Journal Policies

Open Access Policy

As an open access journal, we provide immediate open access to our content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. As such, users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

 Copyright Notice

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Repository Policy

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with a clear acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process - this applies to the submitted, accepted, and published versions of the manuscript. This can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access). 

Fees

Submissions to IJSaP are free - meaning we do not impose any fees for: (i) submissions by authors to the journal; (ii) for the publication of their work by the journal; and (iii) for any other incidental costs incurred during the process.

Archiving

The journal's content is archived using the CLOCKSS and OLRC (Ontario Library Research Cloud).

Ethics Statement

IJSaP is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics and research integrity. We adhere to the principles articulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and maintain transparent, fair, and ethical editorial processes.

Read the full Publication Ethics policy (PDF)

Our ethics framework covers seven areas:

  • Authorship and Contributorship — who qualifies as an author, authorship order, disputes, and author rights including copyright and preprint/postprint sharing.
  • Complaints and Appeals — how to appeal an editorial decision or raise a concern about the review process, published content, or journal conduct.
  • Conflict of Interest — how authors, reviewers, and editors disclose and manage conflicts of interest.
  • Corrections and Retractions — when and how we correct or retract published work.
  • Data Sharing and Reproducibility — our expectations for data availability, balanced against the ethical demands of qualitative and partnership research.
  • Research Ethics: Human Participants — ethics approval, informed consent, confidentiality, and protections for research involving human participants.
  • Generative AI — acceptable and prohibited uses of AI in submissions and peer review, and what must be disclosed.

Reporting a concern: If you have concerns about a potential violation of these policies, contact the Editorial Manager at ijsap@mcmaster.ca. All concerns are treated confidentially and investigated according to COPE guidelines.