Privacy and terms

Who is responsible

Accelerated Science is the publisher of this site and the controller of personal data collected through it.

• Legal entity: Accelerated Science
• Registered address: PO Box 27740, Las Vegas, NV 89126-7440, United States
• Telephone: +1 858-635-9410
• Fax: +1 858-635-9414
• Privacy contact: info@acceleratedscience.org

Governing law for the site terms: the laws of the State of Nevada, United States. Data-protection rights may also apply under the law of the place where you live.

Questions about this page, or any request described below, should be sent to info@acceleratedscience.org.

What we hold

We hold the personal data needed to operate the site, manage accounts, handle submissions, take payment, return decisions, maintain the scholarly record, and send a journal-opening notice where one has been requested.

This may include:

• Sign-in details. Sign-in uses either a password you choose, held only as a hash, or a six-digit code that expires in ten minutes.
• Your email address. This is used to issue sign-in codes, identify your account, return decisions, and send service messages about your submission.
• The paper files you upload, including every version of them. These files are the subject of the assessment.
• An ORCID iD, only if you choose to link one.
• The record of your submission, including its reference, route, dates, status, decision and related correspondence.
• Payment and waiver records. These show whether a submission fee was paid or waived, the amount, and the date. Card details are entered with and held by our payment processor. We do not see or store full card numbers.
• A journal-opening address, if you leave one on a journal that is not yet open. This is held with the journal you asked about, the sub-core discipline if you named one, and the date. It is used to send one message when that journal opens, and for nothing else.
• Visit records. When a page on the site is requested, we record the page, the time, the IP address and an approximate location derived from it, such as country, region, city and network provider. Where you arrive through a link in an invitation we sent you, the record also includes the email address that link was sent to. Visit records are used to protect the site and to understand how invitations are used. They are kept for 180 days.
• Basic technical records needed to operate and protect the site, such as security logs and records showing that a message was sent.

On what basis

For account access, submission handling, payment, assessment, correspondence and returning a decision, the basis is performance of the agreement between us.

For protecting the site, keeping security and visit records, preventing misuse, understanding how invitations are used, and maintaining the integrity of submissions and decisions, the basis is the publisher’s legitimate interest in operating a trustworthy scholarly venue.

For keeping the permanent scholarly record after publication, including the publication record, decision record, corrections and retractions, the basis is the publisher’s legitimate interest in the integrity of that record, together with any archiving and research exemptions available under applicable data-protection law.

For keeping payment records, the basis is the publisher’s legal obligations, including accounting and tax requirements.

For sending a journal-opening notice, the basis is your consent, given when you leave the address. You can withdraw that consent at any time.

How long

A submission record is kept permanently. This is deliberate because the venue maintains a scholarly record of submissions, decisions, publications, corrections and retractions.

Published articles, article metadata, decision records attached to publication, corrections, expressions of concern and retractions form part of that permanent scholarly record.

Payment and waiver records are kept for as long as accounting and tax law requires.

Visit records are kept for 180 days and then deleted.

A journal-opening address is used to send one message when that journal opens. It is not used for any other message and is not added to any mailing list. After the message is sent, the address is kept only to record that it was sent, and it is deleted if you ask.

Unsubmitted drafts and account data may be deleted where they are no longer needed for the service, a submission, a publication, a dispute, a correction, a retraction, security, or a legal obligation.

Security and technical logs are kept only for as long as they are needed to operate, protect and audit the service, unless a longer period is required for a dispute, investigation or legal obligation.

Your rights, including the limits

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you. You can ask us to correct inaccurate data, object to processing, restrict processing, or ask for data to be deleted.

You can also withdraw consent for a journal-opening notice at any time.

We will act on access and correction requests. We will respond to rights requests within the period required by applicable law.

Some rights may be limited where the data forms part of the permanent scholarly record, where the record is needed for publication integrity, where the record is needed to handle a dispute or legal obligation, or where an archiving or research exemption applies.

We do not normally delete a published paper or the decision record attached to it. If we refuse a deletion request, we will tell you why.

We can delete an account and its unsubmitted drafts where they are not needed for a submission, publication, dispute, correction, retraction, security record, or legal obligation.

A journal-opening address carries none of the permanence limits attached to the scholarly record. Ask, and it is removed.

You may complain to the data-protection supervisory authority in the country where you live or work.

Who else sees it

Submitted papers are screened, classified and assessed by an AI review panel. To do this, the paper is sent to AI model providers, which process it to produce the assessment.

A named editor sees the paper and its assessment where an acceptance is to be signed. Anyone who handles your paper does so under confidentiality.

Service providers may process data for the site, account access, submission records, file storage, backups, security, analytics, payment and transactional email. They may use the data only to provide those services to the publisher.

Our payment processor handles card payments for submission fees.

Our email provider processes transactional mail such as sign-in codes, decisions, service messages about submissions, and the single notice that a journal has opened.

We may disclose information where required by law, regulation, court order, or a lawful request from a competent authority.

We do not sell data, run advertising trackers, or share submissions with third parties for their own purposes.

International processing

The site uses service providers, including AI model providers and the payment processor, that may process data outside the country where the data subject is located.

Where international transfers require safeguards, the publisher uses the safeguards required by applicable data-protection law. Details can be requested at info@acceleratedscience.org.

Analytics

Site analytics are anonymous and cookieless. Nothing identifying a named person is sent to an analytics product, and there is no cross-site tracking.

Separately, the publisher keeps visit records for security and invitation tracking, as described under What we hold.

Analytics are used to understand site performance and use of the service, not to profile named authors or readers.

The site uses only the cookies needed to keep you signed in and to protect the site. It does not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Security

Passwords are held only as hashes. Six-digit sign-in codes expire in ten minutes.

Submission files and records are retained in the submission record and backed up according to the site’s archiving and preservation arrangements.

Security measures are reviewed as the service changes.

Terms

Submitting a paper grants the publisher the right to assess it and, on acceptance, to publish it under the stated licence.

Authors keep copyright in their work.

Submission does not guarantee review, acceptance, publication, indexing, discovery, citation, preservation by a third-party service, or any particular outcome.

Authors are responsible for the submitted work, the accuracy of the submission information, and the permissions needed for any third-party material included in the paper.

If a paper is accepted, the author approves the final proof before publication.

Published work is made available under the licence stated on the article page.