Open Access Policy

The International Journal of Research in STEM Education (IJRSE) is a fully open-access journal committed to the widest possible dissemination of scholarly knowledge. All published articles are made freely and immediately available online, without subscription fees or access restrictions.

IJRSE believes that providing unrestricted access to scholarly research enhances the visibility, accessibility, and impact of research and contributes to the global exchange and advancement of knowledge, particularly in STEM education.

1. Immediate Open Access

All articles published in IJRSE are available online immediately upon publication. The journal does not impose an embargo period or require readers or institutions to subscribe, register, or pay a fee to access published content.

Readers worldwide may access the full text of all published articles freely through the journal's website.

2. Readers' Rights and Permitted Use

IJRSE supports the principle that scholarly literature should be widely accessible and reusable for legitimate academic, educational, and research purposes.

Subject to the copyright and licensing terms applicable to each article, users may:

  • read and download published articles;

  • copy and print articles for lawful purposes;

  • share and distribute published scholarly content;

  • search and link to the full text of articles;

  • use published content for teaching, learning, and research;

  • index and discover article content through scholarly information systems; and

  • make other lawful uses permitted under the applicable license.

Proper acknowledgement of authorship and citation of the original publication are required whenever published material is reused.

3. Budapest Open Access Initiative

IJRSE's open-access policy is aligned with the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which defines open access as the free availability of scholarly literature on the public internet and supports its broad use without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inherent in accessing the internet itself.

IJRSE endorses the principle that removing barriers to scholarly literature can accelerate research, enrich education, increase the visibility and impact of scholarly work, and facilitate the exchange of knowledge across institutions, disciplines, and geographical boundaries.

The journal therefore supports an open scholarly communication environment in which research findings can be accessed and used by researchers, educators, students, practitioners, policymakers, institutions, and the wider public.

4. Copyright and Licensing

Copyright and licensing arrangements for articles published in IJRSE are governed by the journal's Copyright and Licensing Policy and the license indicated on each published article.

Authors retain the rights specified under the journal's applicable copyright and licensing arrangements. Users must provide appropriate attribution to the original authors and publication when reproducing, distributing, or otherwise reusing published material.

Open access does not remove the responsibility to respect authorship, research integrity, proper attribution, and applicable licensing conditions.

5. No Reader or Subscription Charges

IJRSE does not charge readers or institutions for accessing its published content. There are no subscription fees, paywalls, or access charges for reading or downloading articles published by the journal.

Any fees associated with manuscript processing or publication, where applicable, are governed separately by the journal's Author Fees / Article Processing Charges Policy and do not affect readers' open access to published articles.

6. Self-Archiving

IJRSE supports the dissemination and preservation of scholarly work through appropriate self-archiving practices.

Authors may deposit permitted versions of their articles in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal academic websites, or other appropriate scholarly repositories in accordance with the journal's copyright, licensing, and self-archiving policies.

Authors are encouraged to provide complete bibliographic information and a link to the version of record published by IJRSE whenever depositing or sharing their work.

7. Accessibility, Discoverability, and Scholarly Dissemination

IJRSE seeks to ensure that its published scholarly content is not only freely accessible but also discoverable through appropriate academic search engines, indexing services, repositories, and scholarly information systems.

The journal supports practices that facilitate responsible indexing, metadata dissemination, citation, digital preservation, and long-term scholarly access.

8. Commitment to Open Scholarly Communication

IJRSE regards open access as an essential component of responsible and inclusive scholarly communication. By providing immediate and unrestricted access to published research, the journal seeks to broaden the dissemination of STEM education scholarship and facilitate meaningful exchange among researchers, educators, students, practitioners, and institutions worldwide.

Through its open-access publishing model, IJRSE is committed to the principles of accessibility, transparency, scholarly integrity, proper attribution, and global knowledge sharing.

For the principles underlying open access, readers may refer to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).