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Open Access Policy
Open Access Policy: "The Journal of Law, Society, and Religion"
"The Journal of Law, Society, and Religion" is committed to the principles of Open Access (OA), believing that the free and immediate availability of research to the public facilitates greater global exchange of knowledge and promotes the wider impact of scholarly work. Our Open Access policy is designed to maximize the visibility and accessibility of the research published in our journal.
What is Open Access?
Open Access means making research outputs (like journal articles) freely available online, immediately upon publication, without subscription fees or paywalls. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
Our Open Access Model
"The Journal of Law, Society, and Religion" operates under a Diamond Open Access (or sometimes referred to as Platinum Open Access) model. This means:
- Free for Readers: All articles published in "The Journal of Law, Society, and Religion" are immediately and permanently available online for free to everyone, worldwide, upon publication. There are no subscription fees or access charges for readers.
- No Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Authors: Authors are NOT required to pay any fees to submit, process, or publish their articles in this journal. The costs of publication are covered by the journal's sponsoring institution(s) or organizational support.
- Copyright: Authors retain the copyright of their work and grant the journal the first publication right.
- Licensing: All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows others to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- Attribution: Users must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses them or their use.
- No additional restrictions: Users may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Benefits of Our Open Access Policy
- Wider Dissemination and Impact: Research becomes available to a global audience, including scholars, policymakers, legal professionals, religious leaders, students, and the general public, leading to increased readership and potential citations.
- Increased Visibility: Articles are more likely to be discovered through search engines and academic databases, enhancing the author's profile and scholarly recognition.
- Greater Collaboration: Facilitates interdisciplinary and international collaboration by removing access barriers to crucial research.
- Public Benefit: Supports the public's right to access research that may impact societal well-being and understanding of complex issues at the intersection of law, society, and religion.
- Compliance with Funder Mandates: Assists authors in complying with open access mandates from various research funding bodies and institutions.
Archiving Policy
"The Journal of Law, Society, and Religion" also ensures the long-term preservation and accessibility of its published content through robust archiving strategies. We utilize:
- Digital Preservation Networks: We participate in preservation networks (e.g., PKP Preservation Network (PN) for journals using OJS, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico) to ensure that the content remains available even in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
- Institutional Repositories: Authors are permitted and encouraged to deposit their published articles in institutional or subject-specific repositories immediately upon publication, in line with the CC BY 4.0 license.
