Terms of Use

Who runs this

The Institute for Complexity Science and Advanced Computing LLC, an Indiana limited liability company. Contact: [email protected].

Use of the site

You may browse, link to, download, share, and cite content published on the site, subject to the per-article license (default CC-BY 4.0; check each article).

You may not:

• Attempt to prompt-inject, jailbreak, hack, or otherwise tamper with the AI curation system (see Publication Ethics → System Integrity).
• Submit fabricated authorship — papers attributed to non-existent authors, or papers omitting authors who substantively contributed.
• Use automated scraping that materially burdens the public endpoints (/verify, /publications, /submit) beyond a reasonable rate.
• Misrepresent your identity at submission.

Violation may result in blacklisting and, in cases of malicious or coordinated abuse, civil action or criminal referral.

Your submissions

You retain copyright on work you submit. By submitting, you grant ICSAC a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual license to:

• Run the work through the curation system.
• Publish the curation record — panel reviews, RQC audit, curation decision — at a permanent URL on icsacinstitute.org.
• Include accepted work in the annual Persistence compilation under the same per-article license.

You confirm that you have the right to submit the work, that all listed authors consent to the submission, and that any third-party content (figures, quotations, datasets) is appropriately licensed or cleared.

Donations

ICSAC accepts voluntary donations to fund operations. Donations are processed by independent third parties — currently Stripe (one-time gifts and recurring Supporter / Sponsor tiers, via Stripe-hosted checkout at donate.stripe.com) and Manifund (project-based crowdfunding), with GitHub Sponsors planned. Each processor’s own terms and privacy policy govern the transaction itself; see /privacy for what ICSAC receives from each channel.

Tax status. ICSAC LLC is an Indiana for-profit limited liability company and is not a registered 501(c)(3) public charity. Donations are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions for US federal income-tax purposes. Donors should consult their own tax advisor.

Refunds. Donations are non-refundable except where required by law. Disputes, billing errors, or duplicate-charge concerns should be sent to [email protected]; we will work with the relevant processor to resolve the issue. Recurring Supporter / Sponsor subscriptions can be cancelled at any time through the Stripe billing portal.

No editorial influence. Donations do not purchase goods or services and confer no ownership, governance, voting, or editorial rights. Donors, Supporters, and Sponsors do not see submissions in progress, do not influence curation decisions, and receive no preference in the review process. Public recognition on /supporters is the only benefit attached to recurring tiers, and Sponsor logo placements carry rel="sponsored" per Google policy.

What we publish — disclaimer

ICSAC publishes peer-reviewed work as submitted by authors. We do not endorse, certify the absolute correctness of, or assume responsibility for the content of published manuscripts. Readers must evaluate published work on its merits.

The AI review panel is one input to a human curation decision. It is not a substitute for the reader’s own judgment, and it does not constitute legal, medical, financial, or professional advice.

Site as-is

We provide icsacinstitute.org and its submission infrastructure as-is, without warranty of any kind, express or implied. We do not guarantee uninterrupted operation, error-free service, or that the site is free of viruses or other harmful components.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, ICSAC LLC is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of your use of, or inability to use, the site.

Termination

We may suspend or terminate access to submission features at any time for breach of these terms, the publication ethics policy, or applicable law. Public-facing browsing of published content remains available to all.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Indiana, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Allen County, Indiana.

Changes

These terms may be revised. Material changes will be announced on /publication-ethics or sent to active submitters via email.