Terms of Service

These terms of service cover your use and access to the services ("the service"), software ("the software") and websites ("the website") provided by the Open Access Button. Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use your information. By using our service, you are agreeing to be bound by these Terms and to accept our Privacy Policy.

Registration

You may browse the website and view content without registering, but as a condition to using certain aspects of the service, you are required to register with a valid email address. You are solely responsible and liable for activity that occurs on your account.

Acceptable Use Policy

We trust you to use our services responsibly. You agree not to misuse the Open Access Button services ("Services"). For example, you must not, and must not attempt to do the following:

  • access, tamper with, or use non public areas or parts of the Services, or shared areas of the Services you have not been invited to;

  • interfere with or disrupt any user, host, or network

  • use automated or other means to create accounts in bulk or to access the Services other than by using our official interface and/or APIs;

  • violate the law in any way including storing, publishing or sharing material that is fraudulent, defamatory, misleading, or that violates the privacy or infringes the rights of others.

Third Party Sites and Services

Open Access Button also provides links to or interacts with a wide variety of third-party websites, including interactive links to sites like social media via application programming interfaces (APIs). When you access third party websites, you do so at your own risk. These other websites are not under the control of the Open Access Button, and you acknowledge that Open Access Button is not responsible or liable for the content, functions, accuracy, legality, appropriateness, security or any other aspect of such websites or resources. The inclusion of any such link does not imply endorsement by Open Access Button.

All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. While New Venture Fund and its Scholarly Publishing and Academic Research Coalition ("SPARC") project have used their best efforts to ensure that the information provided on this site is accurate and complete, they make no legal representations as to the accuracy, completeness, suitability or validity of any data or information on this site and will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this data and information or for any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The Open Access Button is an initiative of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Research Coalition ("SPARC"), a project of the New Venture Fund.

Copyright/Intellectual Property

We respect the intellectual property of others and ask that you do too. Through the use of the service, if you directly or indirectly share research with others that you do not have the appropriate rights to share, the Open Access Button will not be held liable for the consequences of those actions.

We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement on the service or website if they comply with the law, and such notices should be reported using our takedown process. We reserve the right to delete or disable content alleged to be infringing and terminate accounts of repeat infringers.

Changes to Our Policies

This policy is current as of February 27th, 2020. Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. However, any revised privacy policy will be consistent with our mission. If we make any substantive changes to our policies, we will place notice in our blog, post notice of changes on this page, and email users.

Updates

  • October 24th, 2016: Updated text to remove references to passwords. We no longer have them in favour of a more secure password less system. This page structure was also updated to mimic our privacy policy so there is now a clear place to ask questions and understand our update policy. We also cleaned up some formatting and removed the "welcome message" at the start of the policy. This was not posted to our blog as it wasn't deemed a substantial change.

  • February 27th 2020: Updated terms with an additional standard disclaimer to support Shareyourpaper.org. We did not post notices as this wasn't deemed a substantial change, and users of that service will be asked to accept these separately.

Questions?

Email [email protected]