Copyright and Licensing

Copyright and Licensing

Spectrum of Operational Research (SOR) supports the dissemination and reuse of scholarly research in order to maximize its accessibility and impact. All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) .

Copyright Ownership

Copyright in articles published in SOR remains with the author(s). Copyright is not transferred to the journal, its editors, or the publisher.

Authors grant SOR the right of first publication and agree to have their work published under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Authors retain the right to reuse, distribute, archive, share, and otherwise make lawful use of their published work in accordance with the terms of the applicable license.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, anyone may:

  • copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, including commercially;
  • remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercially.

These permissions are granted provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the CC BY 4.0 license is provided, and any changes made to the original material are clearly indicated.

Attribution must not suggest that the original author(s), SOR, or the publisher endorse the user, the modified material, or the use of the material.

Third-Party Material

The CC BY 4.0 license applies to the published article and to material for which the author(s) hold the necessary rights, unless otherwise indicated.

Third-party material included in an article may be subject to separate copyright or licensing conditions. Where a figure, table, photograph, illustration, or other third-party material is not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license, this should be clearly indicated in the relevant caption, credit line, or other appropriate notice.

Users wishing to reuse third-party material that is not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license are responsible for determining whether the intended reuse is permitted by law or another applicable license and, where necessary, for obtaining permission from the relevant copyright holder.

Use of Third-Party Copyrighted Material

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they have the necessary rights to include third-party material in manuscripts submitted to SOR.

Permission may be required for published material, including figures, schemes, tables, photographs, illustrations, or extracts of text, where the material is protected by copyright and the intended use is not permitted by an applicable license, the public-domain status of the material, or a relevant exception or limitation under applicable copyright law.

Permission may be required for:

  • the authors' own works previously published by another publisher where the authors did not retain the rights necessary for the intended reuse;
  • substantial extracts from another person's copyrighted work or collection of works where the intended reuse is not otherwise permitted;
  • tables, graphs, charts, schemes, illustrations, and other visual materials reproduced in their original form or with only minor modifications where the applicable license or a relevant legal exception does not permit such reuse;
  • photographs, images, or other materials for which the authors do not hold the necessary rights and whose reuse is not otherwise permitted.

Material That May Be Reused Without Additional Permission

Additional permission is generally not required where:

  • authors create their own table, graph, or other presentation based on underlying data that may lawfully be reused, provided that the source of the data is appropriately acknowledged and cited;
  • short quotations are used in accordance with applicable copyright law or another relevant legal exception or limitation, provided that the original source is appropriately cited;
  • graphs, charts, schemes, illustrations, or other materials are created independently by the authors using underlying data or information that may lawfully be reused, provided that the new material does not reproduce protected elements of the original work and the original source is appropriately acknowledged and cited;
  • the material is in the public domain or is available under a license that permits the intended reuse, provided that all applicable license conditions are satisfied.

Obtaining Permission

To avoid delays during the editorial and publication process, authors should identify potential copyright issues and obtain any necessary permissions as early as possible.

Where there is uncertainty regarding copyright ownership, licensing conditions, or whether the intended reuse is permitted, authors should consult the relevant copyright holder or obtain appropriate permission before submission of the final version.

SOR cannot publish third-party material where the necessary rights or permissions have not been established. Authors are responsible for providing evidence of permission when requested by the Editorial Office.

Where permission is required, authors must comply with any acknowledgement or credit-line requirements specified by the copyright holder.

If no specific wording is required, an appropriate acknowledgement should be provided in the relevant figure, table, scheme, or other material, clearly identifying the original author or creator, source, copyright holder or publisher, and year of publication, as applicable.

Open Access and Self-Archiving

The licensing provisions described above form part of the journal's open-access publishing framework. Further information concerning access to and reuse of published articles is provided in the journal's Open Access Policy .

Authors may also deposit and share submitted, accepted, and published versions of their manuscripts in accordance with the journal's Self-Archiving Policy .