Open Access

This is an open-access journal that provides immediate, worldwide, barrier-free access to the full text of all published articles without charge to readers or their institutions. Readers have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles and the IPR rests with the author. This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Mandates with a rights-retention clause - These policies typically extend to the parent institution a non-exclusive license to exercise any and all copyrights in the article. Copyright remains with the author until they transfer it to a publisher, at which point the non-exclusive license survives. In so doing, authors are free to publish wherever they prefer, while granting the institution the right to post a version of the article on the open web via an institutional repository. The benefit of the rights-retention clause is that neither the author, nor the institution, need negotiate open access with the publisher; the policy itself allows open access to the article. Upon acceptance or publication, the author or their representative deposits the article into their institutional repository.