Publication Policies and Disclaimer

GateBreakOpen Publication Disclaimer

Nature and Purpose of GateBreakOpen: GateBreakOpen was created as an alternative, zero-cost, online-only publishing circuit open to authors both affiliated and not affiliated with academic institutions, research centers, universities, public organizations, private organizations, or other formal bodies.

GateBreakOpen exists exclusively as a digital and online platform. It does not publish, distribute, sell, archive, or circulate printed issues, printed volumes, printed journals, printed books, or any other physical publication format.

All materials published through GateBreakOpen are made available only in digital form, through online pages, downloadable files, electronic archives, and related web-based resources.

Nature, purpose, and platform model

GateBreakOpen is not a peer-reviewed journal and does not perform scientific validation, academic certification, methodological approval, or endorsement of published content.

Articles published on GateBreakOpen are not subject to formal anonymous peer review, evaluation by independent external reviewers, or scientific verification by an editorial board, unless this is expressly stated for specific initiatives, collections, or sections.

GateBreakOpen is an AI-assisted and chatbot-workflow-assisted online publishing platform.

Artificial intelligence tools, chatbot-based workflows, and digital editorial systems may be used to support basic editorial organization, language review, formatting assistance, reference checking, metadata preparation, consistency checks, and identification of possible formal or bibliographic issues.

The use of AI-assisted tools and chatbot workflows does not constitute scientific validation, peer review, methodological audit, factual certification, legal verification, clinical verification, statistical verification, or professional endorsement.

Scope of accepted content

Scope of Accepted Content: GateBreakOpen does not accept primary research involving direct testing, experimentation, intervention, observation, or data collection on human participants or animals.

GateBreakOpen accepts only secondary research, conceptual work, commentary, theses and dissertations adapted for publication, monographs, books, book chapters, POV articles, open letters, notes, and non-interventional scholarly contributions that do not involve direct testing, experimentation, intervention, or primary data collection from humans or animals.

Examples of accepted secondary research

Secondary research may include narrative literature reviews, traditional literature reviews, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, umbrella reviews, rapid reviews, integrative reviews, critical reviews, mapping reviews, realist reviews, meta-reviews, methodological reviews, theoretical reviews, conceptual reviews, evidence reviews, state-of-the-art reviews, bibliometric reviews, scientometric analyses, citation analyses, meta-analyses based exclusively on already published aggregate data, theoretical articles, conceptual papers, methodological papers, opinion articles, perspective articles, commentary articles, essays, editorial-style contributions, educational articles, technical notes, policy analyses, book reviews, article reviews, historical analyses, philosophical analyses, professional reflections, and evidence summaries.

Prohibited content and conduct

Prohibited Content and Conduct: GateBreakOpen does not accept content that promotes, supports, normalizes, justifies, or disseminates racism, racial hatred, ethnic hatred, xenophobia, discrimination, denigration, harassment, humiliation, defamation, personal attacks, hate speech, extremist propaganda, terrorism, support for terrorist organizations, incitement to violence, threats, intimidation, violent radicalization, unlawful conduct, or harm against individuals, groups, communities, institutions, or protected categories.

GateBreakOpen does not accept content intended to promote, impose, recruit for, proselytize, or disseminate religious, ideological, political, extremist, sectarian, or dogmatic beliefs or activities.

Discussion, analysis, criticism, historical examination, sociological examination, philosophical examination, educational discussion, or literature-based study of religion, ideology, politics, or social movements may be considered only when presented in a non-proselytizing, non-inciting, non-denigrating, lawful, scholarly, and critical manner.

GateBreakOpen reserves the right to reject, suspend, remove, or request modification of any article or material that appears to contain racist, discriminatory, defamatory, hateful, extremist, terrorist-related, violent, proselytizing, unlawful, abusive, misleading, manipulative, unethical, or otherwise non-compliant content.

Author responsibility

Author Responsibility: Each article published on GateBreakOpen remains under the full, exclusive, and direct responsibility of its author or authors.

Authors are responsible for the truthfulness, accuracy, completeness, originality, legality, and correctness of the submitted content, including data, sources, methods, results, interpretations, conclusions, opinions, images, tables, figures, citations, and bibliographic references.

Publication on GateBreakOpen does not imply that the platform shares, approves, certifies, guarantees, validates, or endorses the statements, data, interpretations, conclusions, or opinions expressed by authors.

GateBreakOpen is not responsible for the conduct of authors before, during, or after publication, including misconduct, false statements, omissions, ethical violations, undeclared conflicts of interest, copyright violations, misuse of data, manipulation of results, plagiarism, content duplication, misappropriation of third-party material, or dissemination of inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or unverifiable information.

Copyright, permissions, and privacy

Copyright, Third-Party Rights, and Permissions: Authors are solely responsible for ensuring that submitted materials do not infringe copyright, licenses, trademarks, privacy rights, database rights, confidentiality obligations, contractual obligations, or any other third-party rights.

By submitting a manuscript, authors confirm that they have the legal right to submit, publish, and distribute all content included in the article, including text, figures, tables, images, graphs, datasets, screenshots, quotations, adapted material, translated material, and any other third-party content.

GateBreakOpen is not responsible for copyright infringement, unauthorized reuse, licensing violations, or intellectual property disputes arising from author-submitted content.

Ethics, Consent, and Privacy: Authors are responsible for obtaining all required ethical approvals, permissions, informed consent, institutional authorizations, and privacy-compliance documentation where applicable.

Authors must not submit personal, sensitive, confidential, clinical, legal, financial, biometric, genetic, psychological, educational, or otherwise identifiable information unless they have the legal right and documented consent to disclose it.

GateBreakOpen does not request, publish, or create author badges, professional photographs, or Curriculum Vitae as part of the standard submission and publication process.

Use of AI by authors and reference checking

Use of AI by Authors: Authors are responsible for declaring any substantial use of AI tools, chatbot systems, automated writing tools, language models, reference-generation tools, data-analysis tools, image-generation tools, or other automated systems in the preparation of their manuscript.

Authors remain fully responsible for all AI-generated, AI-assisted, AI-edited, or AI-suggested content included in their submission. The use of AI tools does not reduce or transfer author responsibility.

Reference Checking Disclaimer: Reference checking performed by GateBreakOpen, even when supported by digital tools, artificial intelligence systems, or chatbot workflows, is limited in nature and does not guarantee that all sources are real, complete, updated, correctly interpreted, relevant, or sufficient to support the claims made in the article.

Authors remain fully responsible for the existence, accuracy, and proper use of every source, citation, bibliographic detail, link, DOI, PMID, URL, ISBN, ISSN, archive record, dataset, legal document, report, or other information included in their work.

Article sharing and no professional advice

Social Network and Digital Article Sharing: By submitting and signing the required authorization form, the author authorizes GateBreakOpen to share, promote, and disseminate the published article on social networks and digital channels, including Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and other online platforms or communication channels.

GateBreakOpen may share the article title, article link, article metadata, abstract excerpts, keywords, author name or author names, and publication-related information for online communication and dissemination of the published article.

This authorization concerns dissemination of the published article and related article information. GateBreakOpen does not request, publish, or create author badges, professional photographs, or Curriculum Vitae as part of the standard publication process.

No Professional Advice: Content published on GateBreakOpen is provided for informational, cultural, professional, educational, academic, or discussion purposes only. It does not constitute medical, legal, financial, psychological, clinical, technical, or professional advice, unless such responsibility is expressly assumed by the author under applicable law.

Readers are encouraged to critically evaluate each article, independently verify sources, consider the limitations declared by authors, and avoid using published content as the sole basis for scientific, clinical, legal, financial, professional, or personal decisions.

Publication discretion and limitation of liability

No Obligation to Publish: Submission to GateBreakOpen does not create any right to publication. GateBreakOpen reserves the right to reject, suspend, delay, decline, remove, or refuse any contribution at its sole discretion.

Limitation of Liability: GateBreakOpen disclaims all liability for damages, losses, consequences, claims, disputes, incorrect decisions, reputational harm, professional harm, economic harm, legal harm, or any other harm arising directly or indirectly from the publication, consultation, interpretation, dissemination, citation, application, or misuse of content published by authors.

Acceptance and online publication of an article on GateBreakOpen do not transfer to the platform any legal, scientific, ethical, methodological, or professional responsibility for the content. Such responsibility remains entirely with the author or authors.

No APC, no manipulation, no favoritism

No APC, No Manipulation, and No Favoritism: GateBreakOpen is a totally independent project, without economic, financial, structural, institutional, commercial, corporate, political, religious, or organizational support from third parties.

GateBreakOpen is totally free for authors and does not charge Article Processing Charges, submission fees, publication fees, editorial handling fees, formatting fees, archiving fees, or social-sharing fees.

GateBreakOpen applies the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license where indicated as CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, allowing sharing with attribution, for non-commercial purposes, and without distributing derivative or modified versions.

GateBreakOpen will never require authors to insert articles by other authors into the references, will not use publication to promote citation favoritism, and will not request ad-hoc manuscript modifications to favor third parties, institutions, authors, groups, companies, organizations, ideologies, or external interests.

References, tables, figures, and editorial neutrality

References, Tables, and Figures: GateBreakOpen may convert the author's reference list into the required standard format, but the author must provide a complete reference list and ensure that all references are already cited within the text.

Tables and figures must be submitted separately from the main text file, clearly numbered, indicated in the text, and accompanied by a description of what each table or figure represents.

GateBreakOpen may insert tables and figures in numerical order before the References section, but the author remains fully responsible for their accuracy, originality, legality, copyright compliance, and correct interpretation.

No Manipulation means that GateBreakOpen will not impose forced references, citation manipulation, artificial visibility, or ad-hoc content changes designed to manipulate the author's work or benefit third parties.

No Favoritism means that GateBreakOpen does not provide preferential treatment to authors, institutions, sponsors, funders, companies, organizations, ideologies, or external interests.

No peer review and support contributors

No Peer Review: GateBreakOpen does not perform peer review. GateBreakOpen may perform checklist-based quality assurance related to form, format, language, references, editorial guidelines, declarations, tables, figures, file organization, and basic consistency.

These checks do not constitute scientific validation, methodological approval, academic certification, expert endorsement, peer-review reports, reviewer recommendations, or judgment on the author's independent ideas, interpretations, conclusions, theoretical position, or intellectual perspective.

Support Contributors: GateBreakOpen may receive voluntary and unpaid support for reference checks, guideline checklist checks, language checks, formatting consistency, and basic editorial QA.

Such support does not constitute peer review, scientific validation, methodological approval, academic certification, editorial endorsement, acceptance recommendation, rejection recommendation, or judgment on the author's independent ideas, interpretations, conclusions, theoretical position, or intellectual perspective.

No DOI / ARK Identifier Policy

GateBreakOpen does not assign DOI identifiers.

GateBreakOpen assigns ARK identifiers to eligible publications, using a stable, chronological, and non-reusable identifier structure.

ARK identifiers are used to support persistence without implying peer review, scientific validation, academic certification, or DOI-based journal status.

Author responsibility and non-liability

Each author remains solely and fully responsible for the submitted and published content, including its accuracy, originality, legality, ethical compliance, references, declarations, images, tables, figures, data, permissions, and any possible consequences arising from publication.

GateBreakOpen does not endorse, certify, validate, verify, approve, recommend, or assume responsibility for the scientific, legal, ethical, medical, technical, methodological, professional, or factual content of published works. Publication on GateBreakOpen does not imply legal validation, ethical approval, academic certification, medical validation, institutional support, or endorsement by GateBreakOpen.

GateBreakOpen may perform only formal, language, reference, guideline, policy, layout, metadata, and basic consistency checks. These checks do not constitute peer review, scientific validation, factual certification, legal review, ethical review, clinical review, methodological approval, or transfer of responsibility from the author to GateBreakOpen.

By submitting and signing the required GateBreakOpen form, the author accepts full responsibility for the work and agrees, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, to hold GateBreakOpen harmless from claims, disputes, damages, complaints, requests, or liabilities arising from the content submitted or published by the author.

Mandatory Data Availability Statement Policy

Data Availability Statement Requirement: Every submission to GateBreakOpen must include a clear Data Availability Statement. The statement must explain whether the work uses public data, published data, secondary sources, aggregate datasets, tables, figures, supplementary material, unpublished evidence, or no underlying dataset.

The Data Availability Statement is mandatory even when no dataset exists or when data cannot be shared.

Accepted Data Availability Options: Authors must select and include one of the following options in the manuscript and, where requested, in the GateBreakOpen form.

Accepted Data Availability Options

Publicly Available Data: The data supporting this work are publicly available in an open repository, public archive, public database, institutional repository, GitHub repository, Zenodo record, Figshare record, OSF page, public website, or other lawful public source at the link provided by the author.

Data Available on Request: The data are not publicly deposited but may be requested from the author, where lawful and appropriate, through the author’s ORCID profile, email address, or declared contact information. The author remains responsible for determining whether sharing is lawful, ethical, technically possible, and compatible with third-party rights or restrictions.

Data Included in the Article: All data generated, analyzed, summarized, or discussed in the work are included within the article, tables, figures, appendices, supplementary materials, or cited public sources.

Data Not Shareable Due to Restrictions: Data cannot be publicly shared because of legal, privacy, confidentiality, contractual, ethical, institutional, copyright, third-party, security, or other legitimate restrictions. The author must briefly explain the reason for non-availability.

Not Applicable: The work does not use datasets, raw data, statistical analyses, empirical materials, unpublished evidence, or data-based claims. This option may apply to conceptual papers, theoretical reflections, essays, commentaries, open letters, educational articles, literature-based arguments, or other non-data-based contributions.

Transparency and anti-pseudoscience function

Transparency and Anti-Pseudoscience Function: The Data Availability Statement does not mean that GateBreakOpen verifies, validates, certifies, audits, or guarantees the data.

Its purpose is to make the data status visible to readers and to require authors to declare whether their claims are supported by public, requestable, included, restricted, or non-applicable data.

GateBreakOpen may refuse, delay, request revision, restrict, or remove submissions when the data statement is missing, inconsistent, misleading, unverifiable, incompatible with the manuscript, or used to conceal fabricated, unsafe, pseudoscientific, fringe, or materially unsupported claims.