Legal

Terms & Conditions

The terms governing your access to and use of O4RES and its open research resources.

Last updated 25 August 2026

O4RES — Open Resources for Researchers — is an open research resource and discovery platform designed to help researchers, academics, students, and the public discover, explore, and connect with scholarly publications and research resources.

By accessing or using O4RES, including its search services, research indexes, institutional portals, and related resources, you agree to these Terms & Conditions.

1. About O4RES

O4RES is a research discovery and indexing platform. It connects researchers with scholarly publications and research resources from participating institutions and other research-data sources.

O4RES may provide institutional research portals through dedicated campus subdomains, allowing users to explore research publications associated with individual universities or institutions.

O4RES is designed to make research resources easier to discover, explore, and connect.

2. Use of the Service

You may use O4RES for lawful research, educational, academic, informational, and discovery purposes.

You agree to use the Service responsibly and not to:

  • Violate applicable laws or regulations.
  • Attempt to gain unauthorized access to O4RES or its infrastructure.
  • Interfere with the operation, availability, or security of the Service.
  • Introduce malware, malicious code, or other harmful content.
  • Abuse automated systems or generate excessive requests that may impair the Service.
  • Circumvent technical restrictions or security mechanisms.
  • Misrepresent your identity, institution, or affiliation.
  • Use O4RES to unlawfully collect, process, or exploit personal information.

3. Research Information

O4RES may display scholarly information including publication titles, authors, affiliations, abstracts, publication years, journals, sources, DOIs, publication types, citation information, research metrics, and other scholarly metadata.

Publication metadata Authors and affiliations Abstracts Publication years Journals and sources DOIs Publication types Citation information Research metrics

Such information may originate from public sources, institutional research databases, publishers, DOI services, scholarly databases, and other research-data providers.

The appearance of research information on O4RES does not necessarily mean that O4RES owns the underlying research work or has a direct relationship with the author, publisher, or institution.

4. Accuracy & Verification

We aim to provide useful and reliable research information, but O4RES does not guarantee that all indexed information is complete, current, accurate, or free from errors.

Research metadata may change, contain inconsistencies, or differ between sources.

When accuracy is important, users should verify research information against the original publication, publisher, DOI record, institutional repository, or another authoritative source.

Search results, classifications, rankings, citation information, and other research metrics should be considered informational and should not be treated as definitive academic or professional advice.

5. External Resources

O4RES may provide links to external websites and research services, including publishers, journals, institutional repositories, DOI services, scholarly databases, and university websites.

These external resources are operated independently from O4RES.

O4RES does not control and is not responsible for the content, availability, accuracy, security, privacy practices, licensing, or terms of external websites.

When you access an external resource, you are subject to the terms and policies of that external service.

6. Intellectual Property

O4RES respects the intellectual property rights of researchers, authors, publishers, universities, institutions, and other rights holders.

O4RES may index or display scholarly metadata and links to research resources for the purpose of research discovery.

Copyright and other intellectual property rights in original research works remain with their respective authors, publishers, institutions, or other rights holders.

Users are responsible for complying with applicable copyright, licensing, access, and reuse requirements when using materials accessed through O4RES.

7. Researchers & Institutions

O4RES may display researcher names, institutional affiliations, publication records, and other scholarly information obtained from public or institutional research sources.

If you believe that information displayed on O4RES is inaccurate, outdated, incorrectly attributed, or otherwise requires correction, you may contact us.

Please provide sufficient information to identify the relevant record and, where possible, an authoritative source supporting the requested correction.

We may review reasonable requests and, where appropriate, correct or update information within the scope of our role as a research discovery and indexing platform.

8. User Submissions

Some O4RES features may allow users to submit information through contact forms, feedback forms, correction requests, or other communication channels.

By submitting information to O4RES, you agree that:

  • The information you provide is accurate to the best of your knowledge.
  • You have the right to provide the information.
  • You will not knowingly submit unlawful, fraudulent, harmful, or malicious content.
  • You will not submit confidential or sensitive information unless it is necessary and appropriate for the purpose of your communication.

Information submitted to O4RES is handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy .

9. Automated Access

O4RES may provide research discovery services through search interfaces, APIs, or other technical means where available.

Automated access must not interfere with the operation of O4RES or place unreasonable load on its infrastructure.

You must not use automated systems to scrape, crawl, download, reproduce, or redistribute O4RES content in a manner that violates applicable law, third-party rights, technical restrictions, or these Terms.

Nothing in these Terms grants ownership of third-party research data, publications, or intellectual property.

10. Service Availability

We aim to keep O4RES available and reliable, but we do not guarantee that the Service will always be:

  • Available without interruption.
  • Free from errors or technical problems.
  • Free from security vulnerabilities.
  • Complete or current.
  • Compatible with every device, browser, or external service.

O4RES may temporarily suspend, modify, restrict, or discontinue any part of the Service when necessary for maintenance, security, development, or other operational reasons.

11. Disclaimer

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, O4RES provides the Service and its research information on an "as is" and "as available" basis.

O4RES makes no warranties, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, reliability, availability, suitability, or fitness for a particular purpose of information provided through the Service.

The appearance of a publication, researcher, institution, journal, or other resource in O4RES does not constitute endorsement by O4RES.

Users are responsible for evaluating and verifying information before relying on it.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, O4RES and its operators shall not be responsible for losses, damages, or claims arising from:

  • Reliance on inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated research information.
  • Errors or omissions in indexed metadata.
  • The availability or unavailability of third-party resources.
  • Content or services provided by external websites.
  • Temporary interruptions or technical failures.
  • Unauthorized access or events beyond our reasonable control.
  • Use or misuse of information obtained through the Service.

Nothing in these Terms is intended to exclude or limit liability where such exclusion or limitation is prohibited by applicable law.

13. Changes to These Terms

O4RES may add, modify, remove, or discontinue features, research sources, institutional portals, search functionality, or other parts of the Service at any time.

We may also update these Terms & Conditions when necessary to reflect changes in O4RES, technology, applicable law, or our services.

The latest version will be published on this page together with the date of the most recent update.

14. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms & Conditions, wish to report a problem, or believe that research information displayed by O4RES requires correction or review, please contact us.

O4RES — Open Resources for Researchers

info@o4res.org

O4RES exists to make research resources easier to discover, explore, and connect. By using O4RES, you agree to use the platform responsibly and to respect the rights of researchers, institutions, publishers, and other creators whose work makes open research discovery possible.