Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This agreement governs how personal data is handled in Sprin Publisher's OJS (Open Journal System) system. Personal data regarding authors, reviewers, editors, and administrators must be processed as part of the operation of journals, and all those people are referred to as "users" in this document.

This agreement exclusively governs the storage of personal data by EU Regulation 2016/679 on data protection (GDPR).

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us.

This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in Sprin Publisher. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website. Our Privacy Policy was created with the help of the Free Privacy Policy Generator.

By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

2. The purpose of processing personal data

For the purposes of identifying authors, reviewers, editors, and administrators, personal data is handled in OJS in line with GDPR. Specifically:

  • In order to reference an article published using OJS, a reader must be able to identify the authors. If a reader has queries about a published article, it is also required to offer information about the authors' affiliation.
  • The reviewers' data must be processed to track who has been approached for reviewing, who has accepted or denied reviewing, and who has completed reviewing. (See section 3 for further information.)

Personal data must be processed for the editors and guest editors of a journal to be able to follow the editorial process later.

3. Personal data processed by OJS are:

For authors, reviewers, and editors, the following information is handled in OJS:

  • given name, 
  • family name, 
  • affiliation (university, department, sub-department, city, country),
  • ORCID (only if accessible for authors), e-mail address (optional),
  • username in OJS, 
  • password (encrypted)

If the authors are not affiliated with a university, their association may be a commercial corporation, a research center, etc.

4. Displaying personal data in the public

The authors' personal information is made public (except for username and password) on the journal's website next to the published article. The editorial board members' names and affiliations may be listed on the journal's website. Personal information about reviewers and editors of individual articles is not made public and cannot be viewed or accessed by anybody without permission.

Sprin Publisher saves a copy of the published articles and the personal data of reviewers and editors in OJS if the journal is sold to another publisher or is canceled. As a result, personal data will be handled even when the journal is no longer published.

5. Conveying Data to Other Stakeholders

Personal data published in accordance with section 4 above may be shared with other stakeholders for indexing scientific papers and if the journal changes publishers. Personal data that is not publicly seen in OJS, on the other hand, will stay in OJS and will not be sold, duplicated, or otherwise transmitted to a third party. If a journal decides to relocate its publishing to a new publisher, the personal data of authors, editors, and reviewers may be transferred to the new publisher once they have been notified by e-mail of GDPR requirements.

6. Statistics and Cookies

Research sponsors may request statistics regarding the authors' countries of origin to provide funding for the journal's operation. Affiliation is used to store this type of information.

Other statistics, such as the number of visits to a journal's or article's website, the number of pdf file downloads, citations to publications, and so on, may be necessary.

OJS uses session cookies to keep track of login sessions. As long as Sprin Publisher hosts a journal, visitor IP addresses, visit time, pages, and browser information are recorded and analyzed in OJS. Read more about our cookie policy.

7. Deleting Personal Data from OJS

If the journal is no longer active, the editorial staff can determine whether personal data for reviewers and editors should be erased after each volume and issue of the journal is published or if the personal data should be deleted if the journal is no longer active. An account can be deleted at the request of a user. However, as indicated in 2, it is not feasible to erase any published personal data for writers. If our website is no longer functional in the future, authors also need not worry about their works as we have a long-term preservation service and internet archiving login.

8. Advertising Partners Privacy Policies

You may consult this list to find the Privacy Policy for each of the advertising partners of Sprin Publisher.

Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on Sprin Publisher, which are sent directly to users' browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit.

  • Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to your website or other websites.
  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet.
  • Users may opt-out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings. (Alternatively, you can direct users to opt-out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info.)

Note that Sprin Publisher has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

9. Third-Party Privacy Policies

Sprin Publisher's Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt out of certain options.

You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found on the browsers' respective websites. 

10. CCPA Privacy Rights (Do Not Sell My Personal Information)

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to:

Request that a business that collects a consumer's personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers.

Request that a business deletes any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected.

Request that a business that sells a consumer's personal data, not sell the consumer's personal data.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

11. GDPR Data Protection Rights

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.

The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.

The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.