Spectrum: Journal of Science Education is committed to the principles of open scholarly communication by providing immediate and unrestricted online access to its published academic content. All articles are made publicly available immediately upon publication, without an embargo period.

Readers do not need to pay subscription fees or institutional access charges to read published articles. This policy supports equitable access to research and encourages the dissemination of knowledge across institutions, regions, and academic communities.

Spectrum believes that unrestricted access to scholarly research can strengthen the development of science education and improve communication between researchers, teachers, educators, students, institutions, and policymakers.

The journal's open-access policy is intended to:

• Increase the accessibility of research in science education;
• Support the wider dissemination of scientific and educational knowledge;
• Increase the visibility and potential impact of published research;
• Facilitate scholarly collaboration among researchers and educational institutions;
• Support teachers and practitioners in accessing evidence-based educational research;
• Encourage knowledge exchange across geographical, economic, and institutional boundaries;
• Contribute to the advancement of science teaching, learning, and educational innovation.

Readers may access published articles directly through the official website of Spectrum: Journal of Science Education. No payment is required to browse journal issues, read article abstracts, access full-text articles, or download publicly available article files.

Open access does not mean that published works have no copyright protection. The permitted use, redistribution, adaptation, and reproduction of published articles are governed by the copyright and open-access license specified by the journal and displayed with the relevant article. Authors and readers should consult Spectrum's Copyright and License Policy for detailed information concerning copyright ownership and reuse conditions.

Authors are encouraged to increase the visibility of their published work through responsible self-archiving and scholarly dissemination. Subject to the applicable copyright and license terms, authors may share or deposit permitted versions of their articles in institutional repositories, personal academic webpages, or other appropriate non-deceptive scholarly repositories. Authors should include complete bibliographic information and, where available, a link to the official published version.

The journal's open-access policy concerns reader access to published content and is separate from any Article Processing Charge or other publication-related fee that may apply to authors. Information regarding publication charges, if applicable, is provided separately on the Article Processing Charges (APC) page. Access to published articles remains freely available to readers regardless of the journal's author-side publication fee policy.

Open-access publishing does not influence editorial or peer-review decisions. Manuscripts submitted to Spectrum are evaluated based on their originality, scientific quality, methodological rigor, relevance, ethical compliance, and scholarly contribution. Financial considerations must not determine whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected.

Users of Spectrum's open-access content are expected to respect authorship, copyright, attribution, and applicable licensing requirements.

Open access should not be interpreted as permission to plagiarize, misrepresent authorship, remove attribution, or use published materials in a manner inconsistent with the applicable license. Proper citation of the original article should be provided whenever published content is used in scholarly or educational work.

Spectrum seeks to maintain continued public availability of published scholarly content. Information regarding preservation, backup, repository storage, and long-term availability of journal content is described separately in the journal's Archiving Policy.