JATG - Open Access Statement

Open Access Statement

The Journal of Accounting, Transparency and Governance (JATG) is a fully open-access journal. Every article published in JATG is made freely and permanently available online to all readers worldwide, without subscription fees, access barriers, or registration requirements. JATG's open-access policy is grounded in the conviction that the findings of scholarly research should be accessible to the broadest possible audience — researchers, practitioners, policymakers, educators, and the general public — regardless of their institutional affiliation or geographic location.

1. Open Access Model

JATG operates under the Gold Open Access model. All articles are published open access immediately upon publication — there is no embargo period and no delayed access. Readers do not need to create an account, subscribe, or pay any fee to access, read, download, print, or share any article published in JATG.

JATG's open-access model is consistent with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access, which affirms that open-access literature should be freely available on the public internet, permitting users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles.

2. Creative Commons License

All articles published in JATG are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this license, readers and users are 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 commercially

These freedoms are granted under the following condition:

1. Attribution — appropriate credit must be given to the original authors, the journal (Journal of Accounting, Transparency and Governance), and the publisher (IMAR), with a link to the CC BY 4.0 license provided, and an indication of whether any changes were made to the original work.

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

3. Copyright Policy

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication in JATG retain the copyright of their work. By submitting a manuscript to JATG, authors grant the journal and its publisher (IMAR) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to publish and distribute the article under the CC BY 4.0 license. This means that:

1. Authors retain full ownership of their copyright and may reuse their published work freely
2. Authors may share, post, and distribute the published article on any platform without restriction
3. Authors may include the published article in a thesis, dissertation, or institutional repository
4. Authors may use the article in teaching, presentations, and other scholarly activities
5. Third parties may reuse the article in accordance with the terms of CC BY 4.0, provided proper attribution is given

Authors are not required to transfer copyright to JATG or to IMAR as a condition of publication. Copyright remains with the authors at all times.

4. Article Processing Charge (APC)

As a Gold Open Access journal with no subscription revenue, JATG covers the costs of peer review management, copyediting, layout, DOI registration, and online hosting through an Article Processing Charge (APC). The APC is payable only upon acceptance of a manuscript — there is no submission fee and authors incur no cost if their manuscript is rejected.

Payment instructions will be provided to the corresponding author together with the acceptance notification. Publication of the accepted manuscript will proceed upon confirmation of APC payment. The APC covers:

1. Editorial management and peer review coordination
2. Copyediting and proofreading
3. Professional layout and typesetting in JATG template
4. DOI registration via Crossref
5. Permanent open-access hosting on the OJS platform
6. Metadata submission to Google Scholar, BASE, and other indexing databases

APC Waiver Policy

JATG recognizes that the APC may present a financial barrier for researchers from lower-income institutions or countries. Authors who are unable to pay the APC due to genuine financial hardship are encouraged to apply for a full or partial waiver prior to submission by contacting the editorial office at editor@imarjournal.org with the subject line "APC Waiver Request — JATG". Waiver requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis and do not affect the editorial evaluation of the manuscript. Waiver decisions are made independently of the peer review process.

5. Self-Archiving and Preprint Policy

JATG supports open scholarly communication and permits authors to self-archive their work at all stages of the publication process:

When self-archiving any version of the manuscript, authors are requested to include a link to the published article on the JATG website and to cite the full journal reference including DOI. Authors who post a preprint prior to or during submission must disclose this in their cover letter.

6. Preservation and Permanent Access

JATG is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of all published content. The following measures are in place to ensure long-term accessibility of JATG articles:

1. Permanent DOI: Every published article is assigned a permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) via Crossref, ensuring that the article remains findable and citable regardless of changes to the journal's URL or hosting platform.
2. OJS Hosting: JATG is hosted on the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform, maintained by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), which is one of the most stable and widely used platforms for scholarly journal publishing.
3. Indexing in BASE: All JATG articles are indexed in the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE), which provides an additional layer of discoverability and preservation.
4. Regular Backup: The JATG database, including all published articles and metadata, is backed up on a regular schedule to prevent data loss.

In the event that JATG ceases publication, IMAR commits to ensuring that all published content remains permanently accessible, either through transfer to another host or through archiving with an appropriate digital preservation service.

7. Indexing and Discoverability

Open access maximizes the visibility and impact of published research. JATG actively works to ensure that all published articles are indexed and discoverable through the following databases and platforms: