Open Access Policy

The Annals of Statistical Theory and Applications (ASTA) is a fully open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Professional Statisticians' Society of Nigeria (PSSN). The journal is committed to the immediate and unrestricted dissemination of scholarly research in statistical theory, methodology, computational statistics, and applications.

1. Immediate Open Access

ASTA provides immediate open access to all articles published in the journal. Once an article is formally published, the full text is freely available online without subscription, registration, or payment.

Readers may access, read, download, search, copy, share, and otherwise use published articles in accordance with the terms of the applicable Creative Commons licence.

There is no embargo period between publication and open-access availability.

2. Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright in their published work.

Articles published by ASTA are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, unless otherwise stated for a particular publication.

The CC BY 4.0 licence permits others to:

  • Share the work by copying and redistributing it in any medium or format.

  • Adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material.

  • Use the material for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Users must provide appropriate attribution to the original author(s), provide a link to the applicable licence, and indicate whether changes were made.

More information about the licence is available through the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

3. Author Rights

ASTA's open-access publishing model allows authors to retain copyright while making their scholarly work immediately available to the research community.

Authors retain the right to:

  • Be recognised as the author of their work.

  • Share their published article in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 licence.

  • Deposit or distribute the published version through appropriate institutional or subject repositories.

  • Use their published work for teaching, research, academic presentations, and other scholarly purposes.

  • Build upon their published research in subsequent scholarly work, subject to appropriate attribution.

Publication in ASTA does not transfer copyright ownership from the author to the journal.

4. Reader and User Rights

Under the CC BY 4.0 licence, readers and other users may access and reuse published articles without requesting separate permission from the journal for uses permitted by the licence.

Users must:

  1. Give appropriate credit to the author(s).

  2. Provide attribution to the source publication.

  3. Include a link to the CC BY 4.0 licence.

  4. Indicate whether modifications were made.

  5. Not imply that the author or journal endorses their use of the material.

The licence does not remove rights that may exist independently under applicable copyright, privacy, publicity, or other laws.

5. Open Access and Peer Review

Open access does not affect the journal's editorial standards.

All manuscripts remain subject to the journal's established editorial assessment and peer-review procedures. The ability of readers to access an article freely does not influence the editorial decision to accept or reject a manuscript.

Editorial decisions are based on the scholarly quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance, ethical compliance, and contribution of the work.

6. Article Processing Charges

ASTA's open-access model may be supported through article processing charges, institutional support, sponsorship, grants, society funding, or other legitimate sources of financial support.

Where an Article Processing Charge (APC) applies, the amount, payment conditions, waiver provisions, and applicable exemptions are clearly stated in the journal's Article Processing Charges policy.

Payment of an APC, where applicable, does not guarantee acceptance and does not influence the editorial or peer-review decision.

Where ASTA does not charge an APC for a particular article type or period, this will be clearly stated on the journal website.

7. No Subscription Barriers

ASTA does not require readers to purchase subscriptions in order to access published research.

The journal does not place its published articles behind paywalls or require payment for routine access to the full text of articles.

8. Long-Term Accessibility and Preservation

ASTA recognises that open access requires not only free access at the time of publication but also appropriate measures to preserve scholarly content for future generations.

The journal is committed to maintaining the long-term accessibility and integrity of its published content through appropriate digital preservation and archiving arrangements.

Where applicable, the journal participates in recognised digital preservation services such as LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, the PKP Preservation Network, institutional repositories, or other suitable scholarly preservation systems.

Details of the journal's current preservation arrangements are provided in the Archiving Policy.

9. Metadata and Discoverability

ASTA makes appropriate bibliographic and article-level metadata available to facilitate discovery, indexing, citation, and scholarly reuse.

Where technically supported, article metadata may be harvested through standard scholarly communication protocols and made available to indexing and discovery services.

The journal is committed to improving the discoverability and accessibility of its published research through appropriate scholarly indexing and repository services.

10. Open Access and Research Integrity

Open access does not reduce the journal's requirements for research integrity.

All authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, ethical conduct, and integrity of their research. Articles may be corrected, retracted, or otherwise amended after publication where necessary to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

ASTA's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy applies to all open-access content published by the journal.

11. Commitment to Open Scholarly Communication

ASTA supports the principle that scholarly research should be accessible to researchers, educators, students, practitioners, policymakers, and the wider public.

By providing immediate open access to published research, the journal seeks to facilitate:

  • Wider dissemination of scholarly findings.

  • International visibility of research.

  • Knowledge sharing across institutions and disciplines.

  • Educational and research use.

  • Collaboration among researchers.

  • Greater accessibility to statistical knowledge and methods.

ASTA will continue to develop its publishing and preservation practices in accordance with recognised standards for responsible open-access scholarly publishing.

Open Access Statement

ASTA is a fully open-access journal. All published articles are immediately and freely available online. Authors retain copyright of their work, and articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, subject to the terms stated for the individual publication.