Open Access Policy
The journal adopts a clear policy of making scholarly knowledge available, based on supporting open access to published research — enhancing the circulation of knowledge, widening research impact, and enabling researchers, readers, and academic and professional institutions to access and benefit from the content without unjustified barriers. The journal believes that rigorous research, especially in aviation, training, safety, strategic studies, information science, media and communication, AI, and modern technologies, should be available to readers and researchers, contributing to the development of knowledge, practice, and institutions, while balancing access with the protection of authors’ rights and intellectual property.
Open access here means readers need not pay a subscription, create a paid account, or obtain prior permission merely to read or download published studies for legitimate scholarly use, with attribution to the authors, respect for the adopted license, and no infringement of intellectual-property rights. The policy aims to: facilitate access to refereed knowledge; widen the spread and impact of published research; support research collaboration locally and internationally; enable educational, training, and professional institutions to benefit; encourage researchers to publish on an accessible, reliable platform; support the journal’s presence in the digital environment and future indexing; and reinforce responsible knowledge sharing alongside the protection of intellectual rights.
Author Rights
Authors retain their moral and scholarly rights in the works published under their names — including the right of attribution, the right to list the research in their academic records, and the right to use it in teaching, academic presentations, institutional repositories, and research portfolios, subject to the adopted license and journal policies. By accepting a work for publication, authors grant the journal the right of first publication; the right to make the study available on the journal’s website and platforms; the right to include it in the databases, indexes, and scholarly repositories the journal adopts; and the right to preserve, archive, and make it available in various digital formats to support continuity of access. Granting the journal first-publication rights does not transfer full intellectual ownership from the authors to the journal unless the publishing agreement states otherwise, and the journal commits to attributing the work to its authors and not reusing it in a way that diminishes their rights.
Journal and Publisher Rights
The journal retains the right to publish accepted studies in their final form; make them available electronically; index, archive, and distribute their metadata; and include them in relevant databases and scholarly platforms. It also retains the right to format and produce studies, add publication data, the article number, the persistent identifier (DOI) when activated, the journal logo, and publisher data. As publisher, Sultan Qaboos Air Academy retains the organizational rights related to managing the journal, its platform, and its editorial and technical policies, without affecting the authors’ moral and scholarly rights in their published works. The journal also retains its organizational, editorial, and technical rights in design, production, metadata, the publishing platform, the journal logo, content presentation, and unsigned editorial content; its name, logo, or official data may not be used or content attributed to it incorrectly, misleadingly, or without authorization, and it may take appropriate action against misuse of its content or violations of licensing or copyright.
Use and Reuse Conditions
Published studies may be used under the adopted license without prejudice to the rights of authors, the journal, or the publisher. Generally permitted uses include: reading and downloading studies; sharing them for non-commercial scholarly and educational purposes; quoting with correct documentation; using them in teaching, training, and academic presentations; depositing them in institutional or personal repositories per the journal’s policy; and using study metadata for indexing and scholarly discovery. In all cases the study must be attributed to its authors, the journal named, and basic publication data included — year, volume, article number, and DOI if available.
Prohibited uses include: republishing the full study elsewhere without complying with the license terms; using studies commercially without appropriate permission where the license prohibits commercial use; removing author names, journal data, or the DOI; altering or distorting the study in a way that changes its meaning or harms the authors or journal; using studies in misleading or non-scholarly contexts; selling or commercially redistributing studies without permission; and using third-party copyrighted images, tables, or figures without appropriate authorization.
Citation and Repository Deposit
Anyone using or quoting from published studies must follow correct scholarly documentation. A citation should include the author(s), publication year, study title, journal name, volume number, article number or pages if any, and the DOI when available. The journal provides a suggested citation format on each study’s page and encourages the use of reference-management software for accuracy. Authors may deposit the final published version of their studies in institutional, academic, or personal repositories, provided they clearly note that the study was first published in Sultan Qaboos Air Academy Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and include the official study link and DOI if available; they may also share the published study link via their academic pages, research profiles, scholarly identifier platforms, or open repositories, consistent with the adopted license and journal policy.
Third-Party, Sensitive Material, and Content Responsibility
If a study includes third-party material — images, figures, tables, maps, scales, research instruments, or unpublished documents — authors are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions, documenting the source clearly, and stating whether it is used by permission, under an open license, or within legally and academically available fair use. Neither the journal nor the publisher is responsible for any intellectual-property infringement resulting from authors using material they do not have the right to use or publish. Given the nature of some of the journal’s fields, some research may include institutional, training, security, or professionally sensitive data, documents, images, or information; in such cases authors must ensure publication is authorized by the competent bodies and violates no legal, institutional, professional, or security obligations, and the journal may request proof of approvals before publication and may decline to publish any material that could affect institutional confidentiality, safety, security, or the rights of relevant parties.
The version published on the journal’s website is the official, final version of the study, including approved publication data, publication date, article number, journal and publisher names, the DOI when available, and the adopted license; citation and reuse should refer to this official published version, not to non-final versions, drafts, or copies circulated before final acceptance. Opinions, results, and conclusions in published studies express their authors’ views and do not necessarily represent the views of the journal, the editorial board, Sultan Qaboos Air Academy, or any related institution unless expressly stated; authors bear scholarly, ethical, and legal responsibility for the content of their studies, including data accuracy, soundness of analysis, correctness of references, respect for intellectual property, and obtaining the necessary approvals. The policy is reviewed and updated periodically; substantive changes are announced on the website and do not affect rights in previously published studies except as permitted by the laws and licensing terms in force at the time of publication.
Fees and Charges
The journal is committed to full transparency on all fees and charges related to submitting, reviewing, processing, publishing, and accessing studies. In support of rigorous research and to encourage publishing in its interdisciplinary fields, the journal adopts a policy that charges no fees on authors or readers:
- No fees for submitting studies.
- No fees for peer review.
- No article-processing charges (APCs).
- No fees for publishing accepted studies.
- No fees to access or download studies (open access).
- No charges for pages, tables, figures, images, or colour material, provided they are necessary and meet quality and IP requirements.
- No withdrawal fees at this stage, subject to following the official withdrawal procedures.
The editorial board may request the reduction of tables or figures that exceed scholarly need, are unclear, or do not follow the author guidelines. Authors are encouraged to submit only when the study is ready, approved by all authors, and not under consideration elsewhere; withdrawal at a very advanced stage after acceptance or after final production must be justified and approved by the editorial board.
Continuous-Publication Model
The journal adopts a continuous-publication model within an annual volume — a modern, flexible model for managing electronic scholarly publishing. Accepted studies are published individually as soon as peer review, editorial revision, language editing, and production are complete, rather than waiting to gather studies into traditional periodic issues. This accelerates access to rigorous knowledge, strengthens the journal’s digital presence, and lets researchers and readers reach refereed studies in their final, citable form as soon as possible after acceptance. Each calendar year forms an independent annual volume to which studies are added throughout the year by their publication date; at year-end the volume closes and a new one opens for the following year. The journal does not issue quarterly, semi-annual, or monthly issues and does not use divisions such as “Issue 1, 2, 3” unless the editorial board and publisher later decide to change the model — allowing the journal to focus on the quality and value of studies rather than on assembling a set number for a periodic issue.
Because the journal publishes continuously without traditional issues, each published study receives an independent article number within the annual volume, used in citation alongside the volume, publication year, and DOI when available. Each study’s page includes: the title; author names and affiliations; study type; abstract and keywords; received, accepted, and publication dates; volume number; publication year; article number; DOI when available; a suggested citation format; the adopted license; and a download link. Studies published under this model are final, official, and citable as soon as they appear on the journal’s website — they are not “preprints” or preliminary versions, but the approved final version. A general citation format is: Author. (Year). Study title. Sultan Qaboos Air Academy Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Volume, Article number. DOI.
