Open Access

The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that you can use to modify your copyright transfer agreements with non-open access journal publishers. It allows you to select which individual rights out of the bundle of copyrights you want to keep, such as:

• Distributing copies in the course of teaching and research,
• Posting the article on a personal or institutional Web site, or
• Creating derivative works.

SHERPA/RoMEO is an online resource that aggregates and analyzes publisher open access policies and provides summaries of self-archiving permissions and conditions of rights given to authors.  Use the SHERPA/RoMEO publisher copyright policies & self-archiving search tool to determine whether the journal in which you are considering publishing will allow you to keep your rights.

Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work-on conditions of your choice.  

The licenses include options for creators to retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work-at least non-commercially.  The licenses also ensures that licensors get the credit for their work they deserve.