XSci

Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

1.1 · Agreeing to these Terms. By creating an account or using the XSci platform at xsci.com (the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1.2 · Changes to these Terms. We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email or a notice on the Service. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance. Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal data.

1.3 These Terms and our other policies

1.3.1 · The master contract, and what is incorporated into it. These Terms are the master contract between you and XSci LTD. Our other policies and standards are incorporated into these Terms by reference and form part of your agreement with us: the Peer Review Policy, the Certification Standard, the Certification Procedure, the AI and Data Usage Disclosure, the Retraction and Correction Policy, the Refund Policy, the Privacy Policy, the Cookie Policy, and — for reviewers — the Reviewer Agreement. Where one of those documents deals with a particular service or subject in more detail than these Terms, it applies to that subject; these Terms govern everything else.

1.3.2 · Your statutory rights are untouched. Nothing in these Terms or in any of those documents reduces your statutory rights, including your rights as a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and your rights under applicable data protection law.

2. Eligibility

2.1 · Who may use the Service. The Service is not directed to children, and you may use the Service only if you are able to lawfully enter into a binding agreement under applicable law. By using XSci, you represent that you meet this requirement.

3. Account Registration

3.1 · Accurate information. You must provide accurate and complete information when creating an account.

3.2 · Your credentials. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials.

3.3 · Activity under your account. You are responsible for all activity under your account.

3.4 · Telling us about unauthorised access. Notify us immediately at support@xsci.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

4. Description of Service

4.1 · What XSci is. XSci is a preprint platform with a certification service on top of it.

4.2 · Depositing is free. You may deposit a manuscript on XSci at no charge. Depositing is never conditional on any purchase, and it does not depend on the outcome of any review. A published deposit is dated and assigned a DOI — a permanent, citable identifier that resolves to that record indefinitely. Every revision is deposited as a new version with its own DOI. Deposits are free to read and carry no embargo.

4.3 · Depositing is not peer review and decides nothing about the quality of the work. Nothing about a deposit is a review outcome, and no deposit carries or implies any assessment of the work.

4.4 · Paid services are separate, and their outcome does not affect whether your work is available or citable. XSci provides two review services, which differ in who is accountable for the report you receive (see clause 7.2):

  • AI Review — review reports generated by AI and clearly labelled as AI-generated. AI review is offered from more than one provider, and you choose which to use. Neutrality means three things: no editorial preference — we do not present our own service as the default or recommend it over another; the same commercial terms for every provider, including ours; and any published quality measure computed by a published method, applied identically to all.
  • Human Review — review reports for which a named human expert is accountable; the expert may use XSci's AI tools to draft or revise the report but accepts ultimate responsibility for it. Human Review may be purchased only for a manuscript you have already deposited.

4.5 · What XSci also provides. XSci also provides:

  • Certification — where a Human Review concludes that a version contains no major error and has a genuine prospect of publication in the venue you are aiming at, that version is marked as an XSci Peer-Certified Preprint. There is one mark and there are no tiers. No AI system certifies anything. What certification asserts, and what it does not, is set out in the Peer Review Policy and the Certification Standard.
  • Publication, distribution and permanent identification of deposited works, and hosting of their assessment records.

4.6 · A manuscript that is not certified remains a preprint on XSci, dated and citable exactly as before, and a refusal leaves no public trace.

4.7 · Who the Service is for. The Service is designed for researchers, academics, and institutions.

5. User Content and Submissions

5.1 Ownership

5.1.1 · You own what you submit. You retain all intellectual property rights to the content you submit to XSci, including manuscripts, data, and supplementary materials ("User Content").

5.2 Licence to XSci

5.2.1 · You keep your copyright. You retain copyright in your submitted and published work, except to the extent otherwise expressly agreed in writing.

5.2.2 · The licence you grant. By submitting content to XSci, you grant XSci a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, format, display, distribute, index, archive, and otherwise process the content as reasonably necessary to operate, provide, and administer the Services, including publication-related functions made available through the platform.

5.2.3 · Content you publish on the platform. Where you deposit a manuscript version publicly, that version, and the reports and records published alongside it, are publicly available. The licence in 5.2.2 extends to using that published content to evaluate, research and improve XSci's review systems, including by training and fine-tuning XSci's own models.

5.2.4 · What the licence does not reach. It does not extend to confidential material — the manuscript and anything else you supply in order to obtain a service and do not publish, including underlying materials provided privately to a reviewer — which is used only to deliver the service you bought and is never used for training, fine-tuning or evaluation. Activity of yours on the platform that is not published is not confidential material, and is dealt with in the AI and Data Usage Disclosure. What falls on each side of that line, and how activity that is not published is handled, is set out in the AI and Data Usage Disclosure.

5.2.5 · No general public reuse right. Unless expressly stated otherwise at the time of submission or publication, publication on XSci does not by itself grant the public a general right to reproduce, redistribute, adapt, translate, or commercially exploit the full work.

5.2.6 · What third parties may do. For clarity, third parties may generally read, cite, and share links to published content, but do not automatically receive broader reuse rights unless XSci expressly provides otherwise.

5.3 Your Representations

5.3.1 · What you represent and warrant. You represent and warrant that:

  • You are the author of the submitted work, or you have been authorized by all co-authors to submit the work on their behalf
  • If you submit a work on behalf of one or more authors, you have obtained all necessary permissions and authorizations from all relevant co-authors or rights holders to make the submission and to grant the rights described in these Terms and any applicable submission agreement
  • The work is original and does not infringe any third-party intellectual property rights
  • The work has not been previously published in a form that would prevent publication on XSci (unless clearly disclosed)
  • The work does not contain unlawful, defamatory, or harmful content
  • Where you deposit a version as a substantial revision of an earlier one, that declaration is made honestly. This declaration is displayed beside any certification mark carried forward to that version (clause 6.4)

5.3.2 · What XSci may do if a representation was false. If XSci reasonably determines that a submission was made without proper authorization, or that any representation in 5.3.1 — including the substantial-revision declaration — was false, incomplete, or misleading, XSci may reject the submission, suspend or terminate review or publication processes, remove or disable access to the content, withdraw related decisions or notices, and suspend or terminate the relevant account.

5.3.3 · Where the item is already published. Where the item concerned has already been published, it may in addition be investigated and dealt with under the Retraction and Correction Policy, which governs correction, expression of concern, retraction, and the revocation of a certification, and which sets the limits on restricting access to a deposited work.

5.4 Confidentiality

5.4.1 · What is confidential, and what is public. Where you deposit a manuscript on XSci it is published — that is the purpose of depositing — and this clause 5.4 does not treat your own public work as secret or restrict your rights to it. Human Review is available only for a manuscript already deposited, so the manuscript assessed is ordinarily public.

5.4.2 · What we treat as confidential to us: any material you supply that does not form part of a public deposit, including underlying materials you provide privately to a reviewer; any report before it is released to you; and, where you have not elected to disclose a report, the report and the existence of the assessment.

5.4.3 · What we do with confidential material. We do not disclose confidential material outside the Service except to the service providers that help us operate it (such as AI and hosting providers, including any AI review provider you select), who are bound by commercial terms that require its deletion within a limited retention period. XSci does not use confidential material to train, fine-tune, or improve XSci's AI models.

5.4.4 · The limit of that promise. That promise is limited to XSci's own products and services and does not necessarily extend to a third-party AI review provider you choose to use; their own policies govern their use of what you send them, and we link to those policies at the point of purchase.

6. Copyright and Licensing

6.1 Author's Choice

6.1.1 · Publication terms apply only if presented. The specific publication terms applicable to a submission or published work, if any, will be those expressly presented by XSci at the relevant time. Unless XSci expressly designates an open license for a particular work, no Creative Commons or similar public reuse license will be deemed to apply by default.

6.2 XSci's Rights

6.2.1 · Maintaining the published record. Once published, XSci retains a non-exclusive right to continue displaying, distributing, and maintaining the published version as part of the scholarly record. In order to preserve the integrity of that record, certain records, metadata, notices, or related references associated with a published work may remain available even if access to the work is later changed, restricted, withdrawn, corrected, or otherwise updated.

6.3 XSci Platform IP

6.3.1 · The platform is ours. The XSci platform, including its design, features, code, and AI technology, is the intellectual property of XSci LTD and is protected by copyright and other applicable laws.

6.4 Use of the XSci Logo and the Certification Mark

6.4.1 · The logo is an identity mark only. The XSci logo on the Platform generally serves as a platform identity mark. The presence of the XSci logo on a Platform page does not by itself indicate certification, peer review, endorsement, or journal acceptance unless explicitly stated.

6.4.2 · The certification mark. Where a version has been certified, the mark XSci Peer-Certified Preprint may be displayed on that version's record page on the Platform, on downloadable versions of the certified work, and by you elsewhere.

6.4.3 · Two rules bind you wherever the mark appears, on the Platform or anywhere else:

  • You must not display the mark for a version that has not been certified, or whose certification has been revoked.
  • You must not display the mark with a number, tier, percentage, star or band, or describe it as a rating, score, grade or level of assurance.

6.4.4 · How the mark is captioned. Two further rules govern how the mark is captioned — that it names the version certified, the date, and the target venue it was measured against, and links to the certification record. On the Platform these are binding obligations. Elsewhere they are what we ask of you and recommend, and we ask you to caption the mark the same way on any site of your own. We do not undertake to police the display of the mark on sites we do not control, and the recommendation is not a warranty by us that every off-Platform display is accurate.

6.4.5 · What the mark names, and where it may appear. A certification is issued against the version the reviewer read, and the mark names that version and asserts nothing about any other. Where you deposit a later version, the certification stands and the mark may be displayed beside that later version, still naming the version assessed — and where you have declared the later version a substantial revision, that declaration is displayed beside the mark. You are never asked to pay to certify a revision, and a certification does not expire. No claim is made, at any point, that a later version was read.

6.4.6 · The mark may never be shown with a number, tier, percentage, star or band, or be described as a rating, score, grade or level of assurance; be applied to AI review output or to any other XSci service; or be displayed without the accompanying version, date and link. Nothing produced by any service other than Human Review may be called certification. Where a certification has been revoked under the Retraction and Correction Policy, the mark must not continue to be displayed.

7. AI-Assisted Review and Accountability

7.1 · Where AI is used. XSci may use automated tools and AI-assisted processes to support aspects of its Services, including organization of materials, preliminary analysis, workflow support, and draft outputs for further human consideration.

7.2 · The two review services. XSci offers two distinct review services, defined by who is accountable for the report you receive:

  • AI Review — the report is generated by AI and is clearly labelled as AI-generated. It is offered from more than one provider and you choose which to use.
  • Human Review — a named human expert is accountable for the report you receive. The expert may use XSci's AI tools to draft or revise the report, but accepts ultimate responsibility for it before it is delivered to you.

7.3 · No machine certifies anything. Certification requires the judgement of a named human expert, and no AI system can produce it, alone or in combination. An AI review report is not a verification, and is never displayed as though it had established a fact. The AI-reviewed label attaches only once you have deposited a revision following AI review, records only that a service was run, and is never shortened to "reviewed". These rules are set out in full in the AI and Data Usage Disclosure.

7.4 · XSci does not train on your manuscript, or on anything you supply with it. Content you have published on the platform may be used to evaluate, research and improve XSci's review systems, including by training and fine-tuning XSci's own models, under the licence in 5.2.2 and 5.2.3. Your unpublished activity — how you used a review, and what you wrote about it — is used de-identified and may be used for training, and you may opt out of it. Before it is used that way we take reasonable steps to remove anything reproduced from your manuscript. Confidential material — your manuscript and what you supply with it in order to obtain a service — is never used for training, fine-tuning or evaluation, without exception. That promise is XSci's own and does not extend to a third-party AI review provider you choose to use, whose own policies govern their use of what you send them and are linked at the point of purchase (clause 5.4.4). The full position is set out in our AI and Data Usage Disclosure and Privacy Policy.

7.5 · AI output is not advice. AI-assisted outputs do not constitute professional advice. Authors should use their own judgment when interpreting such outputs.

8. Payment and Billing

8.1 · What costs money. Depositing a manuscript is free. Certain services — AI review, Human Review, and other paid services made available through the Service — require payment.

8.2 · How payment is taken. All payments are processed by Stripe. By making a purchase, you agree to Stripe's terms of service.

8.3 · Prices are displayed at the time of purchase and may be changed with advance notice. A change to our prices never alters the terms of a purchase already made.

8.4 The two prices for Human Review, and disclosure of the report

8.4.1 · Two prices, and what separates them. There are two prices for a round of Human Review. When you buy, you elect whether the reviewer's report will be disclosed — that is, published alongside your manuscript record. The disclosed price is the lower of the two: the reduction is a discount given in exchange for publication of the report, not a surcharge for keeping it private.

8.4.2 · Automatic publication of a discounted report. A report bought at the discounted price is published automatically, 48 hours after the report is released to you. You take no further step, and there is no stage at which you confirm it.

8.4.3 · Changing your election afterwards. You may change the election afterwards:

  • Withdrawing disclosure costs the difference between the two prices. It is charged once only per assessment, and is calculated at the prices in force on the date you purchased, so a later price change never reaches back into an assessment you have already bought.
  • Opening a report you bought at the higher price is free at any time, and is not refunded.
  • There is no closing date on either election.

8.4.4 · A certification is always public, whether or not the report behind it is.

8.5 Fees, outcomes, and refunds

8.5.1 · Two amounts, kept apart. The assessment fee is what you pay XSci for an assessment. The reviewer payment is what XSci pays the reviewer who carries it out. Neither is calculated from the other, and the assessment fee is not a reviewer's fee collected on their behalf.

8.5.2 · The assessment fee does not vary with the outcome. A refusal to certify is a completed assessment delivered in full, not a failure of the Service, and is not refunded on that ground. The assessment fee does not vary with the round number, and nothing may be added to it. No part of a reviewer payment depends on the outcome either. Whether a reviewer is paid at all turns on whether the assessment was carried out and reported as required, under the Reviewer Agreement; that is a matter between XSci and the reviewer and it changes nothing about a refund owed to you, which XSci pays in full either way.

8.5.3 · Appealing costs nothing. An appeal against a certification decision carries no fee, lies on the four grounds stated in the Peer Review Policy, and its remedy is a refund of the assessment fee — the report and the record stand, and the decision does not change.

8.5.4 · An appeal against a revocation is different. It carries no fee either, but it is decided against the COPE, ICMJE and Crossref standards named in the Retraction and Correction Policy rather than on those four grounds, and no refund arises: the revocation is either set aside and the certification restored, or it stands.

8.5.5 · An assessment closed without a report is a case of non-delivery. Where an assessment is closed before any report is delivered — including where it is closed following an integrity finding under the Retraction and Correction Policy — the assessment fee is refunded to you in full. You need not claim it and no time limit applies, because the closure is our act and not yours.

8.5.6 · Refund mechanics, and the two grounds. For refund mechanics — how a request is made, and how a payment is processed — see our Refund Policy. Unless otherwise stated in the applicable service terms or the Refund Policy, fees paid for completed services are non-refundable. An assessment fee is refunded on two grounds and no others: the report was not delivered, or an appeal against the certification decision succeeded. Where the two documents differ on whether a ground exists, the Peer Review Policy governs.

9. Prohibited Uses

9.1 · What you agree not to do. You agree not to:

  • Submit content you do not have the right to submit
  • Plagiarize or misrepresent authorship
  • Upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content
  • Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or other users' accounts
  • Use automated tools to scrape or mass-download content
  • Use the Service for any unlawful purpose
  • Interfere with or disrupt the Service
  • Impersonate another person or entity
  • Misrepresent a certification (clause 6.4)

10. Termination

10.1 · By you. You may stop using the Service at any time. Contact support@xsci.com to request account deletion.

10.2 · By us. We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, with or without notice.

10.3 · Effect of termination. Upon termination, your right to use the Service ceases. Deposited works remain part of the academic record, and their DOIs remain resolvable. Certifications already issued stand, and assessment records already published remain. Undeposited submissions and associated account data will be handled in accordance with applicable retention needs, operational requirements, and our data retention practices.

11. Disclaimers

11.1 · The Service is provided as is. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." XSci LTD MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

11.2 · WE DO NOT GUARANTEE:

  • That the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free
  • The accuracy or reliability of AI-assisted outputs
  • That a purchased assessment will result in certification. Purchasing Human Review buys an expert assessment and a report, not an outcome
  • That a certified manuscript will be accepted by any journal. Certification is a judgement that a version has a genuine prospect of publication, after ordinary revision, in the venue you named. It is not a prediction, a guarantee, or an undertaking by any journal
  • That a manuscript's findings are correct, or that they would hold up if someone collected new data. No assessment on XSci makes that claim
  • That the Service will meet all your requirements

11.3 · AI output is informational. AI-ASSISTED OUTPUTS ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DO NOT CONSTITUTE PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC ADVICE.

12. Limitation of Liability

12.1 · Indirect loss. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, XSci LTD SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE.

12.2 · Cap on liability. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING FROM THESE TERMS SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO XSci LTD IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM.

12.3 · What is never excluded. NOTHING IN THESE TERMS EXCLUDES OR LIMITS LIABILITY FOR (A) DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY CAUSED BY NEGLIGENCE, (B) FRAUD OR FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATION, OR (C) ANY OTHER LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE EXCLUDED BY LAW.

13. Indemnification

13.1 · What you indemnify us against. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless XSci LTD, its officers, directors, and employees from any claims, damages, or expenses arising from:

  • Your use of the Service
  • Your violation of these Terms
  • Your infringement of any third-party rights

14. Governing Law and Disputes

14.1 · Governing law, and resolving a dispute. These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. If you have a concern or dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the Service, you agree to first contact XSci at support@xsci.com and make a good-faith effort to resolve the matter informally. If the matter cannot be resolved through informal discussion, it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

14.2 · Integrity investigations. XSci may investigate concerns relating to authorship, submission authority, research integrity, policy compliance, corrections, withdrawals, or retractions. Significant integrity-related determinations may be made or overseen by XSci's Editorial Integrity Committee or other designated decision-making body.

14.3 · Appeals against a certification decision are not handled under this clause 14. They lie under the Peer Review Policy, on the four grounds stated there, carry no fee, and are decided by a person who took no part in the assessment. No member of XSci staff may ask a reviewer to change a decision, and nothing in this clause 14 permits it.

15. Severability

15.1 · Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall remain in effect.

16. Contact

16.1 · How to reach us. Email: support@xsci.com