General terms of use for Open Access Publications service

1. Definitions and Terminology

Open Access Publications service, hereinafter referred to as OAP service, is a service provided by the University of Geneva Library enabling the hosting of Open Access (OA) electronic journals and the management of the submission, review, and publication process for their articles.

The Host is the University of Geneva Library, which provides and maintains the OAP service (= publishing service provider).

Editorial boards are, through their members, users of the OAP service through which they manage and publish their journals. They own the title and are responsible for the published content. (= publisher)

Journals are serial publications consisting of various contributions. Each journal is dedicated to a thematic area and is managed by an editorial board.

Contributions represent the various types of articles published within the journals (original articles, reviews, letters, comments, etc.).

Authors are the people who create the contributions and own their intellectual property rights.

Internet users include anyone who browses the web and can therefore access contributions published via the OAP service.

2. Purpose

These General Terms of Use (hereinafter referred to as "GTU") define the rules for using the OAP service. In particular, they define the rights and obligations of the Host and the Editorial Boards with regard to the OAP service. By using the OAP service, editorial boards fully and unconditionally accept these GTU.

The OAP service reserves the right to modify these GTU at any time and will inform the editorial boards accordingly. Only the GTU in force at the time of use of the OAP service are applicable.

3. Rights and Obligations of Editorial Boards

3.1. About Journals

• Assume responsibility for and manage the content of their journal, as well as its presentation pages, editorial guidelines, quality control policies and promotional activities.

• Distribute contributions (at least in a basic and complete version) in OA, i.e. without restriction of time, cost, or location for Internet users. It is conceivable that an editorial committee will offer paid services in parallel, such as printed versions or advanced electronic versions (ePub, etc.).

• Assign a Creative Commons license to contributions. The recommended license is Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY).

• Display the composition of the entire editorial team clearly on the journal's website, including contact information.

• Supervise people outside the Editorial Committee that oversee the editorial process and the peer-review of contributions.

• Inform authors and Internet users of the journal's submission review policy.

• Respect the standards and good practices of scientific publication, in particular the rules of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) - whose aim is to promote ethics - and especially the point on the retraction of a contribution.

• Offer as a minimum a PDF version of all new contributions, and if possible, also an HTML version of the text for improved accessibility (e.g. generated using JATS XML)

3.2. About Metadata

• Create and manage journal and contribution metadata and ask authors to provide the relevant information where necessary. To this end, editorial boards endeavor to report, where possible, the ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) of all authors, as well as the grants, project numbers and funding agencies supporting the research that led to the contributions.

• Make journal and contribution metadata available under a CC0 (public domain) license.

• Assign an ISSN to the journal (if necessary, apply for one at the Swiss National Library)

• Respect the DOI syntax defined by the host, recognizing the importance of this identifier and the imperative need not to corrupt it (modification, deletion, reallocation, etc.).

• Display citations (bibliographic references) included in a contribution in its metadata, according to the style chosen by the Editorial Committee, to facilitate citation-counting services (altmetrics, OpenCitations, etc.).

• Meet the requirements for inclusion in the Directory of Open Access Journals, and notify the host of any directories and registers specific to your discipline of which you are unaware.

3.3. In the event of Withdrawal of a Contribution

• Close access to the Contribution in question without deleting it. As each contribution is identified with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and referenced in external databases, it is essential to preserve the webpages to which links are sent and not to delete them without first providing a mechanism for redirecting the links. This is done in collaboration with the host and in accordance with the above-mentioned COPE recommendations.

3.4. When charging Publication fees to Authors (APC - Article Processing Charges)

• Discuss pricing terms with the host.

• Offer a reduction mechanism, partial or total, for authors from low-income countries, to ensure that they are not penalize.

• Exempt University of Geneva employees from these charges

3.5. When setting up the journal with OAP

• Provide all necessary information requested by the host.

• If required, take charge of transferring content and importing any digitized.

4. Rights and Obligations of the Host

4.1. General Information about the OAP service

• Offer the OAP service free of charge to the UNIGE community.

• Provide technical support.

• Make any adaptations required for the proper functioning of the magazine, in agreement with the editorial committees.

• On request, represent and act on behalf of the editorial committees.

• Guarantee long-term storage and preservation of all content submitted to OAP.

• Provide each contribution with a DOI so that it can be uniquely identified and referenced over time.

• Distribute metadata as widely as possible to ensure maximum visibility for the journal.

• Temporarily or definitively suspend a contribution or review in the event of serious non-compliance with these GTU or with applicable laws.

4.2. When setting up a Journal on OAP

• Set up the website and the OJS (Open Journal System - https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/) software according to the parameters and texts provided by, and discussed with, the editorial board.

• Provide training in the use of the service to members of the editorial board and support them during the launch or migration phase.

• Offer access to a test version of the software (sandbox) to make it easier to familiarize oneself with the tool.

Version 1.0 du 29.02.2024