Author Self-Archiving Policy

These provisions define the conditions under which authors may archive different versions of their manuscripts submitted to the journal. The Editorial Board aims to provide authors with a clear framework for storing and sharing their works in repositories or other platforms, in accordance with international scientific standards and expectations. The Publisher is committed to the principles of Open Science and Open Access and therefore supports authors in making their publications openly accessible without embargo.

General Provisions

According to the journal’s Copyright and Licensing Statement, all articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. The conditions of this license govern the reuse of various versions of the published article. This means that any party – including the Author – may freely copy, distribute and reuse the article for non-commercial purposes, provided that proper attribution is given to the original author and source, and any derivative works are licensed under identical terms. Versions archived by the Author may be freely disseminated, but may not be used for commercial purposes, and must be preserved without alterations. If any version of the article (preprint, accepted manuscript or final published version) is made publicly available, the Author must indicate the appropriate license or ensure its display – for instance, by including a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license label on the accepted manuscript, while the final version shall be subject to the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license in accordance with the usage agreement concluded with the Publisher and the journal’s copyright and licensing statement.

Archivable Versions and Archiving Conditions

The journal distinguishes between the following manuscript versions, and permits self-archiving of each under the conditions set out below:

  • Submitted manuscript (preprint): The version originally submitted by the Author before peer review. This version may be freely uploaded by the Author to public repositories, preprint servers or personal online platforms at any time, even prior to or simultaneously with submission. Posting the preprint does not constitute formal publication and does not prevent later publication in the journal. However, if the article is eventually published in the journal, the Author is expected to indicate full bibliographic details (journal title, volume, issue, DOI) in the preprint version and provide a link to the final published article to ensure access to the peer-reviewed version.

  • Accepted manuscript (postprint, author accepted manuscript): The peer-reviewed version accepted for publication by the Editorial Board, revised based on reviewers’ comments, but not yet formatted or typeset by the Publisher. The Author is permitted to deposit this version immediately upon acceptance in institutional repositories, personal websites or non-commercial platforms. There is no embargo period for its dissemination. However, it must be clearly stated that the document is the version accepted for publication in the journal, and full bibliographic details (including DOI, if available) must be included to enable proper citation. The content of the accepted manuscript must not be modified, nor may it be presented as equivalent to the published version. Misleading changes or formatting that implies it is the publisher’s final version are strictly prohibited.

  • Final published version (Version of Record): The official version of the article, peer-reviewed, edited and typeset by the Publisher, released in PDF format. The Author is likewise permitted to archive this version. After formal publication, the Author may deposit the publisher’s PDF in institutional or public repositories, or on personal websites. In doing so, only the publisher’s official PDF version may be archived, unaltered – that is, exactly as released by the Publisher. Repository archiving of the final version is permitted immediately after publication, with no embargo, in line with the journal’s Open Access policy. The archived PDF must include a full citation to the journal (DOI or URL and article metadata) and the licensing information (e.g. Creative Commons symbol, reference, metadata tags).

The Author shall exercise their archiving rights in a manner that does not infringe upon the Publisher’s legitimate interests or the exclusive right of first publication. Therefore, the accepted or final versions stored in repositories must always include a complete bibliographic reference and, where possible, a DOI link, to clearly indicate that the article was first published in this journal. Archiving by the Author must not lead to any alteration of the scientific content or misleading presentation of the article; for example, simulating the publisher’s layout for the accepted manuscript or editing any archived version to diverge from the official published form is strictly prohibited.

The Author’s archiving rights are complementary to – and do not limit – the Publisher’s right of first publication and the journal’s Open Access policy. The aim of this policy is to allow Authors to share their scientific results in accordance with international standards, increasing the visibility and impact of their work, while preserving the copyright framework and quality assurance associated with formal publication.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to amend this policy in line with changes to international guidelines or indexing requirements. By submitting a manuscript, Authors acknowledge and accept the conditions set forth in this self-archiving policy and formally agree to them in the usage agreement concluded with the Publisher.