JCollBiomed is a fully open-access journal. All published articles are made freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication, without subscription requirements, registration requirements, access fees, or embargo periods.

This policy is intended to facilitate the widest possible dissemination, accessibility, visibility, and reuse of biomedical knowledge by researchers, healthcare professionals, educators, policymakers, students, and the public.

1. Immediate Open Access

Readers may access the full text of every published article immediately upon publication. They may read, download, save, copy, print, search, link to, index, and otherwise lawfully use the published content without requesting prior permission, provided that the applicable licence conditions are followed.

JCollBiomed does not apply:

• Subscription-based access;
• Delayed open access;
• Reader registration requirements;
• Institutional access restrictions; or
• Paywalls for published articles.

2. Creative Commons Licence

Unless otherwise stated, articles published in JCollBiomed are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

Under the CC BY 4.0 licence, users are permitted to:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format;
• Adapt — remix, transform, translate, and build upon the material; and
• Use — use the material for educational, research, commercial, and non-commercial purposes.

These permissions are irrevocable, provided that users comply with the terms of the licence.

3. Attribution Requirements

Any reuse of published material must:

• Give appropriate credit to the original author(s);
• Provide a complete citation of the original article;
• Identify JCollBiomed as the original place of publication;
• Provide a link to the article and its DOI, when available;
• Provide a link to the CC BY 4.0 licence;
• Clearly indicate whether any changes, adaptations, or translations were made; and
• Not imply that the authors or JCollBiomed endorse the reuse or adaptation.

Users may not apply legal terms or technological measures that prevent others from exercising the rights granted under the CC BY 4.0 licence.

4. Copyright and Publishing Rights

Authors retain the copyright to their published work. By submitting and publishing an article in JCollBiomed, authors grant the journal and its publisher:

• The right of first publication;
• A non-exclusive licence to publish, reproduce, distribute, display, preserve, and identify the article as originally published in JCollBiomed;
• Permission to distribute the article in print, electronic, indexed, archived, and machine-readable formats; and
• Permission to register and display persistent identifiers and article metadata.

The journal does not require authors to transfer copyright as a condition of publication.

This approach is consistent with DOAJ recommendations, which encourage transparent open licences and recommend that copyright remain with authors.

5. Author Self-Archiving

Authors may deposit and share the following versions of their manuscript:

• The submitted manuscript or preprint;
• The accepted author manuscript; and
• The final published version of record.

These versions may be deposited without an embargo in:

• Institutional repositories;
• Subject-specific repositories;
• Funder-designated repositories;
• Personal or institutional websites;
• Non-commercial academic networks; and
• Preprint servers.

When sharing the accepted manuscript or published version, authors should provide the complete citation and DOI of the article published in JCollBiomed. When a preprint exists, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record with a link to the final published version.

6. Third-Party Material

The CC BY 4.0 licence applies only to material for which the authors or journal hold the necessary rights. Figures, photographs, instruments, questionnaires, datasets, or other third-party materials may be subject to different copyright or licensing conditions.

When third-party material is not covered by the article’s Creative Commons licence, this must be clearly indicated in the relevant credit line. Users are responsible for obtaining permission directly from the copyright holder when their intended use is not permitted by applicable law or the relevant licence.

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce or adapt copyrighted materials before publication.

7. Data and Supplementary Materials

Research data, analytical code, protocols, multimedia content, and supplementary materials published with an article should be made available under an appropriate open licence whenever legally and ethically possible.

Access to research data may be restricted when necessary to protect:

• Participant privacy and confidentiality;
• Sensitive clinical information;
• Indigenous or community-governed data;
• Intellectual property;
• Legal or contractual obligations; or
• Research security.

Any restriction must be explained transparently in the article’s Data Availability Statement.

8. Text and Data Mining

Published content may be used for text and data mining, computational analysis, machine learning, indexing, and other automated research purposes in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 licence.

Users must provide appropriate attribution and comply with all applicable ethical, privacy, and legal requirements.

9. Author Fees and Reader Access

Open access refers to the unrestricted availability and reuse of published articles. It is independent of whether the journal applies an Article Processing Charge (APC) or other publication fee.

Any fees charged to authors, including the amount, payment stage, available waivers, and exemptions, will be stated transparently in the journal’s Author Fee Policy. No fees will be charged to readers for accessing published content.

10. Permanent Accessibility

JCollBiomed is committed to preserving the scholarly record and maintaining permanent access to published articles. Article metadata and full text may be deposited in indexing services, institutional repositories, digital preservation systems, and other scholarly infrastructures in accordance with the journal’s archiving arrangements.

Licensing and copyright information will be displayed clearly on the journal website and within each published article, including its HTML and PDF versions.