1. Who owns what
Authors retain copyright
Copyright in every article published by IJKR stays with the author or authors. No transfer of copyright is requested at any stage.
The journal receives a licence
Authors grant IJKR a non-exclusive licence to publish the article, to distribute it, and to identify itself as the original publisher.
Publishing rights are unrestricted
Authors may deposit, reuse, translate, teach from, and republish their own article without asking permission, provided the original is cited.
A short Licence to Publish form is signed by the corresponding author on acceptance, on behalf of all authors. It confirms the licence terms, the originality of the work, and that the necessary permissions for third-party material have been obtained. It does not transfer ownership.
2. The licence: CC BY 4.0
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, the licence required by most major funders for open-access output.
Anyone may
- ✓Copy, share, and redistribute the article in any medium or format
- ✓Adapt, remix, translate, and build on it, including commercially
- ✓Deposit it in repositories, course packs, and teaching material
- ✓Mine the text and data without asking permission
On one condition
- !Give appropriate credit to the authors, link to the licence, and indicate whether changes were made
- !Do not suggest the authors or IJKR endorse you or your use of the work
- !Do not add legal or technical restrictions that stop others doing what the licence permits
| Article licence | CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|
| Copyright holder | The author(s) |
| Embargo | None — open on the day of publication |
| Charges | No submission fee, no article processing charge, no charge to read |
| Site content and metadata | Article metadata is released for reuse; the site design and journal marks are not covered by the article licence |
| Self-archiving | Submitted, accepted, and published versions may all be deposited immediately |
3. Third-party material
A CC BY licence can only be granted over material the authors are entitled to license. Anything taken from another source must either be free to reuse or covered by written permission obtained by the authors before submission.
- Figures, tables, photographs, maps, screenshots, and extended quotations reproduced or adapted from another work require permission from the rights holder, even where the source is cited.
- Permission must cover reuse under CC BY 4.0. A permission limited to "this article only" is not sufficient; where the holder will not grant it, the item must be removed or redrawn.
- Each such item carries a source line in its caption — "Reproduced with permission from [source]" or "Adapted from [source] under CC BY 4.0".
- Evidence of permission is uploaded with the submission and retained by the editorial office.
- Standards, proprietary datasets, commercial software output, and clinical images each have their own conditions — check before assuming reuse is permitted.
Authors carry this responsibility
By signing the Licence to Publish, the corresponding author confirms on behalf of all authors that every necessary permission has been obtained. Where an infringement is later established, the article is corrected or retracted and the authors bear responsibility for the breach.
4. Reporting infringement
Two directions: material of yours published by us without permission, or an IJKR article republished elsewhere without attribution.
Your work appears in IJKR
Write to editor@ijkr.org with:
- The DOI or URL of the IJKR article
- Identification of the material you own, and where it appears
- Evidence of your ownership
- A statement that the use was not authorised
- Your name, role, and contact details
An IJKR article appears elsewhere
CC BY permits redistribution, so republication alone is not an infringement. It becomes one where the reuse:
- Omits the authors' names or the original citation
- Presents the work as someone else's
- Fails to indicate that changes were made
- Implies endorsement by the authors or the journal
Report it to the same address; we support authors in asserting attribution.
What happens next
-
1
Acknowledged
Within five working days, with a case reference.
-
2
Reviewed
The claim is checked against the submitted permissions and the authors are asked to respond.
-
3
Interim step
Where the claim appears substantiated, access to the item may be suspended while the case is resolved.
-
4
Resolved
The item is corrected, permission is evidenced, or the article is retracted under Corrections & Retractions.
5. Open access and preservation
IJKR is fully open access. There is no subscription, no paywall, no reader registration, and no charge to authors — the journal is supported by its host institution rather than by article fees. Full text is available in HTML and PDF from the moment of publication.
- Every article receives a DOI registered with Crossref, with full metadata deposited.
- Metadata is exposed for harvesting so indexing services and repositories can pick articles up automatically.
- Content is lodged with a recognised long-term digital preservation service, so the archive survives the journal.
- Authors may deposit any version — submitted, accepted, or published — in any repository, immediately.