Open Access Statement

What is Open Access?

https://creativecommons.org/about/open-access/

Open Access mean that readers can access published material for free, without paying a subscription charge. Our articles are freely available immediately after publication. This means that researchers, students, and interested lay people from anywhere in the world have rapid access to the latest research through our journals. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons open access license.

We finance publication through article processing charges (APC), paid by authors and their institutions. APCs cover the cost of managing the peer review process, professional copy-editing, and promotion of published research we have no other source of income.

For authors, open access means a potentially wider circle of readers for their research papers, with some research suggesting that open access papers are more highly cited.

We believe that open access offers value for money for researchers—our income per article is substantially lower than established subscription publishers. We offer a good deal for funding bodies—outcomes can be widely circulated and no barrier for reading offers transparency to those footing the bill. We also offer transparency to tax payers, who indirectly fund a great deal of research—through open access they have the opportunity to see the results of their contributions.

Article Processing Charges(APC)

We operate under full open access, allowing unrestricted use and reuse of articles under a Creative Commons (CC BY) license. Authors cover a one-time Article Processing Charge (APC) to handle peer review administration, professional article production in various formats, and dissemination. We do not charge for rejected articles, submissions, or based on article length or content type (e.g., figures, supplementary data). Certain items like Editorials, Corrections, Addendums, Retractions, and Comments are published free of charge. Meanwhile, our processing charge is relatively lower than our peers.

Our APC breakdown follows recommendations from the Fair Open Access Alliance to promote sustainable and transparent open access publishing.

Our Publishing Operations & Projects encompass various crucial tasks to ensure the smooth functioning of our journal publication process:

1. Electronic Submission and Peer-Review Website: We develop and maintain our electronic platform for seamless submission and peer review.

2.  Journal Publication:
   -Triaging: Internal staff and editorial board members filter papers upon submission.
   - Organization of Peer Review: We assist Academic Editors extensively, handling reviewer invitations, review collection, author and reviewer communication, and revision correspondence.
   - Production: We manage copy-editing, typesetting, XML and PDF conversion, and language editing. Minor English editing by native speakers is included in the APC, but extensive editing is not covered.
   - Proofreading: We correspond with authors to finalize the text and request any missing information.
   - Other Editorial Assistance: We provide support before, during, and after the publication process.

3.  Journal Management & Development: Our in-house Managing Editors monitor journal performance, competitor analysis, and field trends. They also provide reports and engage in discussions with the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board.

4. Indexing & Archiving: Our dedicated team continuously expands post-publication coverage in academic databases, scope-specific databases, and country-specific journal ranking lists.

5. Digital Preservation: We ensure the long-term archival of all our publications through digital preservation methods like CLOCKSS and other databases.

Editorial Fees:
- We provide travel grants or stipends to all Editors-in-Chief.
- For societies hosting our journals, we share a portion of the revenue with them.

Marketing and Communication:
- Part of our income is allocated to promoting journals and articles through sponsorships of conferences, scholarly society events, and other promotional activities. We also offer awards to support researchers.

General:
1. Management & Administration: This includes non-editorial staff salaries, business costs, and membership fees in publishing organizations.
2. Taxes: We cover tax obligations.
3. Financial Status: We haven't received any financial support yet.

Discounts and Waivers

We are dedicated to facilitating the transition to full open access by offering regular APC waivers or discounts. The extent of waivers and discounts varies across journals . 

Additionally, members of societies affiliated with our journals and authors affiliated with participating institutions in our community benefit from discounts.

For journals in fields with limited funding, where authors may not have sufficient funds available, APCs are typically waived and cross-subsidized from fields with higher APC funding availability. Authors from low- and middle-income countries may also be eligible for waivers or discounts on a case-by-case basis. Applications for waivers or discounts submitted before article submission are evaluated by the Managing Editor based on the research article's quality and the authors' financial capacity.