Permanency of articles

We have taken steps to ensure that all open access articles published in a SpringerOpen journal are deposited in a number of safe Open Access archives. Should SpringerOpen fail, open access to the articles published is guaranteed to continue via those archives.

In addition, once an article has been published, we do not allow it to be changed, leading to the following policies.

Article corrections and retractions

Corrections to or retractions of published articles will be made by publishing a correction or retraction note and without altering the original article in any way other than to add a prominent link to the note. In this way, the original article remains in the public domain and the subsequent correction or retraction will be widely indexed.

Article removal

The preservation of scientific research is a cornerstone of science and as such we will use our best efforts to ensure that material published in a SpringerOpen journal is preserved and remains available for access. However in the exceptional event that material is considered to infringe certain rights or is defamatory we may have no option but to remove that material from our site and those sites on which we have deposited the material in question.

SpringerOpen therefore reserves the right to cease to make available articles that it has been advised are potentially defamatory or that infringe any intellectual property right, or are otherwise unlawful.

Where this occurs the article will remain indexed. However in place of the article or header the following will appear:

"SpringerOpen regrets that this article is no longer available to avoid threatened legal claims".