TK TechForum Journal, formerly known as ThyssenKrupp Techforum, is committed to open scholarship and to the broad dissemination of research in mechanical engineering, technology, and related fields. The journal supports the principle that scholarly knowledge should be freely accessible to researchers, practitioners, educators, students, policymakers, and the wider public without financial, technical, or legal barriers.
All articles published in TK TechForum Journal are made available online immediately upon publication. The journal does not apply subscription fees, pay-per-view charges, registration requirements, embargo periods, or other access restrictions. Readers may access the full text of published articles freely from anywhere in the world.
1. Diamond Open Access
TK TechForum Journal operates under a Diamond Open Access publishing model. This means that the journal is free for both authors and readers. The journal does not charge:
- article processing charges;
- submission fees;
- editorial handling fees;
- publication fees;
- page charges;
- color charges;
- reader subscription fees.
Authors may submit manuscripts to the journal with the assurance that, if their work is accepted after peer review and editorial assessment, it will be published without any author-side publication cost. Readers may access, read, download, and share published content without payment.
2. Copyright and Licensing
Authors retain copyright of their published work. By submitting a manuscript and, upon acceptance, publishing it in TK TechForum Journal, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish, distribute, reproduce, archive, and make the article publicly available. Authors also grant the journal the right to identify itself as the original place of publication.
All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Under the CC BY 4.0 license, users may copy, share, distribute, display, adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the published material for any lawful purpose, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source.
Proper attribution should include the author name(s), article title, journal title, publication details, DOI or article link where available, and a link to the CC BY 4.0 license. Users must also indicate whether any changes were made. Reuse should not imply that the author(s), journal, or publisher endorses the user or the user’s adaptation.
Full license terms are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
3. Free and Immediate Access
All published articles are freely available immediately upon publication. No embargo period applies. Readers may read, download, print, copy, link to, and share the full text of articles in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 license.
This immediate open-access policy supports global knowledge exchange, increases the visibility of published research, and enables wider use of scholarly work in research, teaching, professional practice, and innovation.
4. Self-Archiving and Repository Deposit
Authors are encouraged to maximize the accessibility and impact of their work by depositing their manuscripts and published articles in appropriate repositories and scholarly platforms.
Authors may deposit the following versions without embargo:
- the preprint version;
- the accepted manuscript;
- the final published PDF.
Authors may deposit these versions in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal websites, funder repositories, academic profiles, and other scholarly communication platforms. When sharing the final published version, authors should include the full article citation, DOI or article URL where available, and the CC BY 4.0 licensing statement.
5. Preprints
Posting a manuscript as a preprint does not constitute prior publication and does not prevent submission to TK TechForum Journal. Authors may share preprints before submission, during peer review, and after publication.
After the article is published, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record with the citation details and DOI or link to the final published version in TK TechForum Journal.
6. Text and Data Mining and Reuse
Because articles are published under the CC BY 4.0 license, text and data mining is permitted without additional permission, provided that appropriate attribution is given.
Researchers, educators, practitioners, libraries, indexing services, and other users may reuse published content in teaching materials, reports, databases, reviews, guidelines, professional documents, translations, derivative works, and other scholarly or practical outputs, provided that the original work is properly cited and any modifications are clearly indicated.
7. Third-Party Material
Third-party material included in an article, such as copyrighted figures, photographs, maps, tables, images, or extended excerpts, may not automatically be covered by the article’s CC BY 4.0 license unless this is explicitly stated.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to use third-party material where permission is required. They must also provide appropriate credit lines and clearly indicate any separate licensing terms that apply to such material.
8. Contact
For questions regarding open access, copyright, licensing, self-archiving, repository deposit, or reuse of published content, please contact the editorial office: editor@techforumjournal.com