Copyright and Publishing Policy

This notice defines the formal copyright, licensing, and reuse terms for all scholarly content published in Indus Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences (IJAPS) , ensuring legal transparency and full compliance with international open-access best practices while respecting the rigorous scientific standards of the journal.

1. Copyright Ownership
Authors retain the copyright of their original research and scholarly contributions . By submitting to and publishing with IJAPS, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive, irrevocable license to publish, reproduce, distribute, and archive the definitive version of the work in all formats and media under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

2. Open Access Licensing
To maximize the dissemination of animal and plant sciences research while promoting the continued sharing of derivative works under the same open terms, each article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. This license grants any user the worldwide, royalty-free right to:

  • Share – copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.

  • Adapt – remix, transform, translate, and build upon the material.

These permissions are granted subject to the following conditions:

  • Attribution: Users must credit the author(s) and cite Indus Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences (IJAPS) as the original source of publication, provide a hyperlink to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

  • NonCommercial: The material may not be used for commercial purposes without explicit permission from the copyright holder . Commercial purposes include, but are not limited to, use by corporations, commercial publishers, or any entity primarily aiming for commercial gain.

  • ShareAlike: If users remix, transform, translate, or build upon the material, they must distribute their contributions under the same license as the original. This ensures that all derivative works remain freely available under the same open terms.

3. Rights and Responsibilities

  • Author Rights and Self-Archiving: Authors are expressly permitted and encouraged to deposit the final published PDF (version of record) in institutional repositories, subject repositories, preprint servers, personal websites, and academic social networks including ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/) and Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/). Authors may reuse their own work in future publications, presentations, theses, or teaching materials without obtaining further permission, provided the original IJAPS publication is appropriately cited . For commercial use, authors should contact the editorial office for guidance. Any derivative works created by others must be distributed under the same CC BY-NC-SA license.

  • Third-Party Content: Authors are solely responsible for obtaining written permission from the copyright holder for any third-party material included in their manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to: images, illustrations, photographs, graphs, charts, extended quotations, proprietary datasets, and any other copyrighted material not created by the author. Proof of permission must be provided to the editorial office upon request. Proper attribution must accompany all reused content.

  • Originality and Plagiarism Prevention: IJAPS accepts for publication only original materials that have not been published before and have not been submitted elsewhere . Authors must ensure their submission is original and all sources must be properly cited; plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. The journal follows a rigorous double-blind peer review process and adheres to the highest standards of academic excellence and ethical publishing practices .

  • Publisher Archiving and Preservation: Indus Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences (IJAPS) ensures the long-term preservation and perpetual accessibility of all published content through participation in trusted digital preservation networks . These include:

These systems create distributed archives among participating libraries worldwide, guaranteeing that all content remains permanently available to the animal and plant sciences research community even in the event the journal ceases publication .

4. Ethical Standards and Scholarly Integrity

Authors must confirm that their submission is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under simultaneous consideration by another publication . Manuscripts must be free from plagiarism, data fabrication, or any other unethical practices. Indus Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences (IJAPS) adheres to the principles, policies, and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) : https://publicationethics.org. The journal also encourages adherence to discipline-specific guidelines and standards, including:

Any allegations of plagiarism, copyright infringement, data fabrication, ethical approval violations, or other misconduct will be investigated promptly and thoroughly in accordance with COPE guidelines.

5. Research Ethics and Compliance

  • Animal Research: For research involving animals, authors must confirm that the study complied with relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals, as well as relevant international standards such as the ARRIVE guidelines. The journal covers topics including animal production, animal health, ethology, anatomy, physiology, and conservation biology .

  • Plant Research: For research involving plants, including work with genetically modified plants, authors must confirm compliance with relevant institutional, national, and international biosafety guidelines and regulations. The journal covers topics including plant breeding, crop protection, plant biochemistry, genomics, biotechnology, and plant responses to climate change and environmental stress .

  • Environmental and Field Research: For research involving field studies, collection of specimens, or work in protected areas, authors must confirm that all necessary permits and permissions were obtained from relevant authorities and that the research complied with local, national, and international regulations, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol where applicable .

  • Data Availability and Transparency: While the CC BY-NC-SA license allows for adaptation and sharing under the same terms, authors are encouraged to make their underlying data, code, and materials available in recognized repositories or through supplementary files to support verification and replication, in accordance with the FAIR Data Principles and best practices in animal and plant sciences research. A data availability statement should be included in all manuscripts where applicable.

  • Conflict of Interest: Authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest, including financial, professional, or personal relationships that could influence the research or its interpretation. This includes funding sources, consulting relationships, or affiliations with organizations mentioned in the research.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage: Authors must disclose any use of artificial intelligence or large language models in the preparation of their manuscript, including in writing, data analysis, or figure generation, in accordance with the journal's AI policy and COPE guidance. AI tools cannot be listed as authors.

6. Commercial Use Requests

Organizations or individuals seeking to use IJAPS content for commercial purposes (e.g., inclusion in corporate reports, training materials, commercial databases, or any use by a commercial entity) must obtain permission from the publisher . Such requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, considering the nature of the proposed use and the rights of the copyright holders. Any commercial use that involves creating derivative works must also comply with the ShareAlike condition. To obtain permission for commercial use, please contact the Academy's copyright office .

7. Policy Updates

IJAPS reserves the right to update this copyright and licensing policy as standards of publishing, copyright legislation, and open access practices evolve. All amendments will be clearly published on the journal's webpage.