This information is divided into the following sections:

• Focus and Scope
• Publication Frequency
• Content Policy
• Peer Review Process
• Open Access Policy
• Preservation and Archiving Policy
• Rights and Permissions
• Takedown Policy
• Privacy and Consent Policy

Focus and Scope

Communicare is currently inactive. It was a peer-reviewed, academic journal in topics of interest to patients, carers, students, educators and practitioners working within the caring professions, social work and social sciences. The journal was primarily intended for contributions from within the Robert Gordon University (RGU) scholarly community, and aimed to enrich the theoretical and practical knowledge of its contributors and readers.

The journal's Latin title is inspired partly by scholarly tradition, but mostly by the the happy conjunction of the words "Communication" and "Care", and by the importance of these concepts as they concern patients, carers and practitioners. The journal was originally created as a result of discussions within the School of Nursing and Midwifery at RGU, with assistance from the University Library.

Publication Frequency

This journal was originally intended to be published twice each year, in the spring and in the autumn. However, it ceased publication in 2016.

Content Policy

When the journal was active, the editorial board welcomed submissions from Robert Gordon University scholars of any disciplinary background, both academics and students. Submissions were able to explore a range of topics, such as: ethics; health and social policy; integrated health care; law and society; professional identity; fitness to practice; and competence.

The journal published a mixture of articles (peer-reviewed) and book reviews (not peer-reviewed). There are no strict boundaries on what constitutes an article, other than that it must be relevant to health care services. The journal therefore welcomed both traditional, formal research articles as well as more informal reflective pieces.

Submissions were initially reviewed by the editorial board on arrival. If considered appropriate, submissions would then be subjected to peer review and, once formally accepted, scheduled for publication. The editors were responsible for all final decisions on acceptance of rejection of any submissions.

Peer Review Process

Article submissions that were given provisional approval by the editors were subjected to single-blind peer review. The submissions were typically passed to three reviewers from within the RGU academic community, who were given ten days in which to provide their comments. Reviewers were asked to evaluate each submission in terms of the following criteria:

• Is the submission original?
• Does the submission cover a significant topic that is useful to practitioners and/or important for scholarly debate?
• Does the submission contribute to the health and social care professions and/or interprofessional education?
• Is the submission methodologically sound?
• Is the submission clearly presented and well-written?

Recommendations and comments from reviewers were reviewed by the editors before being returned to the submitting author, along with a provisional indication of acceptance or rejection. The editors reserved the right to edit or rewrite accepted articles in order to meet the standards expected by the editorial board.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All content, unless otherwise indicated, is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). There are no article processing charges associated with this journal.

Preservation and Archiving Policy

Robert Gordon University’s journal platform is hosted by the University of Edinburgh (UoE). The UoE is part of the LOCKSS programme (https://www.lockss.org/), which aims to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries, and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of partner-hosted journal content for the purposes of preservation and restoration.

The files that contain the contents of each journal article are backed up daily by the UoE, as part of the routine backup of the server (virtual machine) that hosts the journal platform. The UoE team who manage the server infrastructure can retrieve backed up data on request from the Robert Gordon University journal hosting team.

Rights and Permissions

This journal requires authors to sign a non-exclusive licence to publish as part of the submission process. This licence grants Robert Gordon University the right to publish the submitted work under the terms of the journal's Open Access policy (defined above), and also to make translations of the submitted work into other languages and media, for the purposes of accessibility and preservation.

Authors retain copyright and are able to enter into separate, additional contracts for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of this work – for example, posting it to an institutional repository, or publishing it as part of a book – as long as the original publication in this journal is acknowledged. Authors are permitted and encouraged to share their work online at all stages of the publication process, as this can lead to productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citation of the published work. Authors are expected to ensure that their submitted work does not contain any infringement of third-party copyright.

Users of the journal are permitted to share and reuse published content, provided that reuse is in-keeping with the licence under which the content has been published. For full details of the activities that are permitted under the licence and any restrictions that apply, please refer to the links in the journal's Open Access policy (above). These terms do not extend to any material that is indicated as having a separate licence or as being the copyright of a third party. Permission to reproduce and reuse third-party material must be obtained directly from the relevant copyright owners.

Takedown Policy

All journals hosted on Robert Gordon University's journal platform are strongly encouraged to make every effort to ensure that published content does not infringe any person's rights or applicable UK laws. Should you discover content in this journal that you believe to be illegal or to infringe any of your statutory rights, you may contact the Journal Hosting Service, who will review the complaint:

On receipt of your complaint, the Journal Hosting Service will:

1. Make an initial assessment of its validity.
2. Acknowledge receipt of the complaint (by e-mail, where possible).
3. Remove public access to the relevant article, except where the complaint is considered to be spurious.
4. Refer the complaint to the University's legal advisor for comment.
5. Seek to verify your identity and authority as complainant.

If your complaint is determined to be legitimate and authentic, then public access to the article will be permanently removed, though the abstract will remain publicly visible, along with a note to explain why the full text is no longer available. If the University's legal advisor determines that the article is not in breach of any law, then public access to the article will be reinstated.

Privacy and Consent Policy

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals: it includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables the collection of aggregated data on readership behaviours, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

Data that will assist in developing this journal platform (Open Journal Systems – OJS) may be shared with its developer, Public Knowledge Project (PKP), in an anonymized and aggregated form. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP, nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here.

When an author makes a submission to this journal, they consent to any personal information that is supplied as part of the submission being stored on the University's journal platform. Additionally, they consent to the same information being processed by the system, by the journal editors and by system administrators. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to ensure that all contributors to the submitted work have read this Privacy and Consent Policy, and consent to the same. Authors whose work is published in this journal are also responsible for any human subject data that features in their work.

When a user registers with this journal, they consent to having their personal information stored in the University's journal platform. Additionally, they consent to the same information being processed by the system, by the journal editors and by system administrators.

When a user visits the journal website, the University's journal platform collects anonymised usage data, including IP addresses, pages visited, date visited, browser information and geographical data. This information is not used to personally identify visitors and is not used for any purpose other than those detailed above. The platform also uses cookies to manage session history and to provide a better user experience. Cookies are small text files that a website saves on a user's device when they visit a site, and which enable the website to remember a user's actions and preferences for future convenience. Visiting this journal may create the following cookies:

• A cookie titled OJSSID is created when a user first visits a journal page. It is used to store a session ID and to facilitate logins.
• Performance cookies are created to analyse site usage, to help us measure and improve site functionality. Anonymous data about a user's visit is collected and amalgamated with that of other visitors, so that it is not possible to personally identify a specific user from that information. Users can opt out of providing this information, with no impact on their experience of the journal website.

Users can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. For more information on this, see https://aboutcookies.org/. If a user decides to delete cookies and/or prevent them from being placed by the journal website, they may need to manually adjust some preferences every time they visit the website in future. Additionally, registered users will no longer be able to log into their accounts while cookies are blocked.

This journal seeks to comply with industry standards for data privacy, including the provision within the European Union's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) for "data subject rights". These rights include:

• Breach notification – to be informed when an unauthorised entity accesses your personal information.
• Right of access – to view your personal information.
• Right to be forgotten – to have your personal information removed from the platform.
• Data portability – to request a copy of your personal information.
• Privacy by design – to be confident that technological developments on the platform are designed to ensure the continued privacy of your personal information.

The GDPR also recognises that there may be a "public interest in the availability of the data", which is particularly important for scholarly communications, when journal publishers are seeking to maintain public records for the published content with as much accuracy and integrity as possible.

If you have a user account and would like to have it deleted, please e-mail the journal hosting service (journalhosting@rgu.ac.uk).