Open Access Policies and Procedures for ASTM International Journals and STPs

It is the mission of ASTM International to provide high quality content to our members and customers. Our rigorous peer review process is the cornerstone of that mission along with an experienced and dedicated staff.

As of January 1, 2025, ASTM will allow submitting authors to choose to publish their journal article open access (OA) by paying an OA fee. These authors will retain copyright and will agree to publish with ASTM under a CC BY license.

Journal submitting authors who do not choose this OA option, as well as all STP authors, will continue to be allowed to deposit their final article in their company or university repositories with appropriate reference to the source journal after a 12-month embargo period. Prior to that time a pre-press version can be deposited. ASTM will retain and defend the copyright for all non-OA articles. For more details see the following Policies and Procedures section below.

Policies and Procedures:

ASTM has adopted an OA publishing option for journal articles as of January 1, 2025, and will also continue its 12-month embargo policy for all other journal articles and for all STP chapters. For all non-OA journal articles and all STP chapters, the start date for the embargo period will be the date the paper is published online. For example:

Manuscript received February 5, 2025;
accepted for publication July 10, 2025;
published online October 10, 2025.

The final article would then be available to authors for posting in their institutional repositories on October 10, 2026.

ASTM will continue its subscription-based business model and retain copyright on all non-OA articles. Journal submitting authors choosing the OA option will retain copyright and publish with ASTM under a CC BY license.

Authors may place their accepted, pre-press papers in their company or university repository in accordance with the Fair Use terms outlined in the Author Copyright Agreement (also below) recognizing ASTM International as the publisher with a complete reference including the DOI.

Final articles will be made available to authors without charge after a 12-month embargo period. After the embargo is lifted, authors can submit the final published article to their company or university repositories with appropriate reference to ASTM International as the copyright holder, including the DOI.

Journal subscribers will have immediate access to all published papers, with no embargo. Individual papers can also be purchased by non-subscribers immediately upon publication.

Articles published prior to January 1, 2025, will not be available for the OA publishing option.

ASTM will defend copyright for all non-OA articles and submit published work to the Library of Congress.

ASTM will collect ORCID numbers from authors, assign DOIs for papers, and submit this material to CrossRef, FundRef, and other indexing services.

ASTM will conduct the rigorous peer review process established by the COP.

ASTM will copyedit, format, and prepare metadata for each published paper. The papers will be published online in full color. Printed materials will be in black and white.

Non-subscribers would pay for purchasing papers from the ASTM website or they may contact the author for a free copy of the paper. The author can provide the paper to the researcher or direct them to their repository for the pre-press version while the embargo is in place and to the final version after the embargo has been lifted.

Fair Use Excerpt from the ASTM Author Agreement (for all non-OA articles):

Limited Right of Use by Author(s)’ Employers. ASTM grants the authors’ employers the limited and non-exclusive license to make a limited number of photocopies (hardcopy paper copies, specifically excluding any electronic copies) and circulate these copies within its company for internal purposes. Author(s)’ employers acknowledge and will retain ASTM’s copyright notice on each hardcopy they make.

As the Author, ASTM permits you certain uses that do not require permission from ASTM. These include:

• The right to make copies of the Work for your own personal use, including for your own classroom teaching use;
• The right to make copies and distribute copies of the Work to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g., via an email list or list serve);
• The right to post the accepted version of the Work on your website or your employer’s website with reference to the publication by ASTM as the copyright holder. This version does not include the final edits. Such preprints may be posted as electronic files on the Author’s own website for personal or professional use, or on the Author’s internal university or corporate networks/intranet, or secure external website at the Author’s institution, but not for commercial sale or for any systematic external distribution by a third party (e.g.: a list server or database connected to a public access server). Prior to publication, the Author must include the following notice on the preprint: “This is an article accepted for publication in Publication (journal or book) Title, Copyright @ (year), ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, DOI: 10/1520__________”. NOTE: Directing researchers to the DOI will ensure the authors get appropriate citations from CrossRef.
• After publication of the Work by ASTM International, the notice should be amended to read as follows: “This is the accepted version of an article published in Publication (journal or book) Title, Copyright @ (year), ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, DOI: 10/1520__________, page numbers, go.astm.org/pubs”;
• A PDF of the final version will be supplied to each author and co-author, with a watermark on the last page that states: “Copyright ASTM International. All rights reserved, date, time. Downloaded by (author’s name, affiliation), pursuant to Author/Copyright Owner Agreement. No further reproduction authorized.” This version can be given to your employer or funding agency and, after the 12-month embargo period has passed, this may be uploaded to your company or institutional repository. Continue to direct researchers to the DOI for proper CrossRef attribution.
• The right to present the Work at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of such Work to the delegate attending the meeting after the Work is published by ASTM with appropriate citation to the published article;
• For the author’s employer, if the Work is a “work for hire”, made within the scope of the author’s employment, the right to use all or part of the information in (any version of) the Work for other intra-company use (e.g., training);
• You retain any patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or procedure described in the Work;
• The right to include the Work in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially);
• The right to use the Work or any part thereof in a printed compilation of works of the author, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of the Work by ASTM); and
• The right to prepare other derivative works, to the extent the Work is not book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other publications, with full acknowledgement of its original publication by ASTM.
• Kudos is used to increase the visibility and impact of published works. When authors publish with ASTM, they receive an email suggesting they send a message to their colleagues announcing the newly published work. Publications on your Kudos page are linked to abstracting and indexing services, research subject repositories, etc. From your Kudos publication page you can generate a shareable PDF with the paper summary and DOI that can be posted on external sites and repositories such as Research Gate. Registration is free for authors and researchers; see www.growkudos.com.
• Other uses by authors must be authorized in writing by ASTM.