JATG - Copyright Notice

Copyright Notice

The Journal of Accounting, Transparency and Governance (JATG) is committed to a copyright policy that maximizes the openness, accessibility, and long-term impact of published research while fully respecting the intellectual property rights of authors. The following copyright terms apply to all manuscripts submitted to and published in JATG.

1. Author Copyright Retention

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication in JATG retain full copyright of their work at all times. Copyright is not transferred to the journal or to the publisher (IMAR) as a condition of publication. By submitting a manuscript and agreeing to publish in JATG, authors grant the journal and IMAR a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to publish, reproduce, distribute, and make the article publicly accessible in all formats and media.

What this means for authors: You keep full ownership of your work. JATG and IMAR are granted permission to publish and distribute it — but you remain the copyright holder and are free to reuse, share, and build upon your work without restriction.

2. Open Access License — CC BY 4.0

All articles published in JATG are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This is the most open and permissive license available for scholarly publishing. Under CC BY 4.0, any person or organization is free to:

  1. Share — copy and redistribute the article in any medium or format
  2. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the article for any purpose, including for commercial purposes

These freedoms are granted on the single condition that appropriate attribution is provided — meaning the original authors, the journal (Journal of Accounting, Transparency and Governance), and the publisher (IMAR) must be credited, a link to the CC BY 4.0 license must be included, and any changes made to the original work must be indicated.

The full legal text of the CC BY 4.0 license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Why CC BY 4.0? CC BY 4.0 is the license recommended and required by major open-access mandates and funding bodies worldwide, including Plan S. It is also required for indexing in DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals). Publishing under CC BY 4.0 maximizes the visibility, reach, and citation impact of your research.

3. Self-Archiving and Preprint Policy

JATG fully supports open scholarly communication. Authors are permitted to deposit any version of their manuscript at any time, with no embargo period:

Version Definition May Be Self-Archived? Where?
Preprint Manuscript before peer review Yes — before, during, or after submission SSRN, OSF, ResearchGate, institutional repository
Accepted Manuscript Peer-reviewed, before typesetting Yes — immediately upon acceptance Institutional repository, personal website, any platform
Version of Record (VoR) Final published PDF with DOI Yes — immediately upon publication Anywhere, including personal website and repositories

When self-archiving, authors are requested to include the full journal citation and a link to the published article's DOI. Authors who post a preprint prior to or during submission must disclose this in the cover letter.

4. Author Warranties and Representations

By submitting a manuscript to JATG, the corresponding author — acting on behalf of all listed co-authors — warrants and represents that:

  1. The manuscript is an original work that has not been previously published in any language, form, or medium (except as a preprint, which must be disclosed)
  2. The manuscript is not currently under review by any other journal or publication
  3. All listed co-authors have read, approved, and consented to the submission of the final version of the manuscript
  4. All authors meet the authorship criteria set out in JATG's Publication Ethics policy — specifically, each listed author has made a substantial intellectual contribution to the research
  5. The manuscript does not infringe the copyright, intellectual property rights, or privacy rights of any third party
  6. All data, results, and findings reported in the manuscript are accurate and have not been fabricated, falsified, or selectively omitted
  7. Any conflicts of interest — financial or non-financial — have been fully disclosed in the manuscript
  8. All sources of funding for the research have been acknowledged in the manuscript
  9. Where required, ethical approval for research involving human subjects has been obtained and is disclosed in the manuscript

5. Third-Party Content and Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from the copyright holder before reproducing any third-party material in their manuscript — including figures, tables, images, extended text passages, or data from previously published works — that is not covered by an open license. Proof of permission must be provided to the editorial office upon request. Authors must ensure that all third-party content included in the manuscript is properly attributed, regardless of whether it is reproduced under permission or an open license.

6. Responsibility for Published Content

Authors bear sole and full responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, and integrity of the content of their published article — including all factual claims, data, citations, statistical analyses, and conclusions. The publisher (IMAR) and the editorial team of JATG do not accept liability for any claims, damages, disputes, or legal proceedings arising from the content of articles published in the journal.

7. Copyright on the Journal Website

The design, layout, branding, and non-article content of the JATG website and OJS platform are the property of International Multidisciplinary Academic Research (IMAR) and may not be reproduced without prior written permission. Article content, however, is governed by the CC BY 4.0 license as described above and may be freely reused with proper attribution.

Questions about copyright? Contact the JATG editorial office at editor@imarjournal.org. For questions about the CC BY 4.0 license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or the Creative Commons FAQ at creativecommons.org/faq/.