1.1 Purpose
This policy establishes the principles governing Open Access publishing at Rupkatha Books. It should be read together with the Copyright and Licensing Policy, Research Integrity, Open Science and Open Scholarship Policy, Digital Preservation Policy, Metadata Policy, and other relevant policies of the publisher.
1.2 Universal Open Access
All publications issued by Rupkatha Books are published under a Universal Open Access model. The Version of Record is made freely available online immediately upon publication without embargoes or subscription barriers. Readers may access publications without payment, registration, institutional affiliation, or geographical restriction. The publisher does not operate a subscription or paywalled publishing model.
1.3 Scope
This policy applies to all scholarly works published by Rupkatha Books.
1.4 Rights of Readers
Subject to the applicable licence, readers may:
- read and download publications without charge;
- copy, share, and redistribute publications;
- cite, quote, and reference published works;
- deposit publications in institutional and disciplinary repositories;
- use publications for teaching, learning, and research;
- include publications in course materials and library collections;
- create persistent links to publications; and
- reuse content in accordance with the applicable Creative Commons licence.
These rights are intended to maximise the dissemination and societal impact of scholarly knowledge.
1.5 Copyright and Licensing
Authors normally retain copyright in their works while granting Rupkatha Books a non-exclusive licence to publish, preserve, disseminate, and promote the work in accordance with the Copyright and Licensing Policy.
Unless otherwise agreed, publications are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Alternative Creative Commons licences may be adopted where required by law, research funders, or institutional agreements, provided they remain consistent with the publisher’s commitment to Open Access.
1.6 Persistent Accessibility and Discoverability
Rupkatha Books is committed to ensuring that every publication remains permanently discoverable, citable, and accessible. To support this objective, the publisher progressively implements internationally recognised scholarly infrastructure, including:
- Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs);
- ISBNs;
- Crossref services;
- ORCID integration;
- persistent identifiers;
- semantic and machine-readable metadata;
- accessibility metadata;
- linked open data technologies; and
- other internationally recognised interoperability standards as they evolve.
The publisher will continue to adopt emerging standards that improve the visibility, interoperability, citation, and long-term usability of scholarly publications.
1.7 Digital Preservation
Open Access requires permanent availability. Accordingly, Rupkatha Books is committed to preserving the scholarly record through recognised digital preservation strategies, trusted repositories, persistent identifiers, metadata maintenance, secure archival systems, and migration to future technologies where necessary. Long-term preservation is governed by the publisher’s Digital Preservation Policy.
1.8 Open Scholarship
Rupkatha Books actively supports the principles of Open Scholarship and encourages authors, where appropriate, to make available research data, supplementary materials, software, multimedia resources, digital collections, research instruments, teaching resources, and other supporting materials. The availability of such resources shall remain subject to ethical, legal, contractual, cultural, privacy, and intellectual property considerations.
1.9 Accessibility and Inclusion
The publisher is committed to ensuring that scholarly knowledge is accessible to the widest possible audience.
Publications and publishing platforms will progressively incorporate internationally recognised accessibility standards, inclusive design principles, and emerging assistive technologies to improve access for readers with diverse needs.
Accessibility is regarded as an ongoing commitment rather than a one-time technical requirement.
1.10 Institutional and Global Collaboration
Rupkatha Books collaborates with universities, research institutions, libraries, scholarly societies, repositories, funding organisations, and international scholarly networks to expand the reach, preservation, and impact of Open Access scholarship.
The publisher actively supports collaborative publishing initiatives that strengthen equitable global participation in scholarly communication, particularly by amplifying underrepresented voices and Global South scholarship.
