For various reasons, this kind of free and unrestricted online availability, which we will call open access, has so far been limited to small portions of the journal literature. But even in these limited collections, many different initiatives have shown that open access is economically feasible, that it gives readers extraordinary power to find and make use of relevant literature, and that it gives authors and their works vast and measurable new visibility, readership, and impact. To secure these benefits for all, we call on all interested institutions and individuals to help open up access to the rest of this literature and remove the barriers, especially the price barriers, that stand in the way. The more who join the effort to advance this cause, the sooner we will all enjoy the benefits of open access.

The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment. Primarily, this category encompasses their peer-reviewed journal articles, but it also includes any unreviewed preprints that they might wish to put online for comment or to alert colleagues to important research findings. There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

While the peer-reviewed journal literature should be accessible online without cost to readers, it is not costless to produce. However, experiments show that the overall costs of providing open access to this literature are far lower than the costs of traditional forms of dissemination. With such an opportunity to save money and expand the scope of dissemination at the same time, there is today a strong incentive for professional associations, universities, libraries, foundations, and others to embrace open access as a means of advancing their missions. Achieving open access will require new cost recovery models and financing mechanisms, but the significantly lower overall cost of dissemination is a reason to be confident that the goal is attainable and not merely preferable or utopian.

To achieve open access to scholarly journal literature, we recommend two complementary strategies.

I. Self-Archiving: First, scholars need the tools and assistance to deposit their refereed journal articles in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving. When these archives conform to standards created by the Open Archives Initiative, then search engines and other tools can treat the separate archives as one. Users then need not know which archives exist or where they are located in order to find and make use of their contents.

II. Open-access Journals: Second, scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access. Because journal articles should be disseminated as widely as possible, these new journals will no longer invoke copyright to restrict access to and use of the material they publish. Instead they will use copyright and other tools to ensure permanent open access to all the articles they publish. Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not charge subscription or access fees, and will turn to other methods for covering their expenses. There are many alternative sources of funds for this purpose, including the foundations and governments that fund research, the universities and laboratories that employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline or institution, friends of the cause of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts, funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals charging traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions from the researchers themselves. There is no need to favor one of these solutions over the others for all disciplines or nations, and no need to stop looking for other, creative alternatives.

Open access to peer-reviewed journal literature is the goal. Self-archiving (I.) and a new generation of open-access journals (II.) are the ways to attain this goal. They are not only direct and effective means to this end, they are within the reach of scholars themselves, immediately, and need not wait on changes brought about by markets or legislation. While we endorse the two strategies just outlined, we also encourage experimentation with further ways to make the transition from the present methods of dissemination to open access. Flexibility, experimentation, and adaptation to local circumstances are the best ways to assure that progress in diverse settings will be rapid, secure, and long-lived.

The Open Society Institute, the foundation network founded by philanthropist George Soros, is committed to providing initial help and funding to realize this goal. It will use its resources and influence to extend and promote institutional self-archiving, to launch new open-access journals, and to help an open-access journal system become economically self-sustaining. While the Open Society Institute's commitment and resources are substantial, this initiative is very much in need of other organizations to lend their effort and resources.

We invite governments, universities, libraries, journal editors, publishers, foundations, learned societies, professional associations, and individual scholars who share our vision to join us in the task of removing the barriers to open access and building a future in which research and education in every part of the world are that much more free to flourish.

February 14, 2002
Budapest, Hungary

Leslie Chan: Bioline International
Darius Cuplinskas: Director, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Michael Eisen: Public Library of Science
Fred Friend: Director Scholarly Communication, University College London
Yana Genova: Next Page Foundation
Jean-Claude Gu don: University of Montreal
Melissa Hagemann: Program Officer, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Stevan Harnad: Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Rick Johnson: Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Rima Kupryte: Open Society Institute
Manfredi La Manna: Electronic Society for Social Scientists 
Istv n R v: Open Society Institute, Open Society Archives
Monika Segbert: eIFL Project consultant 
Sidnei de Souza: Informatics Director at CRIA, Bioline International
Peter Suber: Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College & The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter
Jan Velterop: Publisher, BioMed Central

Peer-reviewed studies are the ones that support and materialize the scientific method. At this point, it is of utmost importance that all parties included in the publication process (authors, readers, and researchers, publisher, reviewers, and editors) comply with the standards of ethical considerations. Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Fisika Al-Biruni expects all parties to hold the following ethical responsibilities.

Ethical duties and responsibilities are written in the light of the guidelines and policies made by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Responsibilities of Editors

The editor and field editors of Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Fisika Al-Biruni should hold the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the guides "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as open Access byCommittee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

General duties and responsibilities

Editors are responsible for each study published in Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Fisika Al-Biruni. In this respect, the editors have the following roles and responsibilities:

• Making efforts to meet the demand for knowledge from readers and authors,
• Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
• Managing the procedures aimed to improve the quality of the studies published in the journal,
• Supporting freedom of expression,
• Ensuring academic integrity,
• Following the procedures without making concessions on intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
• Being transparent and clear in issues that require correction or explanation.

Relationships with Readers

Editors must make decisions taking into consideration the knowledge, skills, and expectations of all readers, researchers, and practitioners need. They must also ensure that the published studies contribute to the literature and be original. Moreover, they must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Authors

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with authors:

• Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording and suitability with the journal's aims and objectives.
• Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of the publication into pre-review process unless there are serious problems with the study.
• Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the study.
• New editors, unless there are serious issues, must not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.
• Blind Review and Review Process must be published and editors must prevent possible diversions in the defined processes.
• Editors must publish an Author's Guide that is comprehensive enough in answering queries by authors. This guide must be updated regularly.
• Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.

Relationships with Reviewers

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:

Editors must

• choose reviewers according to the subject of the study.
• provide the information and guidance reviewers may need during the review process.
• observe whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.
• keep the identities of reviewers confidential in blind review.
• encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective tone.
• evaluate reviewers regularly based on criteria like performance and timing.
• develop practices and policies that increase the performance of reviewers.
• take the necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.
• prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.
• make an effort to ensure the reviewer pool has a wide range.

Relationships with the Editorial Advisory Board

Editors must make sure that the members of the Editorial Advisory Board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines, and must inform the members about the publication policies and developments. The editors must also train new members of the Editorial Advisory Board and provide the information they need.

Moreover, editors must

• ensure that the members of the Editorial Advisory Board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.
• select the new members of the Editorial Advisory Board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.
• send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the Editorial Advisory Board.
• regularly communicate with the Editorial Advisory Board.
• arrange regular meetings with the Editorial Advisory Board for the development of publication policies and the journal.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

The authors who submit their manuscripts to Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Fisika Al-Biruni are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• Author(s) must submit original studies to the journal. If they utilize or use other studies, they must make the in-text and end-text references accurately and completely.
• People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated as author.
• If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject of conflicting interests or relations, these must be explained.
• During the review process of their manuscripts, author(s) may be asked to supply raw data. In such a case, author(s) should be ready to submit such data and information to the editorial and scientific boards.
• Author(s) should document that they have the participants' consent and the necessary permissions related with the sharing and research/analysis of the data that are used.
• Author(s) bears the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake in their study which is in early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.
• Authors cannot submit their studies to multiple journals simultaneously. Each submission can be made only after the previous one is completed. A study published in another journal cannot be submitted to Journal of Early Childhood Studies.
• Author responsibilities given in a study (e.g.: adding an author, reordering of author names) whose review process has begun cannot be changed.