Essex Human Rights Review
Job Descriptions (Volunteer Positions)
Applicants for Senior Editor posts must first have reviewed a minimum of 3 articles to the satisfaction of the Editorial Board. They should also have some knowledge of the field. Senior Editors will be chosen for individual projects based on their interest in, and knowledge of, the specific subject matter that the article covers.
When an article has been accepted on the condition that changes are made, the Editorial Board will contact the Senior Editor, sending through the reviewer reports and the full text of the article.
After reading the article and reviewer reports carefully, the Senior Editor will liaise directly with the author as she/he revises the article to take account of all important reviewer comments; the Senior Editor may also add his or her own comments to the list of changes required before the article is accepted for publication.
The Senior Editor will actively assist the author with: understanding reviewer comments (including prioritising comments in terms of importance); changing the article to accommodate these comments (with regard to content, structure, referencing and formatting); and preparing the article for resubmission.
Before resubmission, the Senior Editor will re-read the article and reviewer reports, ensuring that all the required changes have been made. If problems remain, the Senior Editor must continue to work with the author until outstanding issues are resolved.
Until the final version of the article is sent back to the Editorial Board for approval, the Senior Editor is the author's main contact. The Senior Editor is responsible for ensuring that articles are returned by deadlines.
Once the Senior Editor is satisfied with the article, he/she will send it to the Editorial Board and the Copy-Editing team.
EHRR Reviews do not require any prior reviewing experience. Reviewers are required to complete a short training programme, usually involving attendance of 2 or 3 workshops at the University of Essex, unless they can demonstrate substantial prior experience.
EHRR Reviewers are required to review two articles per year. Periodically, the Editorial Board will email a list of current articles to be reviewed; reviewers may select the article(s) that interest them the most.
A reviewer must read each article that they chose to review carefully and then prepare a detailed report, according to the EHRR review report format. The review will outline the key strengths and weaknesses, and what contribution the article makes to the field; it will also describe the quality of the argument and any relevant methodology.
Anonymized review reports are sent to the article's author, so reviewers must ensure that all claims are substantiated and that the review refers closely to the text of the article.
Finally, the review indicates whether or not the article should be:
accepted for publication, or
aepted for publication subject to revisions, or
recomend that the paper be rewritten and resubmitted, or
rejected (i.e. the article is unsuitable for publication in the EHRR).
Assistant Editors are responsible for editing, proof-reading, and formatting the layout of the final version of each article (or other item) before it is published. Assistant Editors are required to complete relevant training and ensuring that their spelling, grammar, and knowledge of the EHRR Style Sheet are adequate to their role. Although copy-editing work is on-going, in the month before the publication of a new issue, the workload is substantially heavier.
DUTIES:
Assistant Editors check articles for
Required Skills and Abilities:
Qualifications:
Apply to: Executive Editor Essex Human Rights Review by email: editorSI@ehrr.org
Web-Assistants are responsible for ensuring that the website is fully up-to-date and regularly backed-up in full. No experience of programming or design is required; full training will be provided. The EHRR website is updated purely through word processing 'around the code', and 'copy and pasting' key pieces of code; Web-Assistants will not be expected to create any new code.
Every page of the website has an associated Editing Guide to help Web-Assistants with their work; the Webmaster is responsible for training Web-Assistants so that they can: use this code; set up folder mapping to access the server-side EHRR website folder; and install and use OpenVPN software in order to connect to the University server system. Web-Assistants can work on campus or off-campus; when working off-campus, Web-Assistants are responsible for ensuring they have a reliable, fast internet connection and reliable, up-to-date AntiVirus, Anti-Spyware and Firewall software.
The Webmaster periodically reviews the website design and programming, making any necessary changes to keep the journal looking up-to-date. The Webmaster is also responsible for periodically checking the content of the site to ensure that it is up-to-date and fully fit for purpose. The Webmaster will deal with any coding issues, including creating new code as the website changes and develops. Therefore Webmasters must have: extensive experience of programming in CSS and HTML; a solid and well-rounded grasp of accessibility issues relating to websites and written information; some experience of graphic design; and some experience of networking and firewalls, as the Webmaster will also act as a technical support contact for Web-Assistants. To ensure that the website is maximally accessible to disabled users, the layout is programmed solely in floats and columns; no tables, blank spaces or blank images may be used on the site. Forced line breaks (and similar) must be kept to a minimum, as must blank paragraphs and lists. All images must have ALT tags. The website is programmed purely in text form in Notepad; the EHRR webmaster and Web-Assistants upload the site directly into the EHRR folder within the University of Essex servers via folder mapping, using OpenVPN software (in place of ftp or similar).
Applicants should note that positions at the EHRR are not remunaterated. However, the EHRR Board of Executive Editors provides references for past and present team members on request.
