Open Access @OSU Libraries: Author Rights
Copyright to Scholarly Work
OSU faculty and students retain the copyright to their Scholarly Works (see OSU P&P 1-0202 linked below for details and exceptions). Copyright owners then have the option of assigning non-exclusive or exclusive rights to that work to third parties, like publishers.
You can retain copyright to your work through the use of an author addendum or through conversations and negotiation with your editor. If you are unable to negotiate to retain full rights to your work, you may still be able to share a copy of it. Most publishers allow the author's final manuscript to be shared publicly. The author's final manuscript is the version of your article that reflects all changes from the peer review process, but that has not yet gone through final copy editing and layout work. It is usually a double-spaced .doc file. If you are curious about policies from a specific journal, you can find more information on Sherpa Romeo. Sherpa Romeo aggregates publisher open access policies and provides a summary of that information on a journal by journal basis.
- SHERPA/RoMEOContains publishers' general policies on self-archiving of journal articles and certain conference series. Each entry provides a summary of the publisher's policy, including what version of an article can be deposited, where it can be deposited, and any conditions that are attached to that deposit.
- SPARC Author AddendumAn addendum you can attach to your publishing agreement or that you can use as a guide for conversations with your editor.
- OSU Intellectual Property Policy (P&P 1-0202)See section 7 on copyrightable works, especially 7.04:
"In keeping with traditional academic practice and policy, Scholarly Works are deemed to be Personal Works owned by the Creator(s) unless they are Institutional Works or Sponsored Works. The intention of the University is to promote the free dissemination of information and thus the University, in general, may, as a condition of employment for all persons employed by the University, a condition of appointment for any person holding any appointment with the University, a condition of enrollment and attendance at the University by a student, and/or as a condition of use of University Resources, require that the Creator(s) grant to the University for its research and educational purposes, a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and distribute Scholarly Works that are owned by the Creator(s), excluding textbooks, related course materials, and literary and artistic creations, with the proviso that this policy will not prevent the Creator(s) from granting publication rights to scholarly journals."
Creative Commons Licenses
Are you interested in seeing wider reuse of your work? If so, you might consider using a Creative Commons (CC) license. CC licenses work with existing copyright, meaning you are still the copyright owner, but they allow you to notify potential users of the types of reuse you are comfortable with. If you aren't okay with commercial reuse, you can specify that. If you'd rather that people didn't make changes to your work, you can state that too. CC licenses are customizable to fit your specific needs.
Attribution
Content on this page was adapted from "Open Access at UT Austin: Author Rights", by University of Texas Libraries. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.
