Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content based on the principle that freely accessible research supports wider global dissemination of knowledge. REFERENSI ISLAMIKA: Jurnal Studi Islam, published by Lontara Digitech Indonesia, is fully open access. All published content is freely available without charge to users or institutions. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full-text articles without requesting prior permission from either the publisher or the authors. This policy aligns with the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Budapest Open Access Initiative
An old tradition and a new technology have converged to create an unprecedented public good. The long-standing tradition is the willingness of scholars to publish the results of their research without financial reward, driven by the pursuit of knowledge. The new technology is the Internet. Together, they enable worldwide electronic distribution of peer-reviewed literature with completely free and unrestricted access for researchers, educators, students, and the wider public. Removing access barriers accelerates research progress, strengthens education, reduces global inequities in knowledge dissemination, and supports a more collaborative intellectual community.

Although open access has so far been implemented for a limited portion of scholarly literature, various initiatives have demonstrated its economic feasibility and its significant benefits for visibility, readership, and research impact. Broadening participation in open access will allow the academic community to fully realize these advantages and remove the financial and legal barriers that prevent knowledge from reaching its widest possible audience.

The scholarly works that should be openly accessible are those authored without expectation of payment—primarily peer-reviewed journal articles and, when authors choose, preprints shared for feedback. Open access means free availability on the public internet, enabling users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link, crawl, analyze, or use the material for any lawful purpose without barriers, except those inherent to connecting to the internet. Copyright remains important only to ensure proper attribution and integrity of the work.

While peer-reviewed literature should be freely accessible, it is not costless to produce. Nonetheless, studies show that the total cost of supporting open access is significantly lower than traditional subscription-based models. This creates strong incentives for institutions, associations, libraries, and funding bodies to support open access as part of their mission. Achieving open access may require new funding models, but its lower overall cost strengthens confidence that it is both realistic and sustainable.

To achieve open access to scholarly journal literature, we recommend two complementary strategies.

1. Self-archiving: First, scholars need the tools and assistanceto deposit their refereed journal articles in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called self-archiving. When these archives conform to the standards created by the Open Archives Initiative, search engines and other tools can treat the separate archives as one. Users do not need to know which archives exist or where they are located to find and use their contents.
2. Open-access journals: Scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open access and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access. Because journal articles should be disseminated as widely as possible, these new journals will no longer invoke copyright to restrict access to or use of the material they publish. Instead, they will use copyright and other tools to ensure permanent open access to all the articles they publish. Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not charge subscription or access fees and will turn to other methods to cover their expenses. There are many alternative sources of funds for this purpose, including foundations and governments that fund research, universities and laboratories that employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline or institution, friends of the cause of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts, funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals charging traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions from the researchers themselves. There is no need to favor one of these solutions over the others for all disciplines or nations, and there is no need to stop looking for other creative alternatives.

The goal is open access to peer-reviewed journal literature. Self-archiving (I.) and a new generation of open-access journals (II) is the way to achieve this goal. They are not only direct and effective means to this end, but they are also within the reach of scholars themselves, immediately, and need not wait on changes brought about by markets or legislation. While we endorse the two strategies outlined above, we also encourage experimentation with further ways to make the transition from the present methods of dissemination to open access. Flexibility, experimentation, and adaptation to local circumstances are the best ways to ensure that progress in diverse settings is rapid, secure, and long-lived.

The Open Society Institute, a foundation network founded by philanthropist George Soros, is committed to providing initial help and funding to realize this goal. It will use its resources and influence to extend and promote institutional self-archiving, launch new open-access journals, and help an open-access journal system become economically self-sustaining. While the Open Society Institute's commitment and resources are substantial, this initiative is in need of other organizations to lend their efforts and resources.

We invite governments, universities, libraries, journal editors, publishers, foundations, learned societies, professional associations, and individual scholars who share our vision to join us in the task of removing barriers to open access and building a future in which research and education in every part of the world are free to flourish.

February 14, 2002

Budapest, Hungary

Leslie Chan: Bioline International
Darius Cuplinskas: Director, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Michael Eisen: Public Library of Science
Fred Friend: Director Scholarly Communication, University College London
Yana Genova: Next Page Foundation
Jean-Claude Gu don: University of Montreal
Melissa Hagemann: Program Officer, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Stevan Harnad: Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Rick Johnson: Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Rima Kupryte: Open Society Institute
Manfredi La Manna: Electronic Society for Social Scientists
Istv n R v: Open Society Institute, Open Society Archives
Monika Segbert: eIFL Project consultant
Sidnei de Souza: Informatics Director at CRIA, Bioline International
Peter Suber: Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College & The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter
Jan Velterop: Publisher, BioMed Central