Authors are often unsure what rights they retain when signing a publisher agreement for a journal article. Our Bodleian iSkills workshop iSkills: Authors, copyright and open access covers the key issues.
Copyright
Licenses
If publishing traditional route
- You sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement or a Licence to Publish (Exclusive or Non-Exclusive)
- No author payment; published article only available to subscribers.
- Key question: What is the self-archiving policy for institutional repositories (e.g. ORA)? (green route OA)
- Can you make the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) freely available via ORA (possibly after an embargo period)?
If publishing OA (‘gold route’), either in a fully OA journal or a ‘hybrid’ one
- Your article will be published freely available immediately
- Often with a Creative Commons licence
- Author retains copyright
- Key question: Which CC licence to choose?
- CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution) mandatory if funder paying APC
