Open Access Policy

Journal of Education and Development Lab (JEDL)
ISSN: Pending
Publisher: Journal of Education and Development Lab (JEDL)
Website: https://jedl.us/

1. Purpose

The Journal of Education and Development Lab (JEDL) is committed to the principles of open access, transparency, accessibility, and equitable dissemination of scholarly knowledge.

JEDL provides immediate and unrestricted online access to its published scholarly content so that readers, researchers, educators, students, institutions, policymakers, and the wider public can access and use published research without subscription or paywall barriers.

2. Open Access Model

JEDL operates under a Gold Open Access publishing model.

All published articles are made freely and immediately available online upon publication.

Readers do not need a subscription or institutional login to:

  • Read published articles;

  • Download articles;

  • Print articles for legitimate use;

  • Share links to published articles;

  • Access article metadata;

  • Discover articles through scholarly indexing and discovery services.

JEDL does not impose subscription-based access restrictions on its published scholarly articles.

3. Immediate Access

JEDL provides immediate open access to the final published version of each article.

There is no embargo period for access to articles published by JEDL.

Once an article is formally published, it becomes publicly accessible through the JEDL website and may subsequently be made discoverable through appropriate indexing, abstracting, repository, and scholarly communication services.

4. Licensing of Open Access Articles

JEDL publishes articles under the:

Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

This license permits users to share and adapt published material for non-commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given, changes are indicated, and derivative works comply with the applicable ShareAlike requirement.

Further details are provided in the JEDL Copyright & Licensing Policy.

5. Copyright

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, copyright remains with the author(s).

Authors grant JEDL the necessary non-exclusive rights to publish, reproduce, distribute, preserve, archive, index, and make the article publicly available.

Open access publication does not mean that authors surrender ownership of their copyright.

6. Author Rights

JEDL supports authors' rights to disseminate and promote their scholarly work.

Subject to the applicable Creative Commons license and other relevant rights, authors may:

  • Share their published article;

  • Deposit the article in institutional or subject repositories;

  • Place the article on an appropriate personal or academic webpage;

  • Use the article for teaching and research;

  • Share the article with students and colleagues;

  • Include the article in a thesis or dissertation;

  • Present the research at academic conferences;

  • Promote the article through appropriate scholarly communication channels.

Authors should retain the article's citation, DOI, copyright statement, and license information when sharing the published version.

7. Reader Rights

Readers may access JEDL articles free of charge.

Subject to the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and applicable law, readers may:

  • Read;

  • Download;

  • Copy;

  • Share;

  • Redistribute;

  • Adapt;

  • Translate or otherwise modify the material for permitted non-commercial purposes.

Appropriate attribution to the original author(s) and JEDL must be maintained.

8. No Subscription Barrier

JEDL does not require readers to purchase a subscription to access its published research.

Access to the full text of published articles is not restricted by:

  • Subscription;

  • Pay-per-view charges;

  • Institutional login;

  • Membership requirements.

Where technically available, article metadata and full-text content are also exposed through appropriate scholarly protocols and indexing services to facilitate discovery and interoperability.

9. Article Processing Charges and Other Fees

Open access does not necessarily mean that publishing is free of all possible charges.

Where JEDL applies an Article Processing Charge (APC) or other publication-related fee, the applicable amount, payment conditions, waiver provisions, and eligibility requirements will be clearly stated on the journal website before submission.

JEDL will not conceal mandatory publication charges from authors.

If JEDL does not charge an APC for a particular period or publication category, this will be clearly stated in the journal's Article Processing Charge / Fee Policy.

10. No Charges to Readers

JEDL does not charge readers for access to published articles.

Readers are not required to pay:

  • Subscription fees;

  • Article access fees;

  • Download fees;

  • Registration fees solely for accessing published articles.

11. Equitable Access

JEDL recognizes that researchers and readers have different levels of access to scholarly resources.

By making articles freely available online, JEDL seeks to reduce barriers to scholarly communication and support access for:

  • Researchers;

  • Students;

  • Teachers and educators;

  • Universities and research institutions;

  • Libraries;

  • Policymakers;

  • Development practitioners;

  • Independent researchers;

  • Readers in resource-limited settings;

  • The wider public.

12. Accessibility and Usability

JEDL aims to make published content reasonably accessible and usable through modern web technologies.

The journal seeks to:

  • Provide readable HTML and/or PDF versions where available;

  • Maintain stable article landing pages;

  • Provide article metadata;

  • Use persistent identifiers such as DOI where applicable;

  • Support machine-readable scholarly metadata;

  • Improve compatibility with discovery and indexing services;

  • Maintain accessible links to published content.

JEDL will make reasonable efforts to improve digital accessibility as technology and standards evolve.

13. Discoverability and Indexing

JEDL supports the broad dissemination of its open-access content through appropriate scholarly discovery, indexing, abstracting, repository, and metadata services.

Where technically and editorially appropriate, JEDL may expose or deposit metadata and/or content through services such as:

  • OpenAIRE;

  • BASE;

  • Google Scholar;

  • Crossref;

  • ORCID-related scholarly workflows;

  • OAI-PMH-compatible harvesting services;

  • Institutional and subject repositories;

  • Other legitimate scholarly discovery and indexing services.

Indexing or inclusion in any particular service is subject to that service's independent evaluation and requirements.

JEDL does not guarantee acceptance by any indexing or abstracting service.

14. Metadata Accessibility

JEDL supports the open dissemination of bibliographic metadata associated with its publications.

Article metadata may include:

  • Article title;

  • Author names;

  • Author affiliations;

  • ORCID iDs where supplied;

  • Abstract;

  • Keywords;

  • Publication date;

  • Journal title;

  • Volume and issue;

  • DOI;

  • References and citation information;

  • Licensing information.

JEDL may make appropriate metadata available to scholarly infrastructure providers and discovery services to improve article visibility and citation.

15. Open Access and Research Integrity

Open access does not reduce JEDL's standards for scholarly quality.

All manuscripts remain subject to the journal's editorial procedures, peer-review requirements, research integrity standards, and publication ethics policies.

JEDL maintains appropriate safeguards concerning:

  • Peer review;

  • Plagiarism;

  • Research misconduct;

  • Authorship;

  • Conflicts of interest;

  • Research ethics;

  • Data integrity;

  • Corrections and retractions.

The journal's commitment to open access does not override its responsibility to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

16. Digital Preservation

JEDL recognizes that long-term access requires appropriate preservation and archiving arrangements.

The journal seeks to maintain reliable digital preservation of published content through appropriate mechanisms, which may include:

  • Institutional or journal-level backups;

  • Digital repositories;

  • LOCKSS;

  • CLOCKSS;

  • Other recognized preservation services;

  • Appropriate archival and preservation infrastructure.

Preservation arrangements may evolve as the journal develops its technical infrastructure.

17. Self-Archiving

JEDL supports responsible self-archiving of published articles.

Authors may deposit or share their published work in appropriate non-commercial repositories and academic platforms in accordance with the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and the JEDL Preprint & Self-Archiving Policy.

Authors are encouraged to include a link to the official JEDL article page and DOI.

18. Linking and Sharing

JEDL encourages readers and authors to share links to the official article pages.

Users may share links through appropriate:

  • Academic websites;

  • Institutional webpages;

  • University repositories;

  • Social media;

  • Scholarly communication platforms;

  • Email;

  • Educational resources.

Sharing must not imply endorsement by JEDL or the authors where no such endorsement exists.

19. Commercial Reuse

The open-access status of an article does not automatically authorize commercial reuse.

Commercial reuse must comply with the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and any applicable third-party rights.

Where a proposed use falls outside the permissions granted by the license, the user should seek permission from the relevant copyright holder.

20. Third-Party Content

Not all content associated with a JEDL article is necessarily covered by the article's Creative Commons license.

Where an article contains third-party material subject to separate copyright or licensing conditions, appropriate credit or rights statements should identify those restrictions.

Users are responsible for determining whether additional permission is required before reusing third-party material.

21. Open Access and Article Corrections or Retractions

Open-access availability does not prevent JEDL from correcting, withdrawing, or retracting an article when necessary.

If an article is corrected, retracted, or withdrawn, JEDL will follow its Correction, Retraction & Withdrawal Policy and seek to maintain transparency and the integrity of the scholarly record.

Where appropriate, the original article record will remain accessible with a clear notice explaining its status.

22. Sustainable Open Access

JEDL recognizes that maintaining a high-quality open-access journal requires sustainable editorial, technical, preservation, and administrative infrastructure.

Any revenue generated by publication fees, sponsorship, grants, institutional support, or other legitimate sources will not compromise:

  • Editorial independence;

  • Peer-review decisions;

  • Research integrity;

  • Author rights;

  • Reader access;

  • Publication ethics.

JEDL's financial and operational practices should remain consistent with its commitment to responsible scholarly publishing.

23. Transparency of Open Access Terms

JEDL will clearly display its open-access status and licensing information on its website.

Information concerning:

  • Open-access model;

  • Copyright;

  • Licensing;

  • Publication fees;

  • Waivers;

  • Self-archiving;

  • Digital preservation;

  • Author rights;

should be publicly accessible and understandable to authors and readers.

24. Relationship with Other JEDL Policies

This Open Access Policy should be read together with the following JEDL policies:

  • Copyright & Licensing Policy;

  • Article Processing Charge / Fee Policy;

  • Preprint & Self-Archiving Policy;

  • Digital Archiving & Preservation Policy;

  • Peer Review Policy;

  • Publication Ethics & Malpractice Policy;

  • Plagiarism & Research Misconduct Policy;

  • Authorship & Contributorship Policy;

  • Conflict of Interest Policy;

  • AI & Generative AI Policy;

  • Correction, Retraction & Withdrawal Policy;

  • Privacy Policy.

25. Policy Review

JEDL periodically reviews this policy to ensure that its open-access practices remain consistent with:

  • International open-access principles;

  • Creative Commons licensing requirements;

  • Scholarly publishing standards;

  • Research integrity principles;

  • Technical developments in scholarly communication;

  • Requirements of relevant indexing and discovery services.

Any significant changes to this policy will be published on the JEDL website.

26. Contact

Questions concerning JEDL's open-access model, licensing, author rights, reader rights, or publication charges may be directed to the editorial office through the official JEDL contact channels.

Journal of Education and Development Lab (JEDL)
Website: https://jedl.us/

Short Open Access Statement

Journal of Education and Development Lab (JEDL) is an open-access journal. All published articles are freely and immediately available online without subscription or paywall restrictions. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), unless otherwise stated. Copyright remains with the author(s), while JEDL receives the necessary non-exclusive rights to publish, distribute, preserve, and disseminate the work.