Terms of Use & Publishing Agreement

1. Institutional Entity, Preamble & Scope of Agreement

These Terms of Use and Publishing Agreement (“Terms”, “Agreement”) constitute a legally binding contract between you (whether as a reader, submitting author, co-author, peer reviewer, editor, translator, institutional representative, or automated API consumer; collectively “User”, “Author”, “Reviewer”, or “You”) and AFRIK Academic Press (“AFRIK”, “the Press”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), an autonomous Pan-African scholarly publishing press operated under the authority of the AFRIK Research Foundation in formal partnership with its founding continental consortium—comprising the Foresight Institute of Research and Translation (FIRAT) (Nigeria & Rwanda), the College for Advancement of Academics (CAA), and Galaxy Nova Technologies & Innovations (GNTI)—alongside charter African universities and national research societies.

By creating an account, browsing published literature, submitting a manuscript, uploading preprints, issuing peer review evaluations, translating scientific segments, or utilizing our APIs, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and unconditionally agree to be bound by these Terms, our Privacy Policy, our Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement, and our Open Access & Licensing Policy. If you do not agree to these Terms in their entirety, you are strictly prohibited from accessing the platform or submitting intellectual works.

2. Scholar Accounts, ORCID iD Binding & Access Security

To maintain bibliographic integrity, authorship attribution, and conflict-of-interest screening per the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), scholarly participation on AFRIK requires verified scholar authentication:

• Account Accuracy: You agree to provide true, accurate, current, and complete academic identity details, including your real legal name, institutional email address, primary university or research laboratory affiliation, geographic department, and verified ORCID iD. Impersonation of any scholar, institution, or editorial official constitutes actionable scientific fraud and immediate account termination.
• Credential Confidentiality: You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials, session tokens, and passkeys. You must immediately notify AFRIK of any unauthorized access or security breach. AFRIK is not liable for any loss or harm resulting from unauthorized use of your credentials.
• Prohibition of Shared Accounts: Scholar accounts, editorial roles, and reviewer privileges are strictly non-transferable and individual. Group or shared logins are expressly prohibited.

3. Absolute Author Warranties & Submission Representations

By lodging a manuscript, commentary, perspective, dataset, or translation with AFRIK, the corresponding author (acting on behalf of themselves and every listed co-author) explicitly and irrevocably warrants, represents, and covenants that:

1. Originality & Sole Submission: The manuscript represents genuine, original intellectual scholarship. The work has not been published elsewhere in peer-reviewed format, is not currently submitted to or under active consideration by any other journal, book, or conference proceeding, and will not be submitted elsewhere while under review at AFRIK.
2. Authorship Authenticity (CRediT Compliance): Every individual designated as an author satisfies the four standard criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy): substantial contributions to conception/design or acquisition/analysis/interpretation of data; drafting or critically revising the work; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Ghost authorship, guest authorship, and honorary authorship are strictly prohibited.
3. Artificial Intelligence & LLM Disclosure: Artificial intelligence models, Large Language Models (LLMs), and automated generative tools cannot be listed or credited as an author or co-author. Any use of AI tools in study design, data collection, statistical computation, image generation, literature synthesis, or manuscript drafting must be transparently disclosed in the methodology or acknowledgments section, specifying the model, version, and prompt architecture. Authors retain absolute legal and scientific accountability for the accuracy and veracity of all submitted content, including any hallucinations or fabrications generated by AI tools.
4. Non-Infringement & Third-Party Rights: The manuscript, including all text, formulas, equations, tables, figures, charts, code, datasets, and supplemental media, does not infringe, misappropriate, or violate any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any third party. If any copyrighted figures or materials are included, the author has obtained written, verifiable licenses or permissions from the copyright holder permitting worldwide, royalty-free distribution under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
5. Scientific Integrity & Data Veracity: All data, measurements, laboratory outputs, survey responses, clinical trial findings, and calculations presented in the work are authentic, unmanipulated, and verifiable. Data fabrication, data falsification, image tampering, selective reporting to deceive, and fraudulent citation padding constitute grave scientific misconduct. Authors must retain underlying raw research data for a minimum of ten (10) years following publication and make it promptly available upon editorial request.
6. Bioethics, Human Subjects & Animal Welfare: For any study involving human participants, patient tissue, clinical data, or animals, the research has been formally reviewed and approved by an accredited Institutional Review Board (IRB), Independent Ethics Committee (IEC), or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Informed consent has been obtained from all human subjects in full compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and patient anonymity has been rigorously protected.
7. Mandatory Conflict of Interest Disclosure: All commercial, institutional, financial, political, or personal relationships that could be perceived as influencing the objectivity, analysis, or interpretation of the work are fully disclosed in the manuscript.

5. Irrevocable Publishing License, CC BY 4.0 & Archival Rights

AFRIK is a champion of author rights and universal open access. Authors retain copyright in their original intellectual work. However, in consideration for the Press organizing, administering, and financing peer review, automated triage, professional XML typesetting, permanent PID minting, and international DOI registration:

• Irrevocable Worldwide Publishing Grant: The author grants to AFRIK an exclusive first publication right and an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free license to publish, display, host, distribute, reformat, typeset, index, abstract, translate, and digitally preserve the manuscript, in whole or in part, across all languages, formats, and media now known or developed in the future.
• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): Upon acceptance, the Version of Record (VoR) is published open-access under the CC BY 4.0 license. Anyone is free to share (copy and redistribute) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon) the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided appropriate academic credit is given to the original authors and AFRIK Academic Press with a link to the license and DOI.
• Zero Royalty Obligations: Authors acknowledge that AFRIK operates on a non-profit, Diamond/Platinum Open Access charter and that no royalties, licensing fees, honoraria, or financial remuneration are payable to authors for publication, indexing, translation, or dissemination of their manuscripts.

6. Anti-Withdrawal Protocol & Immutable Archival Records

Peer review requires substantial investment of academic time and institutional resources by editors, reviewers, and linguistic arbiters. To prevent exploitative practices:

• Withdrawal Restrictions: Once a manuscript has passed desk review and entered formal peer review (under_review), authors may NOT unilaterally withdraw the paper. A withdrawal request must be formally submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief with rigorous justification and is valid only upon written approval by the EiC.
• Post-Acceptance Lock-In: Once an explicit acceptance decision is recorded, the manuscript CANNOT be withdrawn under any circumstances. Withdrawing an accepted paper to submit to a commercial journal constitutes predatory malpractice, will result in institutional sanctions, notification to author home universities, and blacklisting from all AFRIK journals and consortium partner initiatives.
• Permanent Historical Record: Published articles registered with canonical AFRIK Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and Crossref DOIs become permanent parts of the global scientific record. In adherence to international library and bibliographic standards, published papers CANNOT be removed, deleted, or altered at author request. Any post-publication corrections, errata, or retractions will follow formal COPE protocols and remain permanently linked to the canonical DOI record.

7. Disclaimer of Warranties

THE PLATFORM AND ALL PUBLISHED CONTENT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND:

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, AFRIK ACADEMIC PRESS AND ITS CONSORTIUM ENTITIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, RELIABILITY, AND FREEDOM FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES OR HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

SCHOLARLY ARTICLES PUBLISHED ON AFRIK REFLECT THE INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH, FINDINGS, AND OPINIONS OF THE RESPECTIVE AUTHORS, AND NOT OF AFRIK ACADEMIC PRESS, THE AFRIK RESEARCH FOUNDATION, FIRAT, CAA, OR GNTI. WE DO NOT WARRANT OR ENDORSE THE SAFETY, VALIDITY, APPLICABILITY, OR REPRODUCIBILITY OF ANY MEDICAL PROTOCOL, PHARMACEUTICAL DOSAGE, ENGINEERING DESIGN, CHEMICAL REACTION, AGRICULTURAL PRESCRIPTION, OR STATISTICAL MODEL CONTAINED IN ANY PUBLICATION. USERS AND CLINICIANS MUST INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY ALL DATA BEFORE CLINICAL, INDUSTRIAL, OR REGULATORY APPLICATION.

8. Absolute Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL AFRIK ACADEMIC PRESS, THE AFRIK RESEARCH FOUNDATION, ITS TRUSTEES, DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, EDITORS, PEER REVIEWERS, OR CONSORTIUM PARTNERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF RESEARCH REPUTATION, LOSS OF ACADEMIC TENURE, LOSS OF GRANTS, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, PERSONAL INJURY, MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CLAIMS, OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH:

• Your access to, use of, or inability to access the platform, publishing tools, or published papers;
• Any editorial rejection, desk reject, revision request, publication delay, or retraction decision;
• Any unauthorized access to, alteration of, or breach of your manuscript files or data transmissions;
• Any statement, peer review evaluation, or conduct of any third party or reviewer on the platform;
• Any errors, omissions, mistranslations, or inaccuracies in any published paper, galley, formula, or translation.

IN NO EVENT SHALL OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF THIS AGREEMENT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($100.00 USD).

9. Editorial Discretion & Peer Reviewer Absolute Immunity

Peer review and editorial decision-making are protected academic processes requiring complete candor, scholarly independence, and intellectual freedom. Authors, institutions, and users acknowledge and agree that:

• Absolute Editorial Discretion: Editors-in-Chief, handling editors, and editorial boards hold sole, final, and unreviewable authority regarding whether a manuscript is accepted, rejected, revised, or retracted. No author has a contractual or legal entitlement to publication.
• Peer Review Immunity: Reviewers and editors act as independent academic evaluators. You unconditionally waive, release, and covenant not to sue reviewers, editors, or the Press for any critique, critical evaluation, recommendation, rejection, or delay.
• Reviewer Confidentiality: The identity of peer reviewers in double-blind review pipelines is strictly confidential and protected from discovery or civil disclosure to the fullest extent permitted by law.

10. Translation Commons Governance & Derivative Terms

The AFRIK Multilingual Translation Commons operates to dismantle linguistic barriers to scientific knowledge across Africa. By submitting translations, terminology neologisms, or peer votes:

• Translation Licensing: All contributed scientific translations and lexicon definitions are dedicated to the public under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) or equivalent open licenses.
• Mathematical & Scientific Invariance: Translators warrant that translations preserve mathematical formulas, LaTeX notations, chemical equations, units of measurement, and bibliographic citations identically to the source text.
• No Editorial Guarantee: AFRIK provides neural and community translation frameworks for educational and scholarly access. We disclaim all liability for linguistic nuances, conceptual divergence, or translation ambiguities in localized editions.

11. Acceptable Use, API Etiquette & Text and Data Mining (TDM)

AFRIK encourages automated research, semantic harvesting, and computational Text and Data Mining (TDM) via our open REST APIs, subject to reasonable system integrity requirements:

• TDM Permissions: Researchers and academic organizations are granted full permission to conduct automated TDM on published CC BY 4.0 literature for non-commercial and commercial scientific analysis, linguistic research, and bibliographic indexing.
• Rate Limits & Infrastructure Protection: Automated requests must respect rate limits, include a valid identifying User-Agent header and contact email, and avoid burdening server infrastructure. Scraping that impairs platform performance, brute-force attacks, reverse engineering, and vulnerability probing are strictly prohibited.

12. Mandatory Dispute Resolution, Binding Arbitration & Governing Law

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, INCLUDING WAIVING THE RIGHT TO JURY TRIALS AND CLASS ACTIONS:

1. Informal Escalation: In the event of any academic, editorial, or contractual dispute, the parties shall first attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute informally by delivering written notice to the AFRIK Editorial Office ([email protected]). If concerning publication ethics or authorship, the dispute shall be evaluated pursuant to COPE dispute resolution guidelines.
2. Binding Arbitration: Any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement, its interpretation, breach, termination, or validity, which cannot be resolved within sixty (60) calendar days of informal notice, shall be settled exclusively by binding arbitration administered in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) or the Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA / OHADA).
3. Seat and Language of Arbitration: The seat of arbitration shall be Kigali, Rwanda or Abuja, Nigeria (as determined by the AFRIK Research Foundation), and proceedings shall be conducted in English by a single arbitrator appointed in accordance with the said Rules. The arbitrator's decision shall be final, non-appealable, and enforceable in any court of competent jurisdiction.
4. Class Action Waiver: YOU AGREE THAT ALL CLAIMS MUST BE BROUGHT IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, REPRESENTATIVE, OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PROCEEDING.

13. Severability, Survival & Institutional Contacts

If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by an arbitrator or court of competent jurisdiction, such provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect. Provisions concerning author warranties, publisher indemnification, licenses granted, disclaimers, limitation of liability, peer review immunity, and dispute resolution shall survive any termination of your account or this Agreement.

For legal inquiries, copyright notices, or official correspondence, contact the Secretariat of the AFRIK Research Foundation at [email protected].