Policies

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

Our journal is committed to fostering an environment that values respect, diversity, equity, and inclusion. The journal aligns with Carnegie Mellon University's pledge to promote those values. For more information, please refer here.

We welcome contributors, reviewers, and readers, regardless of their race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, or economic status. Our journal opposes all forms of racism and discrimination while continually recognizing and addressing the biases and systemic barriers that our journal community may encounter. We commit to offering scenario-based bias training to our editorial team, as well as promptly addressing any internal or external complaints or concerns.

Our editorial team values and supports student commitment and labor through compensation, and consciously chooses not to operate based on uncompensated student labor.

Our journal seeks to represent the voices of all the members of our community. Our journal welcomes and values course-based and research submissions from all disciplines.

Our journal seeks to accommodate the needs of our community members by maintaining accessible articles, as well as transcripts and captions when needed for multimedia publications.

Access to the journal is free of charge, aligning with our mission to provide an accessible undergraduate publication.

Open Access Statement

Majāl is an open access journal and thus it is free for anyone to access, download, distribute, print, or link to the articles. Majāl operates through the Creative Commons licenses and adheres to the open access policies of Carnegie Mellon University’s Library Publishing Services.

The CMU LPS suggests applying either the CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-ND for most student submissions. If the work is scholarship or research, the CC BY-NC will allow others to adapt this work in later research as derivative use. For creative and artistic works, the creator/author may wish to prevent such derivatives by applying the CC BY-NC-ND. In all cases the creators of the work retain copyright to the work.

Creative Commons licenses

There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here:

CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

CC BY includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. 

CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. 

CC BY-ND includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted