Authorʹs Rights Tout de Suite, by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., is designed to give journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of authorʹs rights and to foster further exploration of this topic though liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites.

Additionally, University of Iowa authors can find a trove of information on author rights (why you should retain copyright for your creative output) on the Transforming Scholarly Communication web site at the University of Iowa Libraries.

The University of Iowa Faculty Senate Approved the “Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors” at their October 23, 2007 meeting. This addendum is intended for authors to use to help them protect their intellectual property rights when publishing their work.

Excerpt from the “Statement on Publishing Agreements”:

Faculty authors should consider a number of factors when choosing and interacting with publishers for their works. The goal of publication should be to encourage widespread dissemination and impact; the means for accomplishing this will necessarily depend on the nature of the work in question, the author’s circumstances, available suitable outlets, and expectations in the author’s field of inquiry. In general, authors are encouraged to consider publishing strategies that will optimize short- and long-term access to their work, taking into account such factors as affordability, efficient means for distribution, a secure third-party archiving strategy, and flexible management of rights.

To read more of the statement and view the addendum, visit the full Statement and Addendum.

A new MIT Libraries’ tutorial “Scholarly Publication and Copyright: Retaining Rights & Increasing the Impact of Research” is now available online, and it applicable to faculty at all universities.

* Part 1 focuses on how copyright law intersects with the publication process.

Download part 1 (5:38 min.)

* Part 2 reviews why you might want to retain rights when you publish and how you can do so.

Download Part 2 (9:47 min.)

* Part 3 provides information on increasing the impact of your research by making it available through open access channels.

Download Part 3 (8:55 min.)

Together, these three parts are intended to explain how copyright relates to publication agreements for research articles, and how authors can increase the impact of their work by negotiating to retain rights to post their articles on the web or reuse them in other ways.

This 3-part tutorial is also linked from MIT Libraries’ the scholarly publishing website, where these themes are developed in more depth.

MIT Library News, October 12th, 2007 by Ellen Duranceau

Georgia Harper has recently revised her web site Copyright Crash Course. Learn about copyright’s role in the flow of research and teaching, how to manage your own copyright (see Transitions entry about the CIC Author’s Addendum), your rights as a copyright holder, fair use and more….

Washington University has revised its author addendum. From the announcement on the WU scholarly communications blog:

What is the WU Amendment to Publication Agreement? The WU Amendment is a tool to allow authors to retain some rights to their work and is used as an addendum to a publisher’s copyright agreement. The WU Amendment enables authors to reuse their work (the final published version) for research and teaching efforts, allows for deposit in Becker Library’s DSpace digital repository and helps authors comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

The WU Amendment to Publication Agreement now includes a clause that addresses the issue of what authors should do if a publisher does not return a signed copy of the agreement. With the revised WU Amendment, publication of the article by the publisher will be deemed as acceptance of the terms of the WU Amendment by the publisher. The new clause reads in Paragraph 6 as follows:

“In the absence of Publisher’s signature on this Amendment, Publication of the Article by the Publisher will be deemed acceptance of the terms of this Amendment by the Publisher.”

This new clause eliminates the “limbo” period for authors who do not receive a signed copy from publishers but their article is published. Publication of the article will be construed as acceptance of the terms in the WU Amendment.

A coalition of scholarly publishing groups released a “position paper” on balancing author and publisher rights in scholarly journals. The paper Author and Publisher Rights for Academic Use: An Appropriate Balance, was assembled by the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM), along with the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing division (AAP PSP), and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP). The paper suggests that the needs of scholarly authors and the need for publishers to obtain copyright transfers or exclusive licenses can be balanced, and need not conflict.

“Academic research authors and their institutions should be able to use and post the content that such authors and institutions themselves provide for internal institutional non-commercial research and education purposes”—something most publishers allow—the paper states. Publishers, meanwhile, “should be able to determine when and how the official publication record occurs, and to derive the revenue benefit from the publication and open posting of the official record (the final published article), and its further distribution and access in recognition of the value of the services they provide.”

Despite what STM called “overheated” discussions of new models and practices, the scientific record is best-served, the paper emphasizes, by a professional publishing model. In that model, exclusive rights preserve the scientific record and ensure that journals are viable, thus supporting editing, peer review, and “electronic delivery and investments in such systems,” as well as supporting the administration of a copyright regime.

In a recent editorial in Scientific American however, researcher and consultant Alma Swan questions some of the core positions put forth by publishers and suggests individual authors, through self-archiving and rapid dissemination on the web, can take matters into their own hands. “Research is expensive enough that the world can scarcely afford an antiquated, inefficient, and high-cost system of information dissemination,” Swan writes. “The bickering over varied business models, and the side arguments over public access to publicly funded results, obscure a larger, more important question: Can open access—the fundamental change to a system where scientists no longer face barriers to accessing others’ work (or their own)—advance science?”

Swan argues yes. “While commercial publishers, scientific societies, and librarians struggle over business models and tough longer-term issues such as who will maintain the record of science in a digital age,” she writes, “it remains the individual investigator who has the tools at hand to speed science along.”

Library Journal Academic Newswire, May 10, 2007