When considering the wider array of publication options available today, authors of scholarly materials must consider their own future needs to use the material and content of their writing before entering into a publication agreement. Some of these needs might be to:

• Use the work in the classroom
• Distribute the work to colleagues or students
• Create derivative works
• Authorize non-commercial use (licensing)
• Deposit in an institutional or national repository

An author wishing to take advantage of the benefits associated with open access but publishing with a traditional print-based journal must make a special effort to retain certain rights to their work. To deposit an article into a repository and make it open access, the author's rights to distribution and reproduction must be kept, at least those for non-commercial use. Upon submission, the depositor of an item must grant a non-exclusive distribution license to the repository and this can not be granted if the author has ceded all distribution to another party. It is important for authors to scrutinize publication agreements to ensure that it will not prevent them from using the material as needed in the future.

Existing Publishers' Policies

Some publishers are aware of the author's interests in making their work open access, and have developed standard policies to allow them to deposit published articles into an open access repository. The SHERPA/RoMEO project has developed a list of these standard policies. You can search according to a publisher or specific journal to find their policy regarding authors self-archiving in repositories. The site uses a color coding scheme as follows:

• Green Publishers allow the archiving and open access of both pre-prints (the pre-refereed article as initially submitted) or post-prints (the final article as published).
  
• Blue Publishers allow authors to make post-prints available through a repository, but not pre-prints.
  
• Yellow Publishers allow authors to make pre-prints available through a repository, but not post-prints.
• White Publishers do not allow authors to archive their articles in an open access repository as a standard policy. These publishers may work with authors through negotiations, however.

Many of these publishers will have specific conditions, such as a period of exclusivity of six months to a year. These conditions are typically acceptable.

Negotiating with Publishers

If your intended publication is labeled as a "white publication" or does not appear in the list, you can open negotiations with the journal to retain the rights to distribution and reproduction that you need to utilize the repository.

One very useful tool is the Author Addendum which was developed by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and Science Commons. The addendum is a legal instrument that modifies the publication agreement to allow the author to retain the necessary rights to deposit the work in a repository. To generate an addendum for an article that you are submitting, fill out the form at the Science Commons Author Addendum Generator.

Remember, you own all rights to your work until you sign them away. Working to keep them is well worth the effort.