Content Sharing Policy

Accessibility

Eco-Vector consistently and proactively endeavors to make our products fully accessible to all users, regardless of physical abilities. 

Eco-Vector works to empower through knowledge. Our commitment is to advance accessibility inclusion and diversity and furthers science and innovation. We work to create inclusive products and services to empower the communities we serve, including the research and health communities and wider society as well. We strive to be open and authentic in our approach to digital accessibility.

• continually test and incorporate product feedback, supported by an extensive collaboration network including industry experts and people with disabilities;
• advance accessibility and disability knowledge by producing relevant books, journals, websites, events, and other products for the research and health communities;
• recognise individuals and product teams who uphold the Eco-Vector Accessibility Policy in their work;
  
• share best practice and foster collaboration through an accessibility guild.

We utilize industry standard tools:

• develop products to meet and exceed the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.1 level AA and future revisions.
• create digital products and services that are:
  • perceivable (information and user interface components must be presented to users in ways they can perceive, this means that users must be able to comprehend the information being depicted: It can't be invisible to all their senses);
  • operable (the interface can not require interaction that a user can not perform);
  • understandable (users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface);
  • robust (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible and compatible with a range of assistive technologies).
• utilize automated accessibility testing tools and manual testing methods while developing products;
• exceed compliance wherever possible;
  
• innovate new tools for simplifying accessibility.

We embed accessibility in our business operations:

• drive product accessibility and usability through innovative use of new technologies, incorporating accessibility requirements from the start;
• make it easy for customers and users to quickly and easily communicate with us about the accessibility and usability of our products and services;
• work collaboratively with customers and the research community towards providing all content and services in an accessible electronic format;
• partner with external agencies, industry experts, users with disabilities and others to enhance and share our accessibility insights and capability;
• track product accessibility progress through analytics driven approach and continuously improve our approach through a company maturity model.

Eco-Vector.com accessibility site statement

Eco-Vector.com is committed to ensuring all users have a fully accessible and inclusive user experience. Eco-Vector.com was developed to meet and exceed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.1 standard. If you experience issues with the site or need an accommodation, please contact info@eco-vector.com and we will get back to you within 3 days.

Accessibility features of Eco-Vector include

• Pages are uniquely and descriptively titled
• Keyboard friendly links and buttons
• Obvious visible focus ring
• Logical focus order of interactive elements
• Visible Skip to Main content link
• Use of proper semantic structure including landmarks, headings, and lists
• Responsive design that can be used in small screen devices and magnified in the browser to 400%
• High contrast text on background
• Comprehensive site map

Archiving and Preservation

Eco-Vector is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and to ensure accessibility by converting and upgrading digital file formats to comply with new technology standards. We work in partnership with organizations as well as maintaining our own digital archive.

• PKP Preservation Network. PKP has developed the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) to digitally preserve scholarly journals hosting on Open Journals Systems. The LOCKSS program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content. The PKP PN ensures that journals that are not part of any other digital preservation service (such as CLOCKSS or Portico) can be preserved for long-term access. See the PKP Preservation Network Guide for additional details about the PKP PN and how to use it.
• Portico. Cross publisher independent dark archive governed by Trustees, which stores all of Eco-Vector scholarly journals. Content can be made available to participating libraries if access is no longer available and additionally, Eco-Vector enables Portico to offer post-termination access in the event a library ceases to be a Eco-Vector subscriber.
• Local Archive. Eco-Vector maintains a local state-of-the-art facility to store a complete, accurate digital version of Eco-Vector. The current format standards are XML and .pdf; with most files being retained in both formats. 

Articles Sharing Policy

Self-Archiving Policy

Authors of articles published in Eco-Vector journals are permitted to self-archive the submitted (preprint) version of the article at any time, and may self-archive the accepted (peer-reviewed) version. Self-archiving is often referred to as Green Open Access.

This page details Eco-Vector's general policy for self-archiving. Authors should refer to the Self-Archiving Policy of their chosen journal, which can be found on the appropriate journal's page.

Terms and definitions

We use the following terms and definitions:

• Preprint: An early version of an article prior to the version submitted for publication in a journal. Theses and dissertations are considered to be preprints.
• SMUR (Submitted Manuscript Under Review): The version of the article that is under formal peer-review and evaluation to be publish in the journal.
• AM (Accepted Manuscript): The version of the article that has been accepted for publication. This version may include revisions resulting from peer review but may be subject to further modification by publisher (for example, copyediting and typesetting).
• VoR (Version of Record): The version that is formally published. This not includes any Online First article that is formally identified as being published online before the compilation of a journal issue. The VoR may includes any post-publication corrections.
• Personal webpage: Web pages created by you, devoted to you and your research which are hosted on a non-commercial website (such as your institute’s website). Personal profile pages in commercial sharing sites (such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, LinkedIn and Facebook) are not considered to be personal web pages.
• Department or institutional repository: Web pages hosted by an academic or research institute or department to provide access to the work to promote and the activities of the institute or department, at any times operating for a non-commercial purpose.
• Subject repository: Web pages hosted by an organization to provide access to the work from researchers working in a subject or range of subjects, operating for a non-commercial purpose at any time.
• Commercial and non-commercial: Commercial means any activity for direct or indirect financial gain. When considering whether a use is commercial or non-commercial, we look at the nature of the activity rather than the nature of the site or organization performing the activity.

What can be self-archived, where and when

Submitted Manuscript Under Review

The SMUR of an article is the author's version that has not been peer-reviewed, nor had any value added to it by Eco-Vector (such as formatting or copy editing).

The SMUR may be placed on:

• the author's personal website;
• the author's company/institutional repository or archive;
• not for profit subject-based preprint servers or repositories.

Self-archiving of the SMUR is not subject to an embargo period. We recommend including an acknowledgement of acceptance for publication and, following the final publication, authors may wish to include the following notice on the first page:

"This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: [FULL CITE], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article using the DOI]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Eco-Vector Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions."

The version posted may not be updated or replaced with the accepted version or the final published version (the Version of Record).

There is no obligation upon authors to remove preprints posted to not-for-profit preprint servers prior to submission.

Accepted (peer-reviewed) Manuscript

The AM of an article is the version that incorporates all amendments made during the peer review process, but prior to the final published version (the Version of Record, which includes; copy and stylistic edits, online and print formatting, citation and other linking, deposit in abstracting and indexing services, and the addition of bibliographic and other material.

Plan S compliance

Our Self-Archiving Policy / Green Open Access policy is not compatible with Plan S, and our License to Publish agreements with authors may conflict with authors' agreements with their cOAlition S funders.

Authors should publish as Gold Open Access in order to be compliant with Plan S. All Eco-Vector journals have this option for authors.

Creative Commons and other end-user licenses

Preprints and SMURs can be made publicly accessible under any license terms the authors choose. We recommend a Creative Commons CC-BY or a more restrictive CC license.

AM can be made accessible under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license or equivalent, but not a more permissive license. We do not allow AMs to be made accessible under a CC-BY license, for example.

Third-party material

Before posting articles online, authors should ensure they have the appropriate permission to include any third party content. When posting articles under a Creative Commons license, the permission should allow the third-party material to be included either (i) under the Creative Commons license or (ii) clearly indicated as being protected by third party copyright, with a clear notice that it cannot be reused without further permissions clearance from the identified third-party rights holder.

Closed deposits and embargo periods

Articles can be deposited in repositories before publication provided only if the content is accessible to repository administration staff. This is sometimes referred to as ‘closed deposit’.

Metadata about the article (for example the article title, abstract, and journal citation) can be made public as soon as the article is published. The full text must not be made public before the embargo ends.

Any applicable embargo period starts from the date the VoR is first published online as part of a journal’s issue.

Posting content in repositories

We require repositories to include:

• If an article has not yet been published, a clear statement that the material has been accepted for publication in a revised form, with a link to the journal’s site.
• For all published articles, a link to the article’s VoR on the journal’s site, for example, via a DOI-based link.
• A clear statement about the license terms under which the posted version of the article is deposited.

Citing content in repositories

When citing an AM or an earlier version of an article, we request that readers also cite the VoR with a DOI link.

Use of Self-Archived Versions

Preprint. Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.

• If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
• Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their AM.

Please note:

• Some society-owned titles and journals that operate anonymized (blind or double-blind) peer review have different preprint policies. Please check the journals Guide for Authors for further information.
• Preprints should not be added to or enhanced in any way in order to appear more like, or to substitute for the final versions of articles.

AM. Authors can share their accepted manuscript:

Immediately:

• via their non-commercial personal homepage or blog;
• by updating a preprint in arXiv or RePEc with the accepted manuscript;
• via their research institute or institutional repository for internal institutional uses or as part of an invitation-only research collaboration work-group;
• directly by providing copies to their students or to research collaborators for their personal use;
• for private scholarly sharing as part of an invitation-only work group on commercial sites with which Evo-Vector has an agreement, find out more.

After the embargo period

• via non-commercial hosting platforms such as their institutional repository;
• via commercial sites with which Eco-Vector has an agreement.

In all cases AM should:

• link to the formal publication via its DOI;
• bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license;
• if aggregated with other manuscripts, for example in a repository or other site, be shared in alignment with our hosting policy;
• not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the published journal article.

Published Journal Article. Policies for sharing published journal articles differ for subscription and gold open access articles.

Subscription articles

• If you are an author, please share a link to your article rather than the full-text.
• If you are an author, you may also share your Published Journal Article (PJA) privately with known students or colleagues for their personal use.
• Theses and dissertations which contain embedded PJAs as part of the formal submission can be posted publicly by the awarding institution with DOI links back to the formal publications on the journal’s website.
• If you are affiliated with a library that has subscribed to Eco-Vector products (content and/or collections) you have additional private sharing rights for others’ research accessed under that agreement. This includes use for classroom teaching and internal training at the institution (including use in course packs and courseware programs), and inclusion of the article for grant funding purposes.
• Otherwise sharing is by agreement only.
• The Published Journal Article cannot be shared, for example on ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki or Academia.edu.

Gold open access articles

• May be shared according to the author-selected end-user license and should contain a CrossMark logo, the end-user license, and a DOI link to the formal publication on the journal’s website.

Research Data Sharing Policy

Data sharing enables others to reuse the results of experiments and supports the creation of new science that is built on previous findings, making the research process more efficient.  Data sharing also supports transparency and reproducibility, building trust in science. Eco-Vector is playing a key role in supporting researchers who want to store, share, discover and reuse data and we are committed to working with other stakeholders to address challenges in making data more effective.

Although much research data is disseminated as part of journal articles, a host of other data is not made available through article publication. This policy concerns research data that often underlies, but exists outside of research articles. Publishers can help make this hidden data discoverable and our research data policy provides the framework for our support and engagement in this important area. The precise notion of what constitutes research data will differ from field to field but broadly speaking it refers to the result of observations or experimentations that validate research findings and which are not already published as part of a journal article. Research data can include but are not limited to: raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, materials.

Principles

The following principles underpin Eco-Vector’s research data policy:

• research data should be made available free of charge to all researchers wherever possible and with minimal reuse restrictions;
• researchers should remain in control of how and when their research data is accessed and used, and should be recognised and valued for the investments they make in creating their research data and making it available;
• expectations and practices around research data vary between disciplines and discipline-specific requirements need to be taken into account;
• enabling effective reuse of research data is a shared aim and all stakeholders should work together to pursue this collectively, to find efficiencies and avoid duplication of effort;
• platforms, publications, tools and curation services can enhance research data by improving their discoverability, use, reuse, and citation;
• where others add value and/or incur significant cost in enhancing research data to enable its reuse, these contributions need to be recognized and valued.

Our policy

In line with the principles set out above we will:

• encourage and support researchers to share research data where appropriate and at the earliest opportunity, for example by enhancing our submission processes to make this easier;
• standardize and align our author data guidelines where this is possible to make it easier for authors to understand how and where they can store and share their data, enabling optimal access and reuse;
• make it easier for researchers to comply with data management requirements, for example by supporting data availability statements to enhance transparency;
• develop tools and services to support researchers to discover, use and reuse data to further their research, for example by encouraging and enabling two-way linking of relevant datasets and publications using permanent standard identifiers;
• ensure researchers can gain credit – and credit others – for sharing research data, by encouraging and supporting proper data citation practices;
• work closely with the scientific community to establish data review practices to ensure that published research data is valid, properly documented and can be re-used;
• support the publication of research data as a separate, peer-reviewed output, to support reusability and provide additional ways for authors to gain credit for their work;
• support researchers, research institutions and funders by providing the structure, workflows and technology needed to manage data effectively and make researcher and institutional workflows more efficient, for example recommend storages and preservation option for research data.
• сontinue to participate in industry initiatives and standards and policy bodies to support more effective discovery, use and reuse of research data.

• figshare
• Mendeley Data
• Dryad Digital Repository
• Harvard Dataverse
• Open Science Framework
• Zenodo
  

Content hosting

Platforms such as repositories, preprint servers and scholarly collaboration networks can host research published by Eco-Vector following the guidelines below.

Principles

The following principles underpin our hosting policy:

• Eco-Vector supports the STM Article Sharing Principles and we want to work in partnership with organizations aggregating and making available versions of articles published by researchers with Eco-Vector. This policy complements our sharing policy which outlines how authors can share their research, and agreements with subscribing institutions about how licensed material can be shared;
• We believe that we all have a shared responsibility to work together to ensure researchers can share research quickly, easily, and responsibly. This requires active partnering to ensure the coherence and integrity of the scientific record, to promote responsible sharing in a way that respects the needs of all stakeholders, and to enable impact and usage measurement in a distributed environment;
• Hosting platforms should develop and share COUNTER compliant usage statistics so that researchers and publishers have a full picture of how articles are shared and used;
• Where commercial organizations seek to benefit from hosting versions of articles on their platforms, formal commercial arrangements should be made with Eco-Vector, non-commercial organizations can host documents under the terms of this policy;
• Sites or repositories that provide a service to other organizations or agencies, even if those other organizations or agencies are themselves non-commercial entities, are considered to be providing a commercial service, and this service activity will also require a commercial arrangement with Eco-Vdector.

Non-commercial platforms

Guidance for non-commercial organizations and institutional repositories.

Preprint

• Preprints can be hosted anytime, anywhere.
• If accepted for publication, then hosting organizations should link via the DOI from the preprint to the formal publication. Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications, and so links will help your users to find, access, cite, and use the best available version.
• arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv and RePEc can update a preprint immediately with the accepted manuscript and a DOI link to the formal publication

Please note:

• Some society-owned titles and journals that operate double-blind peer review have different preprint policies. Please check the journals Guide for Authors for further information.
• Preprints should not be added to or enhanced in any way in order to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final versions of articles.

Accepted manuscript

• A research institute can host its employees' and students' accepted manuscripts immediately for internal institutional use or private scholarly sharing as part of an invited research collaboration work-group. After an embargo period passes the manuscript can also be shared publicly.
• Internal institutional use means use for classroom teaching and internal training at the institution (including use in course packs and courseware programs, but not in MOOCs), and inclusion of the manuscript in applications for grant funding.
• Other non-commercial organizations can host manuscripts after the embargo period has passed and the manuscript can be shared publicly.

In all cases accepted manuscripts should:

• link to the formal publication via its DOI;
• bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license;
• not be stored on an insecure network, or be discoverable or accessible except as described above;
• not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the Published Journal Article;
• not be used or posted for commercial gain without a formal agreement with Eco-Vector;
• not be used to substitute for services provided directly by the journal, for example article aggregation, systematic distribution via e-mail lists or list servers or share buttons, posting or linking by commercial companies for use by customers of such companies (e.g. pharmaceutical companies and physician-prescribers).

Published journal article

Policies for hosting published journal articles differ for subscription articles and gold open access articles.

Subscription articles

• Theses and dissertations which contain embedded published journal articles as part of the formal submission can be hosted by the awarding institution with DOI links back to the formal publications on Eco-Vector journal site.
• If you are a library that subscribes to Eco-Vector journal site, for example, you have additional private sharing rights under this agreement. Final versions of articles may be shared for Internal institutional use which means use for classroom teaching and internal training at the institution (including use in course packs and courseware programs), and inclusion of the article for grant funding purposes.
• Otherwise sharing is by agreement only.

Open access articles may be hosted according to the author-selected end-user license. This license should appear on the hosted version of the article along with a DOI link to the citable version of record on Eco-Vector journal site.

Commercial platforms

Guidance for commercial organizations.

Preprint

• Preprints can be hosted anytime, anywhere.
• If accepted for publication, then hosting organizations should link via the DOI from the preprint to the formal publication. 
• Preprints should not be added to or enhanced in any way in order to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final versions of articles.

Accepted manuscript

• Commercial organizations are required to have an agreement with Eco-Vector for the aggregating and making available of articles on their platform.
• A commercial organization can immediately host its users' accepted manuscripts for private scholarly sharing as part of an invitation-only work group and for public access after an embargo period.
• In all cases accepted manuscripts should link to the formal publication via its DOI and bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

Manuscripts may not be:

• stored on an insecure network, or be discoverable or accessible except as described above.
• added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the Published Journal Article.
• used or posted for commercial gain without a formal agreement with Eco-Vector, for example by:
• associating advertising with the full-text of the manuscript,
• providing hosting services to other repositories or to other organizations,
• charging fees for document delivery or access.
• Used to substitute for services provided directly by the journal, for example:
• article aggregation,
• systematic distribution via e-mail lists or list servers or share buttons,
• posting or linking by commercial companies for use by customers of such companies (e.g. pharmaceutical companies and physician-prescribers).

Published journal article

Policies for hosting published journal articles differ for subscription articles and open access articles:

Open access articles may be hosted according to the author-selected end-user license. This license should appear on the hosted version of the article along with a DOI link to the citable version of record on Eco-Vector journal site.

Text and Data Mining

We encourage innovative uses of the content we publish and support customers who wish to perform text and data mining on Eco-Vector content. We are committed to developing tools and services that will enable subscribers to carry out text and data mining in the most efficient and effective manner, as well as to providing straightforward access to content for text and data mining purposes.

Academic subscribers can perform text and data mining under license (or in accordance with statutory rights under applicable legislation) on subscribed content for non-commercial purposes at no extra cost.

Corporate subscribers should contact their account manager to discuss options available for content access and delivery.

In order to maximize platform stability and security for all users, access to content for text and data mining purposes takes place through our API services, rather than through crawling or scraping Eco-Vector platform and journals webpages. 

If for any reason access to content through the API does not meet the requirements of your specific text and data mining project (for example, you wish to analyse material to which your institution does not subscribe, or you would like to discuss access to other content formats), please email info@eco-veector.com and we will be happy to discuss your requirements with you.

If you have any questions about Eco-Vector’s text and data mining policy or how the policy works in practice, please email info@eco-vector.com.

InterLibrary Loan

Eco-Vector actively seeks to identify and address access gaps. We support and engage partners such as libraries and document delivery services to provide additional ways to access content.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Describes the process by which a user of one library receives published material owned by another library in the same country, either as a copy or in the original format, for non-commercial purposes. ILL is sometimes a matter of local national copyright laws, but is not always expressly defined in local laws. It is understood generally that not every academic library can subscribe to every journal, and ILL is intended to help address academic library user access to content that is not considered “core” to their particular library (and not as a “substitute” for purchase or subscription).

Our policy

Eco-Vector’s aims to implement our interlibrary loan (ILL) policy in a fair and globally consistent way for publicly funded academic institutions.

We do this through a standard ILL clause that is included in all academic Eco-Vectorsubscription agreements which permits delivery of journal articles and book chapters to other academic libraries in the same country for the use by the receiving library’s user.

In some cases we will reference or align with local ILL guidelines or codes of practice.

In line with STM’s recommendation, Eco-Vector also permits ILL deliveries by regular subscriber academic libraries to libraries in the ‘least developed country’ category of Research4Life institutions.

Open Licenses

Understanding copyright and licensing

Copyright licenses detail the rights for publication, distribution, and use of research. Eco-Vector authors must sign a license agreement before publication. Read your chosen journal’s author guidelines for details on the journal’s specific copyright agreement. Failure to sign the license agreement will result in the article being withdrawn from publication.

• For subscription articles authors will either transfer copyright to Eco-Vector with a Copyright Transfer Agreement or grant Eco-Vectoran exclusive license to the copyright with an Exclusive License Agreement (ELA). You will receive the appropriate license agreement in the time between acceptance of your article and final publication online.
• For open access articles authors will sign an Open Access Agreement with Eco-Vector and allow Eco-Vector to share the article under the Creative Commons license.

Open access licenses

We aim to provide the best choice of user license options which define how readers can reuse open access articles published on our platforms.

Offer a choice between a commercial and a noncommercial Creative Commons license for gold open access articles in our proprietary titles.  The choice depends upon the journal in which the author chooses to publish. Please refer to the journal's homepage for specific details.

Choosing a license

Once selected, Creative Commons user licenses are non-revocable. We recommend authors check if their funding body requires a specific license. See the Creative Commons website for more details about what to consider before choosing a user license.

Please note: Under the CC BY-NC-ND license and for the Eco-Vector user license permitted 3rd party reuse is only applicable for non-commercial purposes. For further details on the rights granted to Eco-Vector see our copyright information or to obtain permission for commercial use see our permission information. Also note further permission may be required from the rights owner for any content within an article that is identified as belonging to a third party.