arabic. Editorial policies and ethics statements on this website are available in French, English, and Arabic. Authors may submit manuscripts in any of the three languages; French and Arabic submissions must include title, abstract, and keywords in English for indexing purposes (see Instructions for Authors).