Copyright and Licensing Policy

Sustainability Education Review (SuER) is an open access journal in which authors retain copyright in their published work. The journal seeks to ensure that ownership, publication rights, reuse permissions, and licensing conditions are clearly communicated to authors and readers.

1. Copyright Ownership

Authors retain copyright in articles published by SuER unless a different copyright arrangement is required by applicable law, an author's employment conditions, or another legally binding agreement.

The copyright holder should be clearly identified in the published article.

2. Right of First Publication

By agreeing to publication in SuER, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right of first publication and authorize SuER to publish, reproduce, distribute, communicate, archive, preserve, and make the article publicly available as part of the journal's scholarly record.

This permission does not transfer ownership of copyright from the author to the journal.

3. Creative Commons License

Unless otherwise specifically indicated, articles published in SuER are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Under CC BY-SA 4.0, users are permitted to:

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format; and
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial purposes.

These permissions are subject to the conditions of the license, including:

  • Attribution — appropriate credit must be given to the author(s), the original publication in SuER must be acknowledged, the license must be identified, and changes must be indicated where applicable;
  • ShareAlike — if the material is remixed, transformed, or built upon, the resulting contribution must be distributed under the same license or a compatible license as required by CC BY-SA 4.0;
  • No additional restrictions — users may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from exercising the rights permitted by the license.

Further information about the license is available at Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

4. Author Rights

Because authors retain copyright, they may reuse and redistribute their work in accordance with their rights and the applicable license. Authors may, for example:

  • use the article in teaching and educational activities;
  • include the article or parts of it in a thesis or dissertation;
  • reuse the work in subsequent scholarly publications where appropriate and with proper acknowledgement of the original publication;
  • deposit the article in an institutional, disciplinary, or general-purpose repository;
  • post the article on a personal or institutional website;
  • share the article with colleagues, students, and scholarly communities.

Any subsequent use should acknowledge the article's initial publication in Sustainability Education Review and comply with the applicable Creative Commons license and scholarly citation practices.

5. Self-Archiving

SuER permits and encourages authors to archive their scholarly work.

Authors may deposit:

  • the submitted manuscript or preprint, where consistent with the journal's Preprint and Prior Publication Policy;
  • the author-accepted manuscript following editorial acceptance; and
  • the final published version of record.

There is no embargo imposed by SuER on repository deposit of the published version of record. Where the final published version is deposited, the original SuER publication should be cited and the applicable license retained.

6. Third-Party Copyrighted Material

The Creative Commons license applied to an article does not automatically extend to third-party material that is expressly identified as being subject to separate copyright or licensing conditions.

Authors are responsible for:

  • identifying third-party copyrighted material included in their manuscript;
  • obtaining appropriate written permission where required;
  • providing accurate attribution;
  • stating any licensing restrictions in the relevant figure caption, table note, acknowledgement, or accompanying text.

Authors should retain documentation of permissions and provide it to the journal upon request.

7. Previously Published Material

Authors must not reproduce substantial copyrighted material from another source without appropriate permission or a valid legal basis for reuse.

Previously published material must be properly cited and any reuse must comply with the copyright and license conditions of the original source.

8. Moral Rights and Attribution

Nothing in this policy is intended to diminish authors' moral rights or their right to be appropriately identified and credited for their work, subject to applicable law.

9. License Information in Published Articles

SuER should clearly display applicable copyright and licensing information on the journal website and in the full text of published articles, including both HTML and PDF versions where available.

Published articles should clearly identify:

  • the copyright holder;
  • the applicable Creative Commons license;
  • the journal as the venue of first publication.

10. No Additional Restrictions

SuER will not impose contractual or technological restrictions on openly licensed journal content that contradict the permissions granted by the applicable Creative Commons license.