Copyright for Faculty Authors

Publishers' copyright agreements with faculty authors vary as to what rights the authors retain for future use of their work in teaching or scholarship.

Many publisher copyright agreements have the effect of eliminating or restricting an author's rights to make future use of his or her own work. This can limit the author's ability to adapt or republish the work, use in connection with professional activities (e.g., teaching, conferences), and archive publicly on the Internet.

Negotiating Your Rights as Author

To maximize the impact of your work:

For previously published articles

• Check the archiving policies of your publisher.
• When permitted, place your articles on your personal or departmental Web page or in an institutional repository or digital archive.

For forthcoming articles

• Negotiate to retain some rights (e.g., posting on your Web page).
• State the rights you seek to retain general terms (e.g., "seek right to make any non-commercial use" instead of "seek right for make classroom use).
• Submit a substituted copyright agreement or modified publisher's agreement.

Model addenda are available:

• SPARC Model Author's Addendum (http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.html )
• Indiana University Copyright Management Center (http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/nego_doc.htm#addb )

Managing Copyright for NIH Public Access

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) released a preprint article by the Duke University Scholarly Communications Officer Kevin L. Smith that outlines strategies for authors and institutions to use to manage authors' copyrights to fulfill requirements of the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy. See the ARL Web site for the preprint article, Kevin L. Smith, "Managing Copyright for NIH Public Access: Strategies to Ensure Compliance," ARL: A Bimonthly Report, no. 258 (June 2008), http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br258.shtml .

Additional Background Material

Recent research indicates that articles freely available on the Web have greater research impact as measured by the degree to which they are cited [Antelman, K. (2004). Do open-access articles have greater research impact? College and Research Libraries, 65, 372-382. Available at http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00002309/01/do_open_access_CRL.pdf ]

In October 2004, University Libraries hosted a workshop in collaboration with the Association of Research Libraries. The presenter was Michael W. Carroll, Associate Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law.

The workshop was taped and is available as streaming video at:

Part 1 (39 min.): http://wmserver.kent.edu:8800/lms/copyright/tape1.wmv

Part 2 (46 min.): http://wmserver.kent.edu:8800/lms/copyright/tape2.wmv