Copyright, Licensing & Deposit Policies

1. Copyright

1.1. The author(s) retain copyright in their work and are responsible for the content.

1.2. By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) confirm that:

  • the work is original;
  • third-party rights are not infringed;
  • all sources are properly cited.

1.3. Upon acceptance, the author(s) grant the journal the right of first publication and the right to distribute the work under the selected license (see Section 2).

1.4. The official publication date is the date the article appears on the journal website as part of an issue (or the online publication date, if “online first” is used).

2. Content licensing

2.1. Journal content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.

2.2. The CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license allows users to read, download, copy, print, share, and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, provided that:

  • proper attribution is given, and the original publication in the journal is cited;
  • adaptations are shared under the same license (ShareAlike).

2.3. Commercial use (including paid redistribution by third parties) requires separate permission from the rightsholder(s).

3. Self-archiving policy

3.1. The journal encourages self-archiving in institutional repositories, personal websites, and other open archives to increase visibility and citations.
3.2. Authors may deposit:

  • the postprint (peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript);
  • the publisher’s PDF (final published version).

3.3. Deposited versions must include:

  • full bibliographic details;
  • an active link to the article page on the journal website;
  • the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license statement.

4. Preprints

The journal allows the posting of preprints (manuscript versions prior to peer review) in open access repositories.
Authors must:

  1. disclose any preprint at submission (provide the platform and URL);
  2. after publication, update the preprint record by adding full bibliographic details and an active link (DOI/URL) to the final version on the journal website;
  3. ensure the preprint clearly indicates its status (e.g., “preprint / not peer reviewed”) until the final version is published.

Posting a preprint is not considered duplicate publication. During editorial handling, the journal may request clarifications to ensure accurate metadata and referencing.

5. Data and FAIR principles

To improve reproducibility and reuse, authors are encouraged to:

  • deposit datasets, code, and other digital materials in trusted repositories;
  • provide a DOI/URL and an access statement in the article;
  • follow FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), where possible and consistent with ethics and confidentiality.