Open Access Policy

1. Open Access

Open Access (OA) is the practice of making peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific content freely and permanently available online without subscription, registration, or pay-per-view barriers. The Asian Journal of Information Science and Technology (AJIST) follows the Gold Open Access model, under which the final published Version of Record is made immediately and permanently available on the journal website.

Readers may access, read, download, copy, and share published articles free of charge in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

2. Centre for Research and Innovation (CRI) Open Access Guidelines

The Centre for Research and Innovation (CRI) follows established principles and good practices in Open Access scholarly publishing, including transparency in copyright, licensing, peer review, Article Processing Charges, and access to published content.

Upon publication of an article in AJIST, following completion of the journal's Copyright Transfer Agreement, the author(s) or other lawful copyright holder assign copyright in the published work to the Centre for Research and Innovation (CRI).

All published articles are made immediately and permanently available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

3. Benefits of Open Access Publishing

  • Enhances the visibility and discoverability of research.
  • Provides immediate worldwide access to published articles.
  • Increases opportunities for readership and citation.
  • Facilitates wider scholarly dissemination.

Authors whose research is subject to specific institutional or funder licensing requirements, including CC BY 4.0 mandates, should verify before submission whether AJIST's licensing terms satisfy those requirements.

4. Open Access Licence and Copyright

Articles published in AJIST are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Under this licence, users may copy and redistribute the published article in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes, provided appropriate credit is given to the author(s), AJIST, and the original publication.

The licence does not permit commercial use or the sharing or distribution of modified, adapted, translated, or derivative versions of the published work without additional permission from the copyright holder.

Following copyright transfer, CRI holds the copyright in the published Version of Record and the rights necessary to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive, preserve, index, disseminate, and protect the article. Copyright and licence information is provided on the article webpage and in the published Version of Record.

5. Copyright and Licence Statement for Published Articles

For articles published in 2026: © 2026 Centre for Research and Innovation (CRI). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). For later articles, the copyright year must match the actual year of publication.

6. Repository Policy

Authors may deposit the following versions of their articles in institutional, subject, or other appropriate scholarly repositories without an embargo period:

  • Submitted manuscript.
  • Accepted manuscript.
  • Published Version of Record.

When depositing or sharing the published Version of Record, authors must retain:

  • The complete bibliographic citation.
  • The DOI or permanent link.
  • The original copyright notice.
  • The CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence information.
  • Acknowledgement of AJIST and CRI as the original journal and publisher.

The published Version of Record must remain unchanged and may be shared for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

7. Digital Preservation

AJIST content is preserved through the PKP Preservation Network to support long-term digital preservation and continued access.

8. Gold Open Access and Article Processing Charge

AJIST supports its Gold Open Access publishing services through an Article Processing Charge (APC). The applicable APC is INR 3,000 for authors from India and USD 50 for authors from other countries.

No submission fee is charged. The APC is payable only after a manuscript has been accepted following editorial assessment and peer review. Authors are not required to pay an APC for manuscripts that are rejected.

Payment, waiver, discount, or refund status does not influence editorial assessment, peer review, manuscript acceptance, or publication decisions.

9. Fee Waivers and Discounts

AJIST provides a 50% APC discount for corresponding authors from Research4Life Group A countries, subject to the current Research4Life eligibility classification at the time of submission. Eligibility is determined against the current Research4Life criteria before payment.

Research4Life eligibility criteria: https://www.research4life.org/access/criteria/

10. Other Charges

AJIST does not charge authors additional editorial processing, language editing, colour, submission, page, membership, or other supplementary author-facing fees beyond the applicable APC described in this policy.

11. Refund of Article Processing Charges

CRI grants an APC refund only in the following circumstances:

  • An error attributable to the publisher prevents publication of an accepted manuscript.
  • Multiple APC payments are mistakenly made for the same manuscript.

Refunds are normally not issued when:

  • An author withdraws the manuscript after APC payment and publication processing has commenced.
  • An article is retracted because of plagiarism, copyright infringement, data fabrication, research misconduct, or another author-related breach of publication ethics.

Approved refunds are normally processed within 14 days, subject to payment-provider and banking processing times.

12. Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit and remain independent of APC payments. The costs associated with editorial administration, publication, hosting, archiving, preservation, and dissemination do not influence peer review or manuscript acceptance.