Frequently Asked Questions

What you need to know before creating your research blog

You will have to fill out an application form which will allow you to present your editorial project to the Hypotheses validation team. This form is divided into several steps and requires you take time to enter all the necessary data. We advise you to prepare it in advance, using this example: Hypotheses application form example.

Hypotheses is a platform open to the entire Humanities and Social Sciences scientific community (researchers, research teams, doctoral students, engineers, library studies and documentation professionals, institutions, etc.).

To open a blog on Hypotheses, you must have a well-defined editorial and scientific project, and ideally an academic affiliation (research laboratory, university, scientific and/ot technical public establishment, etc.). If you do not have a university affiliation, if you are a secondary school teacher for example, or an associate or independent researcher, a PhD practicing outside higher education and research, please do not hesitate to make your links with research units or universities known, if you have participated in research programs for example, or if you have publications, etc.

We encourage you to take the time to explain and develop the scientific dimensions of your research blog project.

When the research blog is opened, an initial administrator account is created in the name of the editor-in-chief. He or she can then create as many accounts as necessary and assign them different roles and varying degrees of access to the blog administration.
More information on adding accounts and the possible different statuses.

We strongly advise against the use of a collective account. In fact, WordPress, the software on which Hypotheses is based, is designed to manage personal accounts. The information entered in your profile is specific to your account and not to the research blog.

Each account can thus be associated with several blogs, allowing different roles for each of them.

This information also configures your public signature correctly and is useful to find posts of which you are the author on different databases, including Isidore.

Yes, you can open multiple blogs. For example, a blog where you talk about your research work, a blog for a research program in which you participate, a blog to accompany a seminar you coordinate, etc. However, for each of them, you will need to complete a new application form.

No. Hypotheses is a platform dedicated to blogging in the Humanities and Social Sciences, it is therefore an essential condition that your project falls into this field of research. However, if your project is interdisciplinary and concerns at least in part the Humanities and Social Sciences, then do not hesitate to submit a request to open a blog!

Yes indeed, that will not be a problem.

It is possible to write in any language on the Hypotheses research blogs, as long as you have the appropriate keyboard. You can publish posts in different languages even within the same blog or the same post.

Currently, Hypotheses does not offer a multilingualism management solution, which would allow you to switch from one language to another in one click, although the installation of a suitable tool is under study. In the meantime, there are alternatives.

In the Hypotheses research blog application form, you can request that content published on an existing blog be imported, but only if it is hosted on WordPress or Blogspot/Blogger.

These restrictions may change, so do not hesitate to inquire with the team.

Once your blog has been created, all you have to do is send the XML file of your old blog to hypotheses@openedition.org, indicating the URL of your new Hypotheses research blog.

On WordPress, the XML file of a blog can be found in Tools > Export.

Do not hesitate to consult the WordPress documentation on this topic.

To find an .xml file containing your blog posts, pages, and comments on Blogger, log in to Blogger. Go to the blog you want to export. In the left-hand menu, click on Settings > Manage a blog > Backup content, then Download.

What are Hypotheses’ technical specifications?

To open a research blog on Hypotheses, you do not have to install anything. The technical part is fully taken care of by OpenEdition. Once your research blog has been created, you can connect to it directly via your Internet browser.

No need to worry about WordPress maintenance and technical updates. These are covered by OpenEdition, so you can focus on getting started with your research blog and publishing your posts!

On Research Blog Home you will find all the features available on Hypotheses.
You will also find the list of platform-specific restrictions there. Indeed, with several thousand blogs present on the platform, we pay particular attention to its stability and security. This is why for example, you cannot add new graphic themes or new features yourself. These developments must go through the Hypotheses team, and can only be deployed at platform level.

Hypotheses accepts the following file types:

  • Images: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webP
  • Audio and video: .mp3, .mp4, .mov, .avi, .wmv, .midi, .mid, .wav
  • Text: .doc, .odt, .txt, .rtf Spreadsheets: .ods, .csv, .xls
  • Miscellaneous: .pdf, .zip, .ppt

More information on adding multimedia content to your research blog, and some examples.

The maximum size accepted per file imported into a given research blog is currently 10 MB.
Please note, if you import several files at the same time, the size of each import must not exceed 10 MB. There is no limit concerning the maximum cumulative size of the different files that you can keep on your research blog.

Opening a research blog: steps and procedures

You must make your request via our online application form, available in French, English, German and Spanish. No request sent by email or in PDF format will be considered. You can consult an example of the form beforehand and find out about the questions you will be asked.

The application form is organized into four steps:

  • general information,
  • import request (optional),
  • thematic classification,
  • contact details of the person in charge.

Once the application process is underway, you can save your application form and complete it later, but this only works after you have completed the first step of the form at a minimum and have saved your answers by proceeding to the next step. You will then receive by email a link allowing you to access your completed form up to the last recorded step.

Allow about ten minutes to complete the application form, if you have your information ready beforehand.

Opening a research blog on Hypotheses is completely free, and maintaining the blog on the platform over time is also free. There is no paid version of the platform with additional options.

The URLs on Hypotheses are in the following form: nameofyourblog.hypotheses.org

Each research blog is therefore a subdomain of the main domain hypotheses.org.

During your application process, it is up to you to define the prefix of the URL for your blog. This must not exceed twelve characters in total, no special characters and punctuation marks allowed. We advise you to choose a short prefix, easy to remember and quote, and as explicit as possible. Also avoid overly generic prefixes like “laboratory”, as there are many laboratories!

Beware ! The URLs used to create the research blogs are final and cannot be modified.

The AFNIC, the Internet domain name registry, specifies that “your domain name must not infringe the rights of other persons, companies or institutions. This may be the case if the chosen name is ambiguous in relation to an already assigned domain name, patronymic or trademark. Adding a keyword is often enough to remove the ambiguity to differentiate yourself well and be visible on the internet”. This remark is also valid for the sub-domains and therefore for each research blog in the case of Hypotheses.

The editorial project is the central element on which we will base the examination of your request. It doesn’t need to be long but it must contain a number of elements:

  • a clear presentation of the theme of your research blog;
  • a clear presentation of the editorial line, i.e. what guides your publication decisions and choices and provides consistency;
  • the objectives you are pursuing with your research blog and, possibly, the type of readership you are addressing.

Thus, this project must speak above all of your future research blog and not just describe your research axes for example, or your research programs.

When they are created, all research blogs are identical, regardless of your choice of indexing. This information is used by our team to better understand your editorial project during the validation process. The option of choosing several categories in two different indexes, one main and four secondary, should allow you to best approach a relevant category for your blog.

Later on this categorization will be used when the notice of your blog is published in the OpenEdition catalog. It is thus indicated in the note of the blog notice:

Disciplines

The categorization is also used as a search filter within the OpenEdition catalog.

criteres

Please note that you can request a change in the classification of your research blog at any time.

The processing of requests to open a research blog is fast. This does not usually exceed 7 days (but some circumstances may extend this period). If you have not heard from us after this deadline and if no message during your application submission indicated an extension of the processing time, do not hesitate to write to the address hypotheses@openedition.org.

Research blog creation requests are primarily reviewed by the Hypotheses team. In the event of an unprecedented or problematic request, the advice of the Hypotheses scientific committee may be sought.
The editorial and scientific scope of Hypotheses is not rigidly defined. It concerns all of the Humanities and Social Sciences and encompasses the most diverse themes and types of projects. It excludes, however, reviews and calls for papers.

To find out more, you can consult this text: Hypotheses and its Scientific Committee.

For calls for papers, please contact Calenda, the Humanities and Social Sciences calendar.

For journals, you can contact OpenEdition Journals, for example, or journal incubators such as Prairial. There are other alternatives.
Review criteria include:

  • the presence of a specific theme or topic
  • an academic affiliation for at least part of the editorial team;
  • the inclusion of the project in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences.

If you do not meet all these conditions, do not hesitate to send your request anyway. It may still be examined by the scientific committee in light of particular qualities of your editorial and scientific project. If you do not have an academic affiliation but are part of a collective or a research project, for example a Citizen Science group, do not hesitate to describe this affiliation.

Before your research blog is created, if you identify an error, or if you wish to add additional information or modify an element of your request, simply write to us on hypotheses@openedition.org

What happens once my application is successful?

Yes, but don’t worry! SEO in search engines such as Google is progressive. At the time of creation research blogs are not yet visited by indexing robots, it is therefore unlikely that a reader will come across yours by chance while surfing the Internet. Its visibility however will improve as new posts are published. Beware however that anyone who knows the blog’s URL can find and consult it.

To improve your research blog’s natural referencing, do not hesitate to read our advice on the Research Blog Home.

Yes.

Online and face-to-face training is provided throughout the year.

To access the calendar, you can consult this page.

In addition, or as an alternative, you can consult our online training course on the Research Blog Home (for the moment, only in french).

If you still have any editorial or technical questions, the Hypotheses team provides you with a support forum.

Yes of course: please inform the Hypotheses team in writing at hypotheses@openedition.org. He or she will be asked to accept the Hypotheses Terms and Conditions.

There is no obligation to follow a publication cadence.

Once your blog has been created, you have no obligation to publish new posts, nor to do so regularly. You can, for example, be very active the first year, take a break for two years and resume more sporadically later.

Legal obligations

As editor, you have a number of legal obligations. The law requires that the person in charge of publication be identified on the support, in our case the research blog. The absence of this mention may lead to a fine. These obligations are detailed in particular in the OpenEdition Terms and Conditions (article 6.7 of the publisher’s commitments).

All of the content posted on a research blog is under the responsibility of its editor or editor-in-chief, who must therefore undertake not to publish content that is contrary to the legislation in force.

Similarly, you must not publish content (media, text, etc.) to which you do not have the rights and you must comply with the conditions of use as detailed by the licenses of the content used.

Please consult the Research Blog Home post on inserting media.

An obligation to respect the scientific perimeter of the platform.

By creating a research blog on Hypotheses, you undertake to respect the mission of the platform which is research blogging in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and more generally to publish content that is consistent with the general scientific policy of OpenEdition (see article 6.3 of the Terms and Conditions on editor commitments). You also undertake to do your utmost to publish content in a form that conforms to the practices of the academic community, that is to say structured by rational argumentation.

In the event of a change in your editorial line or of the research blog main editor, you agree to inform the team in writing at the hypotheses@openedition.org address.

Creating a research blog on Hypotheses means registering it within an ecosystem of tools dedicated to open science and scientific and technical information. Some of these tools are those of OpenEdition, such as our linguistic portals, our catalog or our search engine. Several other databases allow users to dig into the Hypotheses research blogs, such as the Isidore research assistant, developed by HumaNum.

Thanks to the work of the ISSN centres, the blogs can also be provided with an ISSN. In addition to all these elements, there is also the referencing of your content in search engines, as well as all the referencing resulting from your own actions in this direction (sharing of your posts on your social networks and in your professional circles, presentation of your research blog at conferences, seminars, symposiums, citation of your blog posts by other Hypotheses research blog editors or in scientific publications, including in paper format, etc.).

It is possible, for one reason or another, that you do not want or can no longer feed your blog for a specific period or indeed indefinitely. For example, if your research blog is paired with a research program that has ended, continuing to feed it may lose its meaning.

You may also be unavailable for personal or professional reasons. You will find in this post from the Research Blog Home all the necessary information on the steps to follow if you find yourself in this kind of situation. Remember that, in general, your research blog can remain online indefinitely, even if you no longer feed it. If you wish to delete your blog, simply make a request to the Hypotheses team by writing to hypotheses@openedition.org.

There is no predefined lifespan for a research blog. Your blog can remain online without time limit even if it becomes inactive. Blog and post URLs are permanent, short, and easily quotable. You can find out more by reading the article dedicated to the perenniality of your content on Hypotheses on House of blogs.

Since January 2024, articles of Hypotheses blogs which figure in the OpenEdition catalogue were issued with Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) registered with DataCite (an international consortium of libraries and services specialising in information sciences) through the Institut national pour l’Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST). DOIs are unique identifiers for digital resources that ensure their long-term citability. They also improve referencing in third-party databases. They are allocated approximately 12 hours after your blog article is posted online, if your blog is listed in the OpenEdition catalogue. Thereafter, if you unpublish it, the DOI URL will link to a landing page containing the document’s metadata and confirming its existence. For more information, please read the OpenEdition blog.

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