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Scholarly Communications

Information for the Smith College community on topics in Scholarly Communications including: open access, author's rights, copyright, and more.

Author Rights

As soon as a work is created in a fixed medium, it is copyrighted and no other action is necessary for the work to be protected by copyright. Authors should know that when they sign a contract to publish that work, they may be asked to transfer the copyright, although this doesn't always have to be the case.
Authors can retain the rights to their work in several ways: by using Creative Commons license, by publishing in open access journals, or by negotiating an author's addendum to the traditional scholarly publishing contract. Additionally, the Smith College faculty approved an open access policy on April 22, 2015 which permits the college to disseminate digital copies of faculty scholarly articles published after that date. The policy reads: Subject to the Faculty Member’s right to opt out of this policy, upon completion of the final manuscript of a scholarly article, the Faculty member grants Smith College permission to make the article available to scholars and the public under the Creative Commons CC BY License, which is the most permissive of the Creative Commons licenses.
 

General best practices:

  • READ your agreement. Only sign a publishing agreement after you read and understand the terms.
  • KNOW your rights. Authors may retain or transfer those rights to others.
  • ASK for the rights you need and the rights that you want. Identify the rights you need now and rights you may wish to retain for the future. Consider how you may want others to be able to use your work. Negotiate changes with your publisher, using an addendum if necessary.
  • SAVE a copy of your agreement. Retain a copy of the final agreement and all communications with your publisher.
  • SAVE your submitted and accepted manuscripts!

Author Rights Resources

Publishing Terms to Know

It is important to read your publishing agreement to understand all terms that may impact ownership and use of your work. While terms can vary from publication to publication, here are some common terms found in agreements:

  • Copyright transfer (Grant of Right) – an assignment, exclusive license, or other conveyance of copyright ownership. Publishing agreements may call for an author to transfer some or all of their rights to the publisher.
  • Manuscript versions. Publishers may distinguish between different versions of a manuscript, with certain permissible uses tied to a particular version of the manuscript (see images below).
    • Submitted Manuscript/Preprint – the original submitted version of the manuscript
    • Accepted Manuscript/Postprint – the version of the article that has been through the peer review process, incorporating reviewer comments.
    • Version of Record/Publisher's PDF – the final version of record of the manuscript. This version includes the publisher’s typeset.
  • Embargo – the period of time in which the author may not make the work publicly available. Embargo periods may correspond to particular versions of a manuscript.
  • Article Processing Charges (APCs) – Charges to authors of scholarly articles during the publication process.  APCs are used by open access journals in lieu of subscription fees that libraries and readers traditionally have paid to gain access to research articles. APCs can range anywhere from several hundred dollars to more than $10,000 depending upon the journal. 

    • APCs shift the cost burden from the reader to the author.

    • APCs should not be confused with page charges long associated with both print and digital publications. Page charges are used to cover administrative costs as well as the cost of print publication, but do not make the article available in an open access (OA) model.

  • Read and Publish Agreements – A Read-and-Publish agreement is an agreement in which the publisher receives payment for reading and payment for publishing bundled into a single contract. This bundling together brings payment for publishing into a contractual arrangement rather than being addressed ad hoc by individual authors who are choosing open access publishing. In addition to publishing fees being brought under a contractual arrangement, a transformative agreement seeks to re-direct funds previously spent on subscription-based reading to the publishing component, often with a goal of a cost-neutral read-and-publish agreement in comparison with the previous subscription-based reading agreement. 

     

 

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Comparison of a version of record and an accepted manuscript

Some information adapted from Ohio State University Libraries, Publishing your Research, CC BY as well as the excellent University of Alabama at Birmingham Open Access LibGuide

How to Assess (and Avoid) Predatory Publishers

image of key points to consider when assessing a journal. Don't trust unsolicitated emails. Review several issues of the journal. Review the journal website. Visit think check submit dot org.