Publishing Policies

The journal is committed to the principle that making scholarly research freely available to the public supports the global exchange of knowledge and promotes the advancement of research, education, policy, and professional practice.

Immediate Open Access

This journal provides immediate open access to all published content. All articles are made freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication without subscription fees, registration requirements, or access restrictions.

Readers may access, read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles without prior permission from the publisher or the authors, provided that proper attribution is given to the original work.

Benefits of Open Access

By adopting an open access publishing model, the journal seeks to:

  • Increase the visibility and impact of published research.
  • Facilitate the dissemination of knowledge across disciplines and geographical boundaries.
  • Support evidence-based policymaking, education, and professional practice.
  • Promote transparency, collaboration, and innovation in scholarly communication.
  • Ensure equitable access to research regardless of institutional or economic resources.

Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright of their published work.

Authors grant the journal the non-exclusive right to publish, distribute, preserve, and archive the work as part of the scholarly record.

Upon publication, articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise noted.

This license permits anyone to:

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial purposes.

Provided that:

  • Appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source.
  • A link to the license is provided.
  • Any modifications or changes are clearly indicated.

The applicable license is clearly indicated on each published article.

Author Rights

Authors retain the right to:

  • Share the published version of their article through personal websites, institutional repositories, and scholarly networking platforms, subject to the terms of the applicable license.
  • Reuse their work in future scholarly publications, teaching materials, presentations, and other academic activities.
  • Deposit the published version of their article in institutional or subject repositories without embargo.

Publication Fees

To support the costs associated with editorial management, production, website maintenance, digital preservation, and dissemination of published articles, the journal charges an Article Processing Charge (APC) of USD 10 for each accepted manuscript.

The APC is payable only after the manuscript has successfully completed the peer-review process and has been formally accepted for publication.

The journal does not charge any submission fees, review fees, or fees during any stage of the editorial evaluation process.

Payment of the APC does not influence editorial decisions. All manuscripts are evaluated solely on the basis of scholarly merit, originality, quality, and relevance to the journal's aims and scope through an independent peer-review process.

Information regarding publication fees is made publicly available to ensure transparency and compliance with good publishing practices.

No Effect on Editorial Decisions

The journal's commitment to open access does not influence editorial evaluation or publication decisions.

All submissions undergo the same editorial screening, peer-review process, and quality standards regardless of the authors' institutional affiliation, geographic location, funding status, gender, nationality, or other personal characteristics.

Editorial decisions are based solely on the scholarly merit, originality, quality, and relevance of the submitted work.

Long-Term Accessibility

To ensure the long-term availability of published content, the journal maintains archiving and preservation mechanisms in accordance with its Archiving Policy.

Published articles remain accessible through the journal website and applicable preservation systems.

Compliance with Open Access Principles

The journal supports internationally recognized principles of open scholarly communication and encourages the responsible dissemination, sharing, and reuse of research outputs for the benefit of the global academic community and society at large.

This policy is consistent with the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which advocates free and unrestricted access to scholarly literature.

The journal supports transparency, reproducibility, and the advancement of scholarly knowledge by encouraging authors to make the data underlying their research available whenever appropriate and feasible.

Data Availability Statement

Authors are encouraged to include a Data Availability Statement within their manuscript. Where applicable, the statement should indicate:

  • Where the data supporting the findings can be accessed.
  • Whether the data are publicly available in a repository.
  • Any restrictions on data access due to ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, or contractual considerations.
  • Information on how qualified researchers may request access to restricted data, where appropriate.

Examples of Data Availability Statements

  • "The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [Repository Name] repository at [DOI/URL]."
  • "The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request."
  • "The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions."
  • "Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study."

Data Repositories

The journal encourages authors to deposit research data in trusted repositories appropriate to their discipline. Examples include:

  • General-purpose repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, and the Open Science Framework (OSF).
  • Discipline-specific repositories relevant to the subject area.
  • National or institutional repositories that provide long-term preservation and public access where appropriate.

Supplementary Materials

Authors may submit datasets, instruments, codebooks, questionnaires, interview guides, or other supporting materials as supplementary files during manuscript submission, subject to the technical requirements of the journal's submission system.

Data Citation

Authors should cite publicly available datasets in the reference list in the same manner as other scholarly outputs. Where available, persistent identifiers such as DOIs should be included to facilitate discovery and reuse.

Data Licensing

Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to apply open licenses, such as CC0 or CC BY, to shared datasets in order to facilitate responsible reuse while ensuring proper attribution.

Authors retain ownership of their research data unless otherwise specified by institutional, contractual, or legal obligations.

Exceptions to Data Sharing

The journal recognizes that certain datasets cannot be shared openly due to privacy concerns, legal restrictions, ethical obligations, confidentiality agreements, intellectual property considerations, or other legitimate constraints.

In such cases, authors should clearly explain the reasons for restricted access within their Data Availability Statement.

Responsibility

Authors are responsible for ensuring that shared data comply with applicable ethical standards, privacy regulations, informed consent requirements, and copyright obligations.

Where research involves human participants, authors must take appropriate measures to anonymize personal information unless explicit consent has been obtained for the disclosure of identifiable data.

The journal is committed to ensuring the long-term preservation, integrity, accessibility, and discoverability of its published scholarly content.

Preservation Mechanisms

To safeguard the scholarly record and ensure continued access to published content, the journal employs the following archiving and preservation strategies:

OJS Native Archiving

All published articles are stored and maintained within the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform, which provides built-in mechanisms for content management, preservation, and retrieval.

PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN)

Where eligible and technically supported, the journal participates in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN), a free preservation service provided by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). PKP PN preserves journal content through a distributed preservation network designed to ensure long-term access to scholarly publications.

Regular Backups

The publisher performs regular server backups and database maintenance to minimize the risk of data loss and to support content recovery when necessary.

Persistent Identifiers

Where available, published articles may be assigned persistent identifiers, such as Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), to facilitate long-term discoverability, citation, and stable access.

Metadata Preservation

In addition to preserving full-text content, the journal maintains and preserves article metadata, including titles, abstracts, author information, references, and publication history, to support long-term discoverability and indexing.

File Formats

Articles are preserved in widely accepted digital formats, including PDF and other formats supported by the journal platform, to facilitate long-term accessibility and usability.

Access After Cessation

In the event that the journal ceases publication, reasonable efforts will be made to ensure that previously published content remains accessible to the scholarly community.

The publisher will seek to maintain access to archived content through available preservation systems, institutional repositories, journal infrastructure, or other trusted archival services where feasible.

Retraction and Removal Policy

The journal is committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly record.

Retracted articles will not be removed from the archive except in extraordinary circumstances involving legal requirements, court orders, or serious ethical concerns. In cases of retraction, the original article will remain accessible and will be clearly identified as retracted through a retraction notice and appropriate markings on the published version.

Corrections, retractions, and removals are managed in accordance with the recommendations and best practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Responsibility

The editorial office and the publisher share responsibility for maintaining the journal's archiving and preservation systems. Archiving procedures and preservation mechanisms are reviewed periodically to ensure continued accessibility and integrity of the journal's published content.