Overview of Open Access Commitment

Bytran Publishing Services (BPS) is firmly committed to the principles of open science and unrestricted academic dissemination. All journals under BPS operate using a full open access model, ensuring that every article published is immediately and permanently available online without financial, technical, or registration barriers. This policy supports the rapid circulation of scientific knowledge, helps reduce global inequities in research access, and strengthens the visibility and impact of scholarly work.

Open access at BPS means:

  • Research outputs are accessible to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
  • No subscription fees or paywalls apply to any content.
  • Readers are not required to create accounts or register to access full-text articles.
  • Educators, patients, clinicians, policymakers, and the general public can freely benefit from published material.

This open-access philosophy aligns with BPS’s mission to broaden participation in medical, scientific, and interdisciplinary research, enabling transparent knowledge exchange across regions, socioeconomic levels, and academic communities.

 

1. Licensing Terms and Reuse Permissions

Unless specified otherwise for a particular journal or article type, all publications under BPS are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) . This license is widely recognised by international funders, academic institutions, and open science initiatives.

1.1 Under CC BY 4.0, users are permitted to:

  • Read, download, and distribute the published work
  • Share copies through any medium, including repositories, educational platforms, and professional networks
  • Adapt, revise, translate, or build upon the work
  • Integrate the work into commercial products, educational modules, or institutional training materials
  • Use figures, tables, or textual excerpts in derivative works with proper acknowledgment

1.2 Conditions of reuse:

  • Proper credit must be provided to the original authors, journal, and publisher
  • A link to the CC BY 4.0 license must be included
  • Users must indicate whether changes or adaptations were made
  • The reuse must not misrepresent the original findings or compromise scientific integrity

This licensing framework enables maximal dissemination while protecting authors’ ownership rights and scientific contributions.

Full license text: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

 

2. Copyright Ownership and Author Rights

2.1 Copyright Retention

Authors retain full copyright over their submitted and published work. BPS does not claim ownership of any intellectual property produced by authors.

2.2 Publishing Rights Granted to BPS

Upon acceptance, authors grant BPS a non-exclusive, irrevocable permission to:

  • Publish the final version of the manuscript
  • Host the article on BPS platforms and partner indexing services
  • Distribute metadata and digital identifiers
  • Archive the work in long-term preservation systems

Because the license is non-exclusive, authors are free to reuse their own content without restriction.

2.3 Author Reuse and Archiving

Authors may:

  • Deposit preprints, accepted manuscripts, or final published versions in institutional repositories, subject libraries, or personal websites
  • Reproduce materials in future works, presentations, books, or teaching content
  • Deposit datasets, protocols, and supplementary files in public archives (subject to ethical and legal constraints)

BPS encourages responsible and transparent sharing of research while ensuring compliance with data protection and third-party copyright regulations.

 

3. Responsibility for Third-Party Content

Authors are responsible for securing written permission for any copyrighted materials incorporated into their manuscript, including:

  • Previously published figures or tables
  • Photographs, videos, or images with identifiable individuals
  • Proprietary datasets or diagnostic materials
  • Artwork, graphical content, or copyrighted instruments

By submitting a manuscript, authors confirm that all required permissions have been obtained and appropriately acknowledged. Misuse or unauthorized inclusion of third-party material may result in rejection, correction, or retraction.

 

4. Long-Term Digital Preservation and Accessibility

BPS recognises the importance of permanent academic record preservation, especially for medical and scientific literature. To ensure articles remain accessible indefinitely, BPS:

  • Assigns a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to each publication through Crossref
  • Participates in recognized preservation programs such as the PKP Preservation Network (PN)
  • Maintains secure backups of all published content across multiple storage locations
  • Ensures metadata is registered with indexing partners to facilitate long-term discoverability

These measures guarantee that articles remain retrievable even in the event of platform migration, digital failures, or organisational transitions.

 

5. Indexing, Discoverability, and Metadata Standards

To expand visibility and academic impact, BPS registers detailed article metadata, including titles, abstracts, authors, affiliations, funding information, and DOIs with major scholarly databases and search engines. This enhances discoverability through:

  • Crossref
  • Google Scholar
  • Subject-specific indexing repositories
  • Institutional discovery services
  • Medical and clinical research aggregators

As journals mature, BPS pursues eligibility for high-level indexing systems such as DOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science, and other field-specific databases relevant to medicine and life sciences.

 

6. Compliance with Funder, Institutional, and National Policies

The open access and licensing policies of BPS meet the requirements of:

  • International research funders
  • Government agencies
  • Clinical and biomedical research institutions
  • University-level open access mandates
  • Global science initiatives such as Plan S, NIH Public Access, and Horizon Europe (where applicable)

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all required acknowledgments, grant numbers, and compliance statements appear in their manuscripts. The BPS editorial office may provide support documentation upon request.

 

7. Commitment to Equity and Global Inclusion

Bytran Publishing Services (BPS) advocates for equitable access to scholarly knowledge across all academic disciplines represented in its publishing program. Whether in medical, scientific, engineering, environmental, social science, or interdisciplinary fields, BPS is committed to reducing global disparities in research visibility, participation, and access.

Through full open access publishing and inclusive editorial practices, BPS supports authors, reviewers, and readers from diverse geographic regions, resource environments, and professional backgrounds. This commitment ensures that educators, clinicians, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the general public worldwide can benefit from high-quality scholarship without financial or institutional barriers.

BPS encourages cross-regional collaboration, culturally diverse scholarship, and the dissemination of research that addresses both global and locally relevant challenges across the full spectrum of disciplines it publishes.

 

8. Policy Review, Transparency, and Version Control

This Open Access Policy undergoes periodic review to ensure alignment with evolving international standards, technological developments, and ethical expectations. Updates will be published on the BPS website and will not retroactively alter rights granted to authors of previously published works. Version histories are maintained to ensure transparency and traceability of policy evolution.