Author rights agreements are quite complex and vary tremendously from publisher to publisher. Some publishers ask authors to grant only very limited rights to their works, others ask for all rights for all time, and others fall somewhere between these extremes.
We encourage authors to discuss their rights with publishers and to read any rights-transfer agreement carefully. Many publishers' standard agreements allow deposit in institutional repositories or other open archives. If the standard agreement appears to preclude such sharing, consider asking! Publishers are often willing to modify a standard agreement at an author's request.
- If your work has already been published:
Work through the following steps until you've determined your rights:
- Read the agreement you originally signed with your publisher.
- Use the Sherpa-Romeo database to find journal and publisher self-archiving policies which indicate whether they allow an item to be submitted into a repository.
- Look for information on the publisher’s website, usually in the 'information for authors' section.
- Request a copy of your agreement from the publisher. Contact information is usually found on the journal's website.
- If all else fails, you can request a copy of your agreement from the publisher. Information on contacting a journal publisher is usually easily located by checking the journal's Web site.
If you signed an agreement giving all rights to the work to the publisher (retaining none for yourself), you can contact the publisher and request permission to deposit the work into ScholarWorks@UMBC. A sample letter requesting deposit rights is available. Many publishers are inclined to maintain goodwill in their relationships with authors and readily grant such rights.
- If you want to publish a work that has already been added to ScholarWorks@UMBC
Including work in ScholarWorks@UMBC should not preclude future publication.
As an author, you may also decide to deposit a manuscript for an article or other work and then subsequently have an opportunity to publish the same work in a different venue. Authors should note that an issue exists only if it is the same work being published, i.e., the same manuscript. From a copyright standpoint, an article manuscript is a different work from the deposited conference paper from which it has been developed and reworked, even though many of the ideas discussed are the same. The ideas are not copyrighted, the form of their expression is. Just as making the conference presentation does not preclude later publication, depositing the text or slides of the conference paper does not preclude later publication unless the text presented as a new publication is identical to the earlier work.
Even if an author would like to submit a repository-deposited item for publication in a journal or elsewhere, it is quite possible that deposit in your university’s repository will not be a concern but this may depend on what type of license you’ve choose and if on a Creative Commons license, how often the item has been reproduced. Again, authors can discuss this issue with the particular publisher and should read any rights-transfer agreement carefully. Authors may not be aware that publishers often modify a standard agreement at an author's request. Many publishers' standard agreements allow deposit in institutional repositories or other open archives. If a publisher's standard agreement seems to preclude either prior or later deposit into a repository, an author may be able to add wording to the agreement recognizing the existing deposit or allowing a future deposit.
