Participating in SOAP2: Terms and Conditions

Participating in SOAP2: Terms and Conditions

Participating in SOAP2: Terms and Conditions

Content

1 Purpose and context
2 SOAP2 services and commitments
3 Commitments of participating journals
4 Provisions regarding copyright
5 Provisions regarding data protection
6 Disclaimer

1 Purpose and context

This document specifies the terms and conditions to participate in the SOAP2 project. It defines the services provided by the SOAP2 project and the obligations the participating journals must comply with.

The document will be gradually updated according to the experiences made during the project.

2 SOAP2 services and commitments

2.1 Provision of a platform for diamond Open Access journal publishing

SOAP2 provides a publication platform for diamond Open Access journals based on OJS (https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/). SOAP2 mandates 4science (www.4science.it) as an external provider with the hosting and the maintenance of the platform. Accepted journals can use the platform for the publication free of charge.

2.2 Domain name registration

If wished, SOAP2 registers and covers the costs of a domain name for each participating journal. SOAP2 does not buy already registered domain names. The domain name is managed by SOAP2. The owners of the domain name are the editors of the journal. Domain name registration includes one generic e-mail address for contacting the journal. Journals that do not wish a domain name of their own, will use an URL based on the domain name of the SOAP2 publishing platform (https://ojs.soap2.ch) and the initials of the journal.

2.3 DOI registration

To enable clear identification and reliable citability, SOAP2 registers DOIs for all articles published on the SOAP2 platform through the Crossref membership of the Cantonal and University Library of Fribourg (BCUFR). Already registered DOIs may be migrated to BCUFR.

2.4 ISSN registration

Every Journal on SOAP2 must have its own ISSN. On demand, SOAP2 supports the registration process for ISSN or registers ISSN directly.

2.5 Long-term preservation

To guarantee long-term preservation in sense of a back-up and long-term availability, SOAP2 ensures that the full-texts of all participating journals are preserved with PORTICO (www.portico.org).

2.6 Support for indexation

SOAP2 ensures that the articles of the participating journals are indexed by general search engines and platforms (like GoogleScholar, BASE Search, or DOAJ). On demand, SOAP2 also supports indexing participating journals in scientific bibliographic databases.

2.7 Customer Use Service for OJS

Customer Use Service for OJS is provided by the local representatives of the SOAP2 project. Second level support is covered by the SOAP2 support network. Concerning technical issues, SOAP2 contacts 4science directly.

2.8 Support and Advice for Editorial Work

On demand, SOAP2 provides support and advice for editorial work such as document formatting, copyright issues, etc.

2.9 Migration

SOAP2 reserves the right to migrate the participating journals to another platform at any time in consultation with the editors and to convert file formats for the purpose of long-term archiving and future readability. This also concerns the change of different service providers mandated by SOAP2 for hosting and long-term preservation.

3 Commitments of participating journals

3.1 Eligibility

All journals edited by persons that are member of a SOAP2 member institution have the possibility to use SOAP2 as publication platform if the following conditions are met. The local representative of SOAP2 decides in consultation with the project management of participation and timing.

3.2 Diamond Open Access Journals

The participating editors commit to publish their journals online under the Diamond Open Access model without any costs for authors and readers. They are free to distribute also printed copies for a fair price, but its costs will not be covered through the SOAP2 project. The editors should not observe or accept regulations that are against Diamond Open Access principles.

Participating editors will work with SOAP2 in order to include their journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (doaj.org).

3.3 Creative Commons License

SOAP2 follows international standards and recommends editors to use CC BY licenses where copyright is fully retained by authors. In particular, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, or CC BY-NC-SA are preferred, as they are prerequisites for obtaining the DOAJ Seal.

The editors inform the authors in time about the applied license and are aware of the commitments implied by the this license.

On demand, SOAP2 can provide editors with standard licensing text to use on their website and/or publishing contract.

3.4 Distribution

The participating editors allow SOAP2 to publish the journal on the publishing platform and possible succeeding solutions.

3.5 Content

Participating editors are responsible for the content of their journal. They take care of the quality of the published articles and implement appropriate measures (peer or editorial review, plagiarism and originality check). They guarantee that no unlawful content or content contrary to morality or public order is published on SOAP2.

3.6 Editorial work

The participating editors are responsible for all editorial work including uploading, formatting, and publishing on SOAP2. Regarding long-term accessibility, standardized file formats for that purposed should be used whenever possible (e.g. PDF/A).

3.7 Acceptance, cancellation, and change of ownership

The participating Editors accept the present terms and conditions with the publication of the journal website on SOAP2. Cancellation is possible with a notice period of three months to the end of the year. In case of cancellation or change of ownership, SOAP2 reserves the right to continue to make the hosted content available online.

4.1 General provisions

All SOAP2 journals are subject to Swiss copyright law.

4.2  Title ownership

The publication of a journal on SOAP2 does not imply a transfer of the ownership of the journal. The editors remain owner of their titles.

Authors allow the concerned SOAP2 journal to publish their article under a Creative Common license (see 3.3). They remain copyright holders.

5 Provisions regarding data protection

SOAP2’s OJS instance is currently hosted by 4science servers in Ireland. We draw your attention to the fact that by using SOAP2 services, your personal data (as editor of your journal) will be transferred to 4science in Ireland. 

Pursuant to Article 13 of the European Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data (GDPR 679/2016), editors are informed that their personal data acquired with these commercial conditions, or those that will be subsequently acquired, will be processed by 4Science, including with the help of electronic and / or automated systems, for purposes concerning the management and execution of obligations. For verifications and evaluations on the results and the progress of the relationship, as well as on the risks connected to it, or to fulfil legal obligations or provisions of public bodies, 4Science informs that the conferment of data is optional, even if a refusal to provide it would prevent the conclusion of the general conditions or cause difficulties in the execution of the same; that the data will be communicated, within the purposes described, only to persons in charge of 4Science for the processing of data, to its managers, to 4Science companies, or to persons to whom the communication is due by virtue of legal obligations; that at any time the Client can exercise against 4Science the rights under Article 15 et seq. of the Regulations, contacting all Company references provided in the notice. 

4Science is committed to protecting data transmission to all hosted web applications through SSL/TLS encryption with domain certification (DV) using strong encryption algorithms/keys (such as TLS 1.2, ECDHE_RSA and AES_256_GCM). By default, the HSTS directive (HTTP Strict Transport Security) is also enabled. The servers are located within a VPC, accessible only via SSH with private RSA keys. A software firewall is used to allow only the necessary dialogues between the various application layers reducing to a minimum the surface exposed to any computer attacks. 

Third parties whose personal data you may provide to 4science must also be informed of the above and their explicit consent must be obtained.

However, the data collected from registered and non-registered users of the journals in this project are part of the standard operation of peer-reviewed journals. This is information that makes communication possible for the editorial process and is used to inform readers about the authors and publishers of the content (i.e. name, surname, email address, affiliation) and which we precisely want to advertise by working in Open Access mode.

SOAP2 makes you aware that by accepting these conditions of participation, you take note of the risks mentioned below and agree to run them.

6 Disclaimer

SOAP2 excludes all liability. In particular, it is not liable for misconduct, defects and malfunctions for which it is not responsible, especially not for security defects and operational failures of third-party companies with which it cooperates or on which it is dependent. SOAP2 reserves the right to immediately cancel the hosting of a journal if the obligations of the participating journal are violated or in case of commercial exploitation of the journal, non-publication of subsequent issues on SOAP2, breaches of academic integrity and publication of content likely to damage the good reputation of SOAP2 and its members.