Powered by
The scientific journal Archive of Criminology and Forensic Sciences is built on the principles of full and free open access to scholarly publications. In accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), all scholarly articles become available to readers immediately upon publication without financial, legal, or technical barriers. Users are free to read, download, copy, distribute, and print the full texts of articles or link to them without prior permission from the publisher or the authors. The legal basis for this policy is the use of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which preserves the authors' moral rights while requiring proper attribution to the original source.
International standards and recommendations on open access
The journal provides immediate diamond open access to its content, on the principle that free and open access to research results promotes broader exchange of knowledge and scholarly achievement. This open access policy ensures free and permanent access to scholarly publications, allowing readers to read, download, copy, and distribute materials provided that authorship is properly acknowledged.
The journal is an open-access publication, which means that all content is available free of charge to users and their institutions. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to the full texts of articles, and use them for any other lawful purpose without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author or authors and without registration. Registration is required only for manuscript submission and peer review. This approach is consistent with the definition of open access set out by the BOAI, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, particularly in relation to the transition to the paradigm of electronic open access.
These standards are shaped by the quality requirements that govern scholarly work and its presentation within the international academic community, including the principles of Open Access publishing, the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK), recommendations of Elsevier, and the Committee on Publication Ethics, as well as the experience of international and Ukrainian professional communities, scholarly organizations, editorial boards, and journal editorial offices.
Digital preservation of content
To ensure uninterrupted access to the journal's scholarly output even in the event of unforeseen technical failures or institutional changes, the editorial board implements a comprehensive long-term digital preservation strategy. Published materials are archived on several complementary levels. Internationally, the journal uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) as well as the LOCKSS and CLOCKSS library preservation systems integrated through the OJS publishing platform. This ensures that digital copies of scholarly articles are stored securely in distributed databases around the world. At the national level, mandatory electronic copies of each issue are deposited with the V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine for permanent preservation within the national repository of scholarly periodicals.
Self-archiving rights
An important element of the journal's editorial policy is support for authors' right to self-archive and to disseminate their research results as widely as possible. After successful peer review and official acceptance for publication, authors may freely deposit the accepted manuscript (post-print) in the institutional repositories of their universities or research institutions.
Once the issue has been formally published, authors may also distribute the final published Version of Record, including the final layout, journal logo, and pagination. This version may be uploaded to scholarly platforms such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu, to social media, and to any other open databases. The only mandatory condition for self-archiving either the accepted manuscript or the final published version is the inclusion of a full bibliographic reference to the publication in the scientific journal Archive of Criminology and Forensic Sciences, together with the active DOI of the article linking to the official page of the material on the journal's website.
Open Science initiatives
In addition, the editorial office supports current Open Science initiatives and strongly encourages authors to make the primary data underlying their research openly available. Researchers may upload statistical datasets, survey results, or other source materials to specialist repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, or Harvard Dataverse and provide the corresponding link in the manuscript within a dedicated data availability section.
Full-text access
Real-time full-text access to the journal's scholarly articles is available on the official website in the Archives section (https://archive-criminology.com.ua/journal/issue/archive). To ensure permanent access to publications, the editorial board also makes full-text issues openly available through the V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine and the repository of the National Scientific Center “Hon. Prof. M. S. Bokarius Forensic Science Institute” of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (https://dspace.nncise.org.ua/home). Article metadata, including title, author or authors, abstract, and keywords, are likewise kept openly available for indexing in international databases. Every article remains accessible on an open basis.
Published materials remain available regardless of future changes in publishing policy or technical platforms.
Licensing policy
The journal's licensing policy is compatible with most open-access and archiving policies. It uses the Creative Commons Attribution International CC BY 4.0 license to regulate the use of copyrighted materials. The following key principles of open access and reuse apply:
- Copyright: the author retains copyright while granting the journal the right of first publication. Readers may read, download, copy, and distribute the work, provided the author's name is properly acknowledged.
- Licensing: distribution and reuse take place under Creative Commons licensing.
- Attribution (BY): any use is permitted provided authorship is properly attributed.
- Self-archiving: authors may place their work in institutional repositories or on personal websites after publication.
These terms allow the materials to be used freely for educational and scholarly purposes without the need for special permission, while respecting the rights of the authors.