Open Access, Copyright & Licensing

This policy applies at publisher level to the management and communication of Open Access, copyright, licensing, reuse, author rights, repository sharing, and related matters across Macaw Publications journals.

Open Access, copyright, and licensing are related but distinct concepts. Open Access describes the accessibility of scholarly content; copyright identifies the legal rights holder; and a licence specifies the permissions and conditions governing reuse of the work.

Journal-level policies and article-level statements should be consistent with one another and should accurately reflect the publishing model actually applied to the content.

Each journal published by Macaw Publications clearly identifies the applicable copyright arrangement for its articles. Where authors retain copyright, they provide the publisher with the rights reasonably necessary to publish, distribute, identify, preserve, and maintain the Version of Record under the applicable publishing agreement and licence.

Where a different copyright arrangement applies, the respective journal should communicate that arrangement clearly before publication.

The copyright holder and applicable licence should also be identified on or in association with the published article wherever technically practicable.

Open Access scholarly content should be distributed under a clearly identified licence that defines the permissions granted to readers and other users.

Each Macaw Publications journal identifies the exact licence applicable to its articles. Where a Creative Commons licence is used, the journal should display the licence name, version, and a functioning link to the corresponding official Creative Commons licence information.

The licence displayed on an individual article is authoritative for determining the reuse permissions applicable to that article.

Open Access does not remove the responsibility to acknowledge authorship. Users should provide appropriate credit to the original authors and publication, identify the applicable licence where required, and indicate whether changes have been made when the licence requires such disclosure.

Attribution should not imply that the original authors, journal, editors, or publisher endorse a reuse, adaptation, interpretation, product, organisation, or service unless such endorsement has been expressly provided.

Where permitted by an individual journal, prior posting of a manuscript on a recognised preprint server does not by itself constitute publication in that journal.

Authors should disclose relevant preprint availability during manuscript submission where required by the journal.

Following formal journal publication, authors are encouraged, where appropriate, to update or link the preprint record to the published Version of Record.

A preprint may carry copyright or licensing conditions that differ from those applying to the subsequently published Version of Record.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they possess sufficient rights to submit their work for publication and to permit publication under the copyright and licensing arrangements of the relevant journal.

Authors should obtain necessary permissions for copyrighted figures, photographs, tables, datasets, substantial text extracts, or other third-party materials where permission is legally required.

Authors must also respect applicable privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, contractual restrictions, intellectual property rights, database rights, and other legal or ethical responsibilities associated with submitted material.

Macaw Publications does not apply a single universal Article Processing Charge to every journal in its portfolio.

The amount of an APC, the availability of a no-fee publishing model, the currency in which a fee is stated, and the availability of waivers or reductions depend on the publishing policy of the individual journal.

A fee displayed by one Macaw Publications journal must not be assumed to apply to another journal.

The individual journal website constitutes the authoritative source for the current APC or no-APC status of that journal.

The existence, amount, payment, waiver, reduction, or absence of an Article Processing Charge must not determine the scholarly assessment of a manuscript.

Editors and reviewers evaluate manuscripts according to scholarly relevance, originality, methodological quality, research integrity, ethical acceptability, clarity, and suitability for the stated aims and scope of the journal.

Where an APC applies, payment should ordinarily become relevant only after a manuscript has received a formal acceptance decision, unless a journal transparently operates another separately disclosed fee model.

Payment of a fee does not guarantee acceptance, favourable peer review, expedited editorial treatment, citation, database indexing, or any particular academic outcome.

Text and data mining, machine processing, computational analysis, and related automated uses of openly available scholarly content are governed by the licence attached to the relevant material and by applicable law.

Users should maintain appropriate attribution and should not represent automatically generated analyses, interpretations, or derivative outputs as having been endorsed by the authors, journal, editors, or Macaw Publications unless such endorsement has expressly been provided.

Open Access status or an open licence does not prevent a journal from issuing corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other appropriate notices where required to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

Retraction ordinarily concerns the reliability, ethics, or integrity of a published work and does not require concealment of the historical existence of the article.

Complete removal of scholarly content is exceptional and may occur only where compelling legal, privacy, safety, security, or similarly serious circumstances require such action.

Open Access and digital preservation address different aspects of scholarly availability. Open Access concerns present access and reuse rights, whereas preservation supports continuing availability of the scholarly record over time.

Individual journals should describe their electronic backup and preservation arrangements separately and should identify external preservation services only where participation is active and verifiable.

Macaw Publications periodically reviews its Open Access, copyright, licensing, repository, author-rights, and author-charge policies in response to developments in scholarly publishing, technology, legal requirements, research practice, and recognised standards of transparent academic publishing.

Material changes to a journal's Open Access model, copyright arrangement, licence, APC, or repository policy should be communicated transparently through the relevant journal website.

Rights already granted under a published open licence should not be represented retrospectively as though they had not been granted.

Reference to external organisations, guidelines, or standards does not imply membership, accreditation, endorsement, certification, or indexing unless such status is separately stated and independently verifiable.