Privacy Statement

1. Summary

Survey Research Methods ("SRM") is the official, peer-reviewed open-access journal of the European Survey Research Association ("ESRA"). ESRA is a charity registered in the United Kingdom (registered charity number 1150506). SRM publishes scientific papers using the application Open Journal System (OJS) which runs on a server hosted by the library of the University of Konstanz, Germany. SRM stores the email-addresses of readers, authors and reviewers. Each of these email addresses is stored in OJS, along with a name provided by the user of the website upon registration. SRM does not share any of this information with ESRA or any other third party.

The editor of SRM, Ulrich Kohler, has assumed responsibility for the SRM data policy. If you have any questions or concerns about any of the information laid out in this notice or any other question about how SRM protects your data, please send an email to him: ukohler@uni-potsdam.de.

Alternatively, you can write to
Ulrich Kohler
University of Potsdam
Faculty of Economy and Social Sciences
August-Bebel-Straße 89
14482 Potsdam
Germany

2. The Policy

This is the website of Survey Research Methods ("SRM"), which is the official, peer-reviewed open-access journal of the European Survey Research Association ("ESRA"). The website uses the application Open Journal Systems (OJS) which runs on a server of the University of Konstanz, Germany.

2.1 The information we collect and how we use it

Users of the website can register themselves as reader, author or reviewer. It is thereby possible to register for just one of these roles, or to register any combination of them. The following describes how we use the stored information of the user for each of the roles separately.

2.1.1 Readers

When someone registers as a reader of SRM, we ask them to provide a user-name, an email address and a name. If registration is successful, a user account is created, which stores the reader's email address and name. We will use that email address to inform the reader about

  • the publication of a new issue of the journal, and
  • withdrawal of a paper published in SRM.

We like to stress that the contents of the journal are accessible without registration.

We will never give out your email addresses to any 3rd party (including ESRA) and we never discuss the details of the accounts with anyone apart from you.

2.1.2. Authors

When someone registers as an author of SRM, we ask them to provide a user name, an email address and a name. If registration is successful, a user account is created, which stores the author's email address and name. We will use that email address to correspond with the author about the ongoing reviewing and publishing process. Particularly, we use the email address

  • to inform the author about the results of the reviewing process, 
  • to request additional files necessary for the reviewing process, or the publication of an accepted paper, and
  • to publish the email of the corresponding author of an accepted paper in the published issue.

Moreover, we publish the names of authors of accepted papers in the table of contents of published issues.

Authors will not be informed about the publication of new issues of the journal unless they also register as a reader.

We will never give out your email addresses to any 3rd party (including ESRA) and we never discuss the details of the accounts with anyone apart from you.

2.1.3 Reviewers

When someone registers as a reviewer of SRM, we ask them to provide a user name, an email address and a name. We also ask reviewers to provide a list of reviewing interests, but those are not mandatory. If registration is successful, a user account is created, which stores the reviewer's email address and name along with the reviewing interests. We will use that email address to correspond with the reviewer about the ongoing reviewing process. Particularly, we may use the email address

  • to remind reviewers about the deadlines for the review,
  • request reviews of a revised version of a paper, and
  • to invite reviews of newly submitted papers.

Reviewers will not be informed about the publication of new issues of the journal unless they also register as a reader.

The reviewing interests may be used by SRM's Editor and the Associate Editors to identify reviewers for a specific submission. We like to stress that Associate Editors may also use their scientific network to contact and correspond with reviewers. SRM does not take responsibility for any direct correspondence between the Associate Editors and reviewers.

We will never give out your email addresses to any 3rd party (including ESRA) and we never discuss the details of the accounts with anyone apart from you.

2.1.4 Other Information

Upon registration, OJS, the application used to run SRM's website, offers fields to provide other information such as registree's gender, ORCID-ID, affiliation, etc. This information can be inspected by SRM's Editor and Journal Manager. Sometimes we use some information provided here when typesetting the title of accepted papers. Aside from these, any of these fields are of no use for SRM. We hereby encourage our users not to fill in these fields.

2.2 Opting out

You may access, review, edit and delete your account details by logging into your SRM account.

2.3 Withdrawing consent

You can withdraw your consent for us to store and process your personal data at any time by submitting an email to the SRM Publication Officer (SurveyResearchMethods@uni-konstanz.de).

2.4 How to complain

If you need to complain about how SRM has handled your request to withdraw consent, or any other aspect related to the information detailed in this privacy information notice, please send an email to the Editor of SRM, Ulrich Kohler: ukohler@uni-potsdam.de.