2/29/2008
Traditional academic publishers are on the move regarding their policies on copyright and allowing the deposit of articles in a publicly accessible repository and thus becoming freely available. This is the result of an inquiry among a group of 47 traditional (non Open Access) publishers by SURFfoundation. The study asked publishers if they support the Principles formulated by SURFfoundation and JISC, regarding publishing an article in a traditional journal. The conclusion is that more and more traditional publishers support some or all of these Principles or are looking into changes in their current policies in line with these Principles.
The Principles are an attempt to clarify and balance the relationship between the rights of authors and publishers, ensuring wider access to scholarly literature and bringing journals into compliance with a growing number of funder requirements. The main characteristics of the Principles are:
• The author retains copyright of his/her work, while granting the publisher the rights needed to publish the work
• The author may freely deposit the article in a research repository, with an embargo before public release of maximum six months.
One third of the publishers in the study already have a repository policy which is compatible with these Principles and the same amount of publishers use a licence to publish instead of copyright transfer.
More and more organisations, like the Wellcome Trust and the European Research Council, require that peer-reviewed publications are being deposited in appropriate research repositories and made Open Access as soon as possible, at least within 6 months of publication. In December 2007, the ERC Scientific Council issued Guidelines for Open Access . With these guidelines they state that the free and efficient access to the vast and increasing quantities of information that result from scientific research (both publications and the primary data they are based upon), is the key for sustained progress.
Publishers have to deal with these requirements and do so, more and more. SURFfoundation and JISC have not only drafted the Principles, but also a model Licence to Publish in order to help the traditional publishers of journals and authors to move in the direction of open access.
Of course the SURF-JISC Licence to Publish is not the only model meeting the Principles. It is only meant to serve as an example for traditional publishers who do not yet provide open access. In addition, it is a tool for authors who want to retain their copyright but do not know how to formulate it or do not want too much trouble having to research the possible alternatives.
Wim Liebrand, director of SURFfoundation states: “This is a promising development. With the balanced approach JISC and SURF started, we attempted to bridge the gap between the traditional publishers and the Open Access movement. We hope many publishers will follow. We invite them to support the Licence to Publish and its Principles.”