Scholarly Communication  Tags: research scholarly_communication publishing open_access copyright  

When your manuscript has been accepted for publication, you sign a publisher agreement.  This agreement may require you to transfer your copyright to the publisher.  You would lose your copyright and all control over the dissemination of your research.  You would lose the right to use your manuscript in a later work or even distribute copies to your colleagues and students.

You can attach an addendum to the publisher agreement that allows you to retain some or all of your copyright.  With an addendum, you could retain the rights to use your manuscript in a later work and makes copies, and the rights to publish your manuscript on your personal web site or in an open access repository.

A publisher is not obligated to accept your addendum.  If the publisher does not accept it, explain your position and why you need to retain your rights.  If the publisher still doesn't accept it, consider publishing elsewhere, particularly in an open access journal.

To see copies of publisher agreements and copyright policies, use SHERPA/RoMEO.

SPARC and Science Commons have made it easy to generate a PDF addendum: http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/ 

After creating your addendum:

• print it
• sign and date it
• sign and date the publisher agreement to which you are attaching addendum
• write "subject to addendum" on the agreement
• write brief cover letter to indicate you are using an addendum
• make copies of all documents
• send to publisher

Available addenda:

Science Commons / SPARC Addendum
Access - Reuse:

"You retain sufficient rights to grant to the reading public a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial license or similar license that allows the public to re-use or re-post your article so long as you are given credit as the author and so long as the reader's use is non-commercial. (This is a joint offering from Science Commons and SPARC and represents a new version of the former SPARC Addendum.)"

Other Options From Science Commons
Immediate Access:

"You retain sufficient rights to post a copy of the published version of your article (usually in pdf form) online immediately to a site that does not charge for access to the article. (This is similar in many ways to the MIT Copyright Amendment below)"

Delayed Access:

"You also have the right immediately to post your final version of the article, as edited after peer review, to a site that does not charge for access to the article, but you must arrange not to make the published version of your article available to the public until six months after the date of publication."

Add your favorite Web sites on author addenda.

  

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