Open Access Policy

Under an open-access license, the Journal instantly makes all of its papers publicly accessible around the world. The full-text of every article published in the Journal is therefore freely and unrestrictedly accessible to everyone.

What is Open Access?

An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:

1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.

The Journal is of the viewpoint that open-access publication encourages the interchange of research findings among experts from other fields, hence encouraging interdisciplinary study. Moreover, open-access publication makes research findings available to the general public as well as scholars from all over the world, particularly those in underdeveloped nations. Whilst the Journal uses the open-access model for all of its publications, we think that open access is a valuable component of academic communication that may coexist alongside other types of communication and publication, such as society-based publishing and conferencing events.

Please be aware that certain articles may use text, figures, or tables that were previously published elsewhere for which the Journal does not possess the copyright or the authority to relicense the work. Please be aware that you should check to see if this content may be reused by contacting the original copyright holder.

Permissions

Reusing an entire or a portion of an article published in the Journal, including figures and tables, does not need specific authorization. Any portion of articles distributed under the open-access Creative Common CC BY license may be used again without asking permission as long as the source is acknowledged. Reusing an article doesn’t mean the writers or the Journal are endorsing it.