Open Access Policy
Open Access Policy
JMVRA Research Journal adopts Open Access publication via a Creative Commons license — every paper is free to access for any reader, with no subscription or paywall.
Page reviewed 17 Oct 2026 · facts read from the journal record
Open access refers to the practice of making peer-reviewed scholarly research and literature freely available online to anyone interested in reading it. Open access has two different versions—gratis and libre. Gratis open access is simply making research available for others to read without having to pay for it. However, it does not grant the user the right to make copies, distribute, or modify the work in any way beyond fair use. Libre open access is gratis, meaning the research is available free of charge, but it goes further by granting users additional rights, usually via a Creative Commons license, so that people are free to reuse and remix the research.
Gratis vs. Libre
Gratis Open Access
Free to read without paying, but does not grant the right to copy, distribute, or modify beyond fair use.
Libre Open Access
Free to read, and goes further by granting additional reuse and remix rights, usually via a Creative Commons license.
There are varying degrees of what may be considered Libre open access. For example, some scholarly articles may permit all uses except commercial use, some may permit all uses except derivative works, and some may permit all uses and simply require attribution. While some would argue that Libre open access should be free of any copyright restrictions (except attribution), other scholars consider a work that removes at least some permission barriers to be libre. In addition to the gratis/libre distinction regarding users’ rights to a work, there are also distinctions regarding the venue in which open access works are published and archived—green and gold. Green open access involves authors self-archiving their articles by sharing them on their own website, or more preferably, in their institution's Institutional Repository or in some other public archive.
Green vs. Gold Open Access
Green Open Access
Authors self-archive their articles on their own website or, preferably, in their institution's Institutional Repository or another public archive.
Gold Open Access
JMVRA publishes as Gold Open Access — the journal itself hosts and distributes the article in a free, open manner.
Gold open access articles are published in a journal that is open access, which means the journal will handle hosting and distributing the journal article in a free and open manner. Gold open access can come with a cost—some gold open access journals have publication fees that need to paid by the author (or the author's employer) to cover the cost of publishing the article. These publication fees can be costly, but thankfully less than a third of gold open access journals have a publication fee. Currently, most Gold open access journals are still publishing gratis (free of charge to read) as opposed to libre (free of charge to read, copy, distribute, etc).
Where JMVRA Sits on All of This
The distinctions above are not academic here — they describe a choice every journal makes. JMVRA is Gold, Libre open access: the journal hosts and distributes the article itself, and readers get reuse rights beyond simply reading it.
- Free to read from the moment of publication
- No embargo period, ever
- Authors retain copyright
- Creative Commons licence with reuse rights
- No subscription or paywall for any reader
- Free to deposit anywhere you like
What You May Do With a Published Paper
Open access is defined by what a reader is permitted to do, not just what they can see. The table below sets out the rights that come with every article here.
| Action | Permitted | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Read and download | Yes | No account, no payment, no registration. |
| Print and share copies | Yes | Including for classroom and institutional use. |
| Deposit in a repository | Yes | Institutional, subject or personal — see self-archiving. |
| Quote and cite | Yes | With normal attribution, as for any source. |
| Translate | Yes | With attribution to the original and its authors. |
| Reuse figures and tables | Yes | Cite the source article; check any third-party material inside it. |
| Text and data mining | Yes | No separate permission needed. |
| Claim authorship | No | Attribution is the one condition that never lapses. |
Who Actually Benefits
Two Things Open Access Is Not
Common Misconceptions
- “Open access means no peer review”
- “Anyone who pays gets published”
- “Open access journals are not indexed”
- “The author loses copyright”
- “Open papers are cited less”
What Is Actually True
- Every paper here goes through transparent peer review
- The fee is invoiced after acceptance, never as a condition of review
- Indexed across Google Scholar, SSRN, ResearchGate and Semantic Scholar
- Authors keep copyright — see the licence policy
- Openly available work is read and cited more, not less
Publication charge and open access are separate questions
Open access shifts the cost from the reader to the publishing process. It does not remove it — editorial handling, peer review, DOI registration and permanent hosting all cost something, and somebody pays. Here that is the author, once, after acceptance, at a rate published in advance on the charges page.
What matters is that the charge is disclosed before you submit and never influences the editorial decision. A journal that reveals its fee only after acceptance is doing something quite different — see editorial independence.
Open access facts from the journal record
The facts a repository, library or funder usually asks for.
* 11.25 is a calculated metric based on citations from Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar. It is not an official Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JCR).
Reusing a published paper: five conditions
Everything CC BY 4.0 asks of a reader, in one list.
- Credit the authors, the article title and the journal every time
- Link to the CC BY 4.0 licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- Say what you changed if you adapt, translate or excerpt the work
- Check figures or tables taken from third parties inside the paper for their own permissions
- Cite the DOI where one was registered, so the reference keeps resolving
- Never present the work, or part of it, as your own
Related policies
Where the Open Access Policy Applies
The stages of a paper’s journey this policy governs are highlighted.
Applies at: Publish · After
Open Access Policy in Brief
Every article in JMVRA is free to read, download and share from the moment it is published, with no subscription or reader paywall.
Articles are published under the CC BY 4.0 licence, so anyone may reuse them with credit to the authors. Open access maximises readership and citation, and helps meet funder and institutional requirements.
