Copyright and Licensing

For all papers published by GCEJ, the copyright is retained by the authors. The Journal allows authors to retain the copyright of their papers without restrictions. However, the Journal reserves the right to reprint all or portions of the paper and to post all or part of the paper. The Journal reserves the right to edit manuscripts as required to publish. Authors are responsible for obtaining any clearances as appropriate. Unless stated otherwise, all papers are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which means that any re-user can freely share—copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially, and adapt—remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. In addition, the authors must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

In exceptional circumstances, papers may be licensed differently. If you have a specific condition (such as one linked to funding) that does not allow this license, please mention this to our Editorial Office at submission. Exceptions will be granted at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. In case of any dispute regarding copyright ownership or licensing, GCEJ will follow COPE guidelines and may request supporting documentation or legal proof of ownership prior to publication.

By submitting the manuscript to GCEJ, the corresponding author affirms that all co-authors have read and agreed to the journal’s copyright and licensing policies. Author(s) must obtain all parties’ consent (all authors have participated in the manuscript and agreed to submit it for publication) and submit the acceptance of the Copyright Agreement with their manuscript. Written permission must be obtained by the author for material that has been published in copyrighted material; which includes tables, figures, and quoted text that exceeds 150 words. A copy of all permissions must accompany the manuscript when published in copyrighted material. The author(s) hereby represents and warrants that the manuscript is original and that he/she is the author of it, except for material that is clearly identified as to its original source, with permission notices from the copyright owners where required. Author(s) must clearly indicate that approval for publication has been received in cases of institutional ownership.

All listed authors must meet authorship criteria and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately.

  • Reproducing Published Material from other Publishers

It is absolutely essential that authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, schemes, tables, or any extract of a text) which does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Permission should be requested by the authors from the copyright holder (usually the Publisher, please refer to the imprint of the individual publications to identify the copyright holder).

Permission is required for:

  1. Your own papers published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright;
  2. Substantial extracts from anyone’s works or a series of works;
  3. Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes, and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified;
  4. Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.

Permission is not required for:

  1. Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case, you must cite the source of the data in the form of either “Data from...” or “Adapted from...”;
  2. Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission;
  3. Graphs, Charts, Schemes, and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.

  • Obtaining Permission

In order to avoid unnecessary delays in the publication process, you should start obtaining permissions as early as possible. Please note that GCEJ cannot publish material from other publications without permission. If you have any questions about the copyright, please ask for permission.

The copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgment to be followed; otherwise, follow the style: “Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year].” at the end of the caption of the Table, Figure or Scheme.

  • Author Archiving Policy (Self-Archiving and Preprints)

Authors are permitted to archive the following versions of their manuscript in personal, institutional, or subject-specific repositories:

    • Preprint version (before peer review):Authors may post preprints on platforms such as arXiv, medRxiv, or institutional repositories before submission. They must disclose this at the time of submission and cite the preprint in the manuscript.
    • Accepted version (after peer review, before copyediting):This version may be archived after acceptance, with a link to the final published article and proper citation.
    • Published version (Version of Record):The final published version may be shared in accordance with the journal’s license (e.g., CC BY 4.0), including on personal websites and institutional repositories, with clear citation and DOI.

Authors must not submit the same work simultaneously to multiple journals.

  • Policy on Plagiarism and Duplicate/Redundant or Overlapping Publication

The journal strictly prohibits:

    • Plagiarism, including direct copying, paraphrasing without attribution, or reuse of figures/data without permission.
    • Duplicate publication, where an article is submitted to or published in more than one journal without appropriate justification and cross-referencing.
    • Redundant or overlapping publication, where new submissions substantially overlap with previously published work by the same authors without significant new content or proper disclosure.

All submissions are screened using plagiarism detection software. If overlap is suspected, authors must provide full transparency and justification. Violations will be handled according to COPE guidelines, which may lead to rejection, retraction, or notification to the author’s institution.

  • Use of Copyrighted Material and Definition of Prior Publication

Authors must obtain formal permission for any use of copyrighted material, including:

    • Tables, images, or figures from previously published work (unless under a compatible open license);
    • Extended text excerpts exceeding fair use;
    • Any third-party material not created by the authors.

This journal defines prior publication as including:

    • Full-length articles published in another journal;
    • Book chapters or publicly archived reports;
    • Conference proceedings with peer review and ISBN/ISSN;
    • Substantial content made publicly available that mirrors the submitted manuscript in scope and conclusions.

Abstracts, preprints, and posters are not considered prior publications, but must be disclosed.

 

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