Open Access Policy and Archiving
FEP Foundation – Future Education Pioneer is committed to expanding access to scholarly knowledge and supporting the dissemination of research to wider academic and public audiences.
FEP Foundation supports the principle that making research freely available contributes to a broader exchange of knowledge, strengthens scholarly communication, increases the visibility of research, and enables researchers, educators, students, practitioners, and communities to benefit from academic work without unnecessary access barriers.
Journals managed or supported by FEP Foundation are encouraged to provide immediate open access to published content and to maintain rigorous editorial and peer-review standards. Open access should not reduce the academic quality, ethical responsibility, transparency, or editorial integrity expected in scholarly publishing.
The principles of this policy are informed by internationally recognized developments in open scholarly communication, including the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing.
1. Open Access Policy
FEP Foundation supports immediate open access to scholarly content on the principle that research should be widely available to support learning, scientific development, collaboration, and the global exchange of knowledge.
Readers should be able to access, read, download, and use published scholarly work according to the copyright and licensing terms specified by the relevant journal.
Open access publishing under FEP Foundation should maintain the same standards expected in responsible scholarly publishing, including:
- Independent and responsible editorial decision-making.
- Rigorous and constructive peer review.
- Publication ethics and research integrity.
- Transparent authorship and contributor information.
- Clear copyright and licensing conditions.
- Reliable preservation of the scholarly record.
Each journal should clearly explain its own open access model, copyright arrangements, licensing terms, author rights, and any applicable publication fees.
2. Licensing and Re-Use
FEP Foundation encourages the use of clear and internationally recognized open licenses for scholarly publications.
Where a journal publishes content under a Creative Commons license, the exact license should be clearly displayed on the journal website and on the published article.
Depending on the license selected by the relevant journal, readers may be permitted to copy, distribute, share, adapt, translate, or create derivative works from published content, provided that the conditions of the applicable license are followed.
Proper attribution should normally identify the original author, article title, journal, publication details, and a link or reference to the original published version.
Important: The specific Creative Commons license may differ between journals. Authors and readers should always refer to the license displayed on the individual journal or article before reusing published material.
3. Privacy and Intellectual Property
FEP Foundation values the privacy of authors, reviewers, editors, readers, and other users involved in its scholarly publishing activities.
Personal information collected through journal or publishing systems should be used only for legitimate editorial, publishing, communication, administrative, and scholarly purposes and should be managed responsibly.
Published material remains subject to applicable copyright, intellectual property, privacy, confidentiality, and research ethics requirements.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that copyrighted third-party materials, confidential information, personal data, photographs, datasets, and other protected materials are used lawfully and with appropriate permission where required.
4. Archiving and Digital Preservation
FEP Foundation recognizes that scholarly publications should remain accessible over the long term. Journals are therefore encouraged to implement reliable digital preservation and archiving practices.
Digital preservation may include institutional repositories, recognized scholarly repositories, preservation networks, journal platform backups, library-based preservation services, or other appropriate long-term archiving mechanisms.
The purpose of archiving is to protect published content against data loss, technical failure, platform migration, organizational change, or other circumstances that may threaten long-term access to the scholarly record.
Where a journal participates in a specific preservation system, such as LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, PKP Preservation Network, Portico, or another recognized service, the journal should clearly state this on its own website.
5. Repository Policy
FEP Foundation encourages responsible self-archiving and repository deposit in order to increase the accessibility, visibility, preservation, and impact of scholarly research.
5.1 Submitted Version
Authors may retain and store the submitted version of their manuscript in personal storage systems or repositories, subject to the policies of the relevant journal.
These locations may include personal cloud storage, institutional storage, private repositories, research collaboration platforms, or other secure storage services.
Where public sharing of a submitted manuscript is permitted, authors should follow the specific preprint and repository policy of the relevant journal.
5.2 Accepted Version
Authors may retain the accepted manuscript following peer review and editorial acceptance.
Deposit of the accepted version in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal websites, or other platforms should follow the copyright, licensing, embargo, and self-archiving conditions established by the relevant journal.
5.3 Published Version
FEP Foundation supports and encourages authors to preserve and share the final published version of open access articles where this is permitted under the applicable copyright and Creative Commons license.
Authors may deposit the published version in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal academic websites, research profiles, or other legitimate scholarly repositories, provided that proper attribution is given and the terms of the applicable license are respected.
Where possible, repository records should include the complete bibliographic information of the published article and a link to the official journal version.
6. Contact Information
Questions regarding open access, copyright, licensing, archiving, repository deposit, or scholarly publishing policies may be directed to the relevant journal editor.
General publishing inquiries may also be sent to: info@fepfoundation.org.
Open Knowledge and Long-Term Access
FEP Foundation believes that scholarly knowledge creates greater value when it is accessible, discoverable, reusable under clear conditions, and preserved for future generations.
Individual journals may establish more specific open access, copyright, licensing, self-archiving, repository, and digital preservation policies according to their publishing model and technical infrastructure.