Terms and Conditions for Users

Please be advised that the following General Conditions constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Science Step Journal (SSJ). This agreement pertains to your use of our websites, as defined below. It is of utmost importance that you fully understand and agree to all provisions set forth in these General Conditions in order to ensure a safe and satisfactory experience while using our platforms.

1. Who We Are

Science Step Journal is a reputable open-access scholarly publisher that is dedicated to advancing the open dissemination of scientific research in order to improve society and the environment. Driven by the vision of highly regarded psychologists, Samyr ELKETANI and Fatima-Zahra ELKETANI, our organization aims to be a prominent leader in the field of open-access publishing. Through our commitment to excellence and innovation, we strive to have a global reputation as one of the most trusted publishers in the world. Ultimately, we believe that our team plays a crucial role in advancing scientific discovery and driving progress. We remain dedicated to promoting the highest standards of scientific research globally.

2. Registering with Science Step Journal

You can register by clicking here if you like. To register you must provide at least the minimum information required. You can manage your privacy settings. You can find information on how to do this on our Help page “Manuscript Submission Process”. If you already have a Loop profile, you are already a registered user.

The Science Step Journal welcomes individuals over the age of 18 to register for an account. We kindly remind our users that registration should only be completed using their own name, and establishing multiple profiles is not permitted.

We require complete accuracy and truthfulness when providing personal information during the registration process.

Please note that Science Step Journal has the right to refuse or terminate registration at any time, with or without advance notification. We value our users’ commitment to upholding our registration policies

3. What it means to register as a user of Science Step Journal or Loop

Registering with Frontiers also means accepting the following:

As a registered user of SSJ, you will have access to various spaces of our Journal and its publications. This means that you will be able to interact with the various spaces of our Journal and its publications.

Submit articles for peer review, and also submit other valuable content such as conferences. Moreover, registered users may apply to become reviewers of our Journal, which represents an opportunity to contribute to the development of the academic community.

We remind all users to carefully read and fully comprehend the Conditions, SSJ’s Privacy Policy, and the Copyright Statement before continuing to use our services. As a user, it is essential to abide by these terms and also comply with all other rules and conditions of SSJ, whether registered or not.

Furthermore, SSJ emphasizes that all users need to observe generally accepted academic and scientific norms and adhere to our established principles. We take the quality of our publications seriously and aim to maintain our high standards by publishing only top-quality research.

SSJ is not obligated to publish any content contributed by you, and we retain the right to remove any content, including retraction of peer-reviewed articles at our discretion.

We understand that receiving certain types of messages, such as marketing messages, may not be preferable to everyone. However, we would like to kindly remind you that certain messages, particularly those pertaining to legal or administrative matters, changes in terms and conditions, and other necessary communications, cannot be opted out of.

It is essential that we maintain an open line of communication with our users, and as such, we kindly request that you keep all contact information up to date.

If you wish to close your account at any time, you may cancel any existing registration.

Moreover, our dedicated support team is available to assist you. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us at support@sciencestepjournal.com.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your password. Do not share your password with any other person. If there is any reason to believe your password security may have been breached, change it immediately. Choose strong passwords and avoid obvious passwords.

You must notify SSJ immediately if you believe that unauthorized access has been gained to your account. SSJ is not responsible for any damage caused by you due to insufficient attention to security on your part.

We’d like to remind you of the importance of keeping your personal information up to date. As a precautionary measure, kindly check your information regularly to ensure that it’s accurate and complete.

Your public profile on the SSJ website is accessible to anyone who visits your profile, regardless of their location. We urge you to be mindful of the information you share and update your privacy settings accordingly.

To change your Loop privacy settings, please log in to your account.

4. Ownership of Website, Software and Content; Trademarks

Science Step Journal is the owner of the sciencestepjournal.com website, the software constituting that website, and all copyright and other intellectual property rights in those assets.

Neither SSJ nor, unless otherwise specifically stated for a Journal, the copyright in articles you submit to any Journal – you (or your employer or funder) continue(s) to own the copyright in your articles. See below and the copyright statement for more information.

“SSJ” is a registered trademark of Science Step Journal.

5. Licences (Permissions) You Grant as an Author

When you submit an article (which includes the article abstract, but excludes article metadata, as defined below) to any Journal, you grant to SSJ and the world at large a permanent, non-cancellable, free-of-charge, worldwide license (permission) to publish, display, store, copy, adapt and re-use that article – including any third-party materials – and to create derivative works from it. You can not terminate that license. You must ensure that you have all necessary permissions from the owner of the copyright in your article, which may be your employer or funder, and from all other third parties who own the copyright in any aspect of your article. Ownership by the third party of the copyright can still be notified on the relevant materials, and attribution must be made in accordance with usual scholarly practices.

The license (permission) you grant over your article (including the abstract and any third-party materials included in your article) is unless otherwise stated for an article or for the relevant Journal, a Creative Commons Attribution license (known as a “CC-BY” license). You can not terminate that license. For some governmental or international governmental organizations, the license may be another, similar, license.

In summary, the CC-BY license means that anyone may copy, re-publish, adapt, and/or re-use your content, and create derivative works from it, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, without charge, but must clearly attribute the work to you and any co-authors, and they must cite SSJ as the original publisher of that content.

Reproduction of all or part of an article is also subject to compliance with usual academic attribution practices, which must be scrupulously complied with in addition to the CC-BY requirements.

License over certain articles and journal metadata. Article and journal metadata, as defined in this paragraph, are the property of SSJ and are subject to a Creative Commons CC0 license. “Article and journal metadata” means the following elements, to the extent applicable, in relation to the journal or each article, as applicable: Publisher, journal name, journal abbreviation, ISSN, DOI, article ID, subject, article type, article title, article URL, author names, contributor group, author note, author affiliation, Orcid and Loop Profile URLs, corresponding author’s email address, publication date, acceptance date, submission date, volume number, volume ID, issue number, issue ID, permissions, copyright statement, copyright year, copyright holder, license information, creative commons URL, conflict of interest statement, keyword group, figure count, table count, equation count, reference count, page count, word count, supplementary material count, funding statement, funder/contract/sponsor/grant and number, citation, product information, conference information. No elements other than those listed in this paragraph are included in article or journal metadata, and nor are they licensed under CC0 terms unless confirmed by SSJ.

You may not reproduce or publish any content in any form (online or not) that advocates any political, religious, anti-religious, racist, extremist, violent, or disrespectful viewpoints. If you post any Website content in such a forum, you must remove it immediately on request by SSJ.

You may also not reproduce any content from any Website in order to denigrate SSJ, any client of SSJ, or any Journal.

The same CC-BY license also applies to any other content, such as reviews, opinions, conference abstracts, and blog posts, which you may submit to SSJ.

You irrevocably grant us permission to use, and to permit others to use, any non-patented ideas set out in your content or in any message sent or submitted toSSJ, without any charge and restriction, for any purpose in any part of the world.

6. Conditions for submission of articles for peer-reviewed publication

6.1. Submission of the article

Considering our journal as a platform for submitted articles. If published, your work will be made publicly available on our website and may be stored in repositories and other digital archives. The personal details of all co-authors, reviewers, and handling editors will also be made available alongside the article. By agreeing to submit, review, or accept editorial responsibilities, you consent to the limited disclosure of your personal data. We assure you that all data collected will be handled in accordance with our strict privacy policy to ensure the protection of your personal information.

When you submit an article to any Journal, you promise that

The article is not under consideration by any other journal; if it has been submitted for consideration elsewhere, it has been definitively rejected and is no longer being considered for publication;

The article will not be submitted for publication elsewhere unless either published or rejected by SSJ;

You have the explicit consent of all co-authors to submit the article and to accept these conditions, including the granting of the CC-BY or other applicable license, on behalf of all co-authors.

You have the authorization of all copyright owners (which may include your employer or funder, and any owners of third-party graphics) to submit the article and to grant the CC-BY or other applicable license over the article;

An article submitted to report original research is an original contribution, meaning it contains content that has not been previously published in its current form (except for manuscripts deposited as pre-prints in established community-validated pre-print services).

the article does not contain any non-attributed content from any existing source, including the authors’ own existing material;

All contributors have been adequately acknowledged;

The article and all authors meet the authorship criteria as outlined in the author guidelines

The article complies with all the rules on content set out below;

All findings have been verified in accordance with the highest scientific standards in the relevant field;

The article clearly declares any financial, commercial, or other relationships that may be considered to represent a potential conflict of interest; and

You have disclosed all relevant facts to SSJ concerning the author(s), the article, the underlying research, any relevant third-party rights, and any actual or potential conflicts of interest.

6.2. Acceptance and Rejection

Acceptance is atSSJ’s discretion by its rules and processes. Once accepted, an article will in principle be published; on rare occasions, an issue causing rejection may arise or be discovered, in which case the article may be rejected before publication despite having been previously accepted.

6.3. Publication

There is no prior right to publication. Articles submitted will be subjected to ethical and technical checks and then to our rigorous and interactive peer-review process, which will require your cooperation.

If the article is published, you will become liable to pay the applicable article publication charge (APC), or to ensure that it is paid. Current APCs can be seen here for SSJ Journals.

Peer review processes are designed to ensure scientific rigor. They do not include checks for the satisfaction of the other requirements (such as copyright permissions on images and graphics, for example).

6.4. Disclosure of inventions

You must ensure that all patent applications have been filed prior to submission of your article. Publication of an article is likely to reduce or cancel the patentability of any unpatented ideas in that article.

6.5. Time for publication

If SSJ unjustifiably, for reasons caused entirely by its own negligence, fails to publish an article in a Journal within a reasonable period of its final acceptance and payment by the author, SSJ shall refund the publication fee, to the exclusion of any other liability of SSJ for such failure.

6.6. The Published Article

Once published, an article can not be removed except by the decision of the Owner of the Journal, in accordance with accepted retraction processes. The article is likely to be archived and referenced in a number of archives and repositories.

Articles published in SSJ Journals will be published with the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s) and the names of the reviewers who endorsed publication during the peer review, as well as that of the handling editor.

SSJ reserves the right to remove any content, and to retract peer-reviewed articles, which in its view breach any applicable conditions and/or which they or we consider to be inappropriate in any way. Such removal does not entitle the author to reimbursement of APCs.

SSJ is not liable for the acts or statements of others.

6.7. Disputes

We have mediation processes for settling disputes related to articles, and we mutually promise to exhaust those possibilities prior to commencing any judicial dispute resolution mechanisms.

7. Your Rights as a User; Restrictions on Your Rights

As a user, registered or not, you may use all open functionalities of the Websites if you comply with all applicable conditions and rules. Some functionality may be restricted to registered users or to certain types of users (such as editors).

You may benefit from the CC-BY license (or other licenses as may be indicated for specific Journals or articles) over articles and other content, and from a CC0 license for certain article metadata, all as described elsewhere in these Conditions.

If you are a registered user, you may create links to SSJ Websites from other respectable websites, but not from any website which does not comply with the requirements of these conditions. SSJ, and/or any Journal owner, may remove any links and/or require their removal, and you must comply with such a request. Frontiers and Journal owners are not responsible for the content of third-party websites.

Uploading of videos and similar materials is subject to all related rules, including third-party and intellectual property rules. Be aware of the warranties you give concerning your right to upload any content.

8. Rules on Content

All content submitted to any Website, whether or not peer-reviewed, must comply with these rules. This is your responsibility when you submit any article or content.

All content must:

be accurate or be genuinely believed to be accurate after duly rigorous investigation

only state opinions that are genuinely held

comply with all generally accepted scientific and academic norms and with all accepted citation rules and norms, and must give appropriate credit for contributions

comply with all accepted ethical rules and norms, including any ethical guidelines of SSJ or of the Journal in question

not infringe any intellectual property rights (including copyright, moral rights, and database rights) of any person

be the subject of any necessary consents and authorizations

not breach any conditions of any website or other forum from which that content was copied or derived, or to which you provide a link, or from which you have provided a link to our website

not be defamatory

not be malicious, offensive, discriminatory, threatening, racist, or extremist; not promote hatred or violence or denigrate any person, group of people, or set of beliefs, or provide any link to any such material

only be for the purpose of furthering scientific and academic discourse in good faith, and in particular not be for the purpose, or have the effect, of promoting any commercial offering, service, product, or interest, without the prior explicit agreement of SSJ.

not give a false impression that it emanates from Frontiers or any Journal is approved by SSJ or the relevant Journal owner, or otherwise be misleading in any way

not be pornographic or indecent

remain polite and respectful, especially when disagreeing

not ascribe any negative psychological or other labels or descriptions to any named or identifiable person or group of people, without the specific, informed consent of the person or people concerned to such label or description being ascribed to him/her/them

not be for the purpose, or have the primary effect, of promoting any political, societal, religious, or anti-religious views

not disclose confidential information, including personal data of others, without the consent of the owner of that information or data

comply with all applicable laws

not advocate, refer to, or provide a link to any website or content that would itself infringe any of these principles.

SSJ and/or another relevant Journal Owner may remove any content, or retract peer-reviewed articles, at their respective discretion. You may also request deletion of content, such requests will be considered in their context. A placeholder may be inserted to indicate that a comment has been deleted. Deleted comments may be retained for the record.

SSJ is not responsible for content posted by their users, including the content of peer-reviewed articles.

Content you post will by default be visible to others. You may alter your settings to reduce access to your content (but not to peer-reviewed articles) by editing the default settings for each post you make.

Any content posted by you may be commented on, copied, quoted, and linked to by others.

If you believe any content on an SSJ Website breaches any of these requirements, please contact us at editorial.office@sciencestepjournal.com.

9. Advertising, Commercial Promotion and Sponsorships

Promotional Messages: Messages and other content promoting a commercial offering are not permitted without the explicit written agreement of the relevant Journal Owner.

Advertising: SSJ does not currently accept advertisements.

10. Availability; Viruses and Attacks; Bugs and Errors

SSJ endeavors, through active maintenance, to ensure that Websites remain available, bug-free, and error-free, but the need for planned and emergency maintenance and the nature of software development mean that no absolute guarantee can be given. We will do what we can to give adequate warning of any planned downtime and to minimize unplanned downtime.

We may from time to time withdraw services. Withdrawn services may or may not be replaced with others.

You are strongly advised to keep backups of any content which you do not wish to lose.

SSJ adopts industry-standard measures to minimize the risk of attacks, viruses, other harmful code, and hackers. Given that our platform exists to permit the contribution of content, and given the constant efforts of those with ill intent, we can not guarantee that any Website, or links posted by users, will be free from third-party viruses and other malicious third-party software or that we will always be successful in preventing attacks from succeeding. We will continue in our efforts both to prevent such occurrences and to minimize their impact on us and on our users.

11. Prohibited Activities

The following activities are prohibited on all Websites, and can result in your registration being suspended or terminated, which Frontiers expressly reserves the right to do, and in your being liable for damages to Frontiers, other Journal Owners, and/or to other third parties.

Gaining or attempting to gain access to another user’s account without that user’s explicit and informed permission

Disguising your identity when interacting in any way on any Website

Any activity that is designed to, or is likely to, cause any harm or damage to SSJ, to other Journal Owners, to any of SSJ’s suppliers, or to any users of SSJ’s facilities

Any attempt to copy, hack, or reverse-engineer the code forming any Website or any functionality offered by any Website

Any act intended or likely to cause any damage to any Website, its availability on the internet, its underlying software, or the reputation of SSJ or any other Journal Owner, including (but not limited to) denial of service attacks

Uploading or placing on any Website, or on any website to which you provide links, any virus or other harmful or undesirable code

Any fraudulent, harmful, or illegal activity

Any attempt to gain unauthorized access to databases or other resources of SSJ or its suppliers

Posting or linking to any content which does not comply in all respects with the content requirements set out in these conditions

Posting of any personal information of any other person without that person’s explicit informed consent

The posting of any commercial or promotional content, or any content which includes promotion of any commercial or business offering, without a specific agreement with SSJ in that respect

The mounting or promotion of any pyramid scheme or other multi-level marketing scheme

Reproduction, duplication, copying, or re-selling any part of any SSJ website except for good-faith reliance on explicit licenses or as otherwise specifically permitted by these Conditions or following the specific and explicit agreement of Frontiers.

12. Text and Data Mining; Bulk Downloading

Text and data mining of public content are permitted for the legitimate purpose of enrichment of external collections of scientific literature. However, we may need to restrict this activity if it hinders the performance of one or more Websites. If you encounter problems, please feel free to contact our technical support: support@sciencestepjournal.com

Text and data mined, and content downloaded in bulk or individually from any Website, remain subject to the relevant license (CC-BY, CC0, or other relevant licence), and all attribution and other conditions of such licences must be complied with. To the extent that any such text or data constitutes or includes Personal Data, all applicable data protection laws must also be complied with. Further information on text and data mining and bulk content downloads for research purposes and for repositories and databases can be found here.

13. Infringement of Your Rights

We believe in respecting the rights of all, including rights granted by law and those generally accepted in academia. If you believe your rights have been infringed, please contact us at this address: claims@sciencestepjournal.com

14. Breach of these Conditions

Breach of any of these conditions by SSJ, another Journal Owner or you would be a breach of our contract.

15. Exclusion of Users

We expressly reserve the right to refuse applications to register and/or to suspend or cancel the accounts of users, at our discretion.

16. Amendment of Conditions

These Conditions and other conditions and rules of SSJ will be amended from time to time. Amendments will be communicated in the manner that appears most appropriate to SSJ. This may include email and/or notification at login. For this reason, you should log out and log back in frequently from and to your SSJ account to ensure you are aware of changes to Conditions. Amendments take effect upon that communication being made available to you, whether or not you actually log in to receive the information.

17. Disclaimer of warranties

The use of SSJ content is offered on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We want to make it clear that SSJ does not provide any express or implied warranties, including without limitation warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement, with regards to the SSJ website. Please be advised that no advice or information obtained through or from any website, whether oral or written, shall create any warranty not expressly stated in these conditions for the website’s use. As a reminder, it is strongly recommended that you independently verify any information before relying on it.

18. Deadline for bringing claims

Any claim against SSJ or any Journal Owner must be brought within one year of your becoming aware of the existence of that claim.

19. Failure to enforce rights

Forbearance from enforcement of rights in the event of a breach of these Conditions does not prevent future enforcement of that right.

20. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

Your agreement with SSJ, including these conditions and all other matters referred to above, is governed exclusively by the laws of Morocco. You and SSJ agree to seek in good faith to resolve any disputes through good-faith discussion, negotiation, and mediation before resorting to litigation. Any dispute not so resolved shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in Morocco. SSJ does not accept any other jurisdiction unless otherwise explicitly agreed by it in writing. You will consent to any action by us taken to stop or prevent you from bringing an action in breach of this clause, and to indemnify us for our costs in bringing such an action.

These General Conditions for Use of the Science Step Journal website come into effect on June 2023.