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Policies

Contents

Author Instructions

To facilitate the reviewprocess, submissions to Open Water Journal should be formatted using the specifications found on the Manuscript Preparation Guidelines page. Failure to follow these guidelines will result in submissions being returned to the author for revision before being submitted for review.

We will prepare your final, accepted manuscript with an assigned volume number, issue number, and page numbers as part of the final publication process. You will have an opportunity to review a proof copy of the final manuscript before it is published.

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Who Can Submit?

Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in Open Water Journal provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors own the copyrights to their works and license Open Water Journal to publish the work under the Creative Commons by Attribution license. An exception to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer, in which case the employer licenses Open Water Journal to publish the work. Groups of authors may submit an article provided that all co-authors have participated in the work presented and agree with the publication of the work.

General Submission Rules

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book. (Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series or via an open review process does not constitute prior publication.) Conference papers that have not been formally published by the conference organizers are eligible for publication in Open Water Journal™.

In addition, by submitting material to Open Water Journal, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal until the completion of the editorial decision process at Open Water Journal. If you have questions about the submission terms for Open Water Journal, please contact the editors.

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Review Process

All articles submitted to Open Water Journal undergo single-blind peer-review by editorial board members and volunteer reviewers from the water science community. When an author submits an article, it is immediately screened to confirm that it meets all submission requirements in terms of scope, English language usage, and formatting. Articles are then assigned to an editor who handles the peer review process for the paper. Possible editorial decisions include Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, and Reject. Authors will be notified of decisions as soon as the review process is complete. This process can take between four and six weeks. Papers receiving Minor Revision or Major Revision decisions are invited for revision and resubmission. Resubmitted papers are reviewed rigorously before final decisions are made. All decisions of the editorial board of Open Water Journal are considered final and should not be contested. Interested researchers from all water science domains are invited to join our editorial board and reviewer pool.

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Rights for Authors and BYU ScholarsArchive

As noted in the Submission Agreement, Open Water Journal publishes all articles under the Creative Commons by Attribution license where the author or group of authors is the licensor. This license gives you the right to redistribute and reuse your work as you see fit while granting the publisher the nonexclusive right to publish and distribute your manuscript.

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General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of this website and/or software agree not to misuse the service or software in any way.

The failure of BYU ScholarsArchive to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between BYU ScholarsArchive and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

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