AOASG Member Institutions• Australian National University• Charles Sturt University • Curtin University • Griffith University • Macquarie University • University of Newcastle • Queensland University of Technology • University of Western Australia • Victoria University

The Patron of the AOASG is Emeritus Professor Tom Cochrane, Faculty of Law at QUT.aoasg.org.au

Publisher agreements

Presented by Martin BorchertAssociate Director, Library Services

(Information Resources and Research Support)Wednesday 22 October 2014

With thanks to Paula Callan, Scholarly Communications Librarian, QUT Library and

Baden Appleyard, National Programme Director – AusGOAL for advice and contributions

Martin Borchert from QUT will explore the world of publisher agreements. He will cover what agreements usually ask for and permit. He will discuss what is required – a licence to publish. He will explore alternative copyright options including CC and copyright addenda. He will explain what Creative Commons and why you should consider it. Martin will discuss what authors can do about negotiating alternatives with publishers, and how successful this approach is, an also what services libraries can provide to support this. He will also discuss Crown Copyright – who is eligible and how it can assist Open Access. Could this be a model for Australian institutions to band together and fix open Access?

Preamble With this webinar I aim to provide supporting

information to authors and research support staff, including library staff, on the importance of understanding the issues around, and the negotiation of, publisher agreements, particularly as they pertain to retaining copying and provision of open access.

Agenda 1. The publication process 2. What are publisher

agreements?3. Why have publisher

agreements? 4. Institution – publisher

agreements 5. Predatory publishing practice6. Copyright 7. Creative Commons

8. Crown copyright 9. Open access 10. Green OA11. Gold OA12. Research funders13. Research data 14. Negotiating 15. Library support services

1. The publication process and services How to get published How to write Editorial policyEthics and responsibility Online manuscript submission

guidelines and upload Journal matching Open access options / limitations Manuscript deposit Peer review Feedback Proofs

DataPublishing licence agreement Many include check boxes to categorise

the arrangement (author, employer, society)

Indexing and abstracting Promotion – increasing citationsAuthor reprints FAQsRoyalties (books)Author discounts (books)Author rights

Examples Elsevier journal authorshttp://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/home Elsevier book authorshttp://www.elsevier.com/book-authors/home Nature author information http://www.nature.com/authors/index.htmlSage journal author gateway http://www.sagepub.com/journalgateway/authorGateway.htm Taylor and Francis author services http://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/

2. What are publisher agreements?• Legal contracts• Between the author(s) / copyright owner and the

publisher• As part of the publication process • Publisher level agreements • Journal level agreements • Monograph publishing imprint level agreements

Common aspects• Parties• Description of service• Right to publish• Copyright ownership • Exclusive or non-exclusive • Right to reproduce or not,

including open access

• Author warranties / declaration as to authorship

• Author warranties / declaration as to factual correctness

• Author rights including open access

• Cost

3. Why have publisher agreements• Like any contract• Agreement between parties • Mutual understanding• Warranties • Publishers building intellectual capital • Authors retaining rights

Examples of Author – Publisher Agreements

Elsevier journal publishing agreementhttp://cdn.elsevier.com/assets/pdf_file/0014/111380/journal-publishing-agreement_v17.pdf Elsevier copyright transfer agreementhttp://www.entcs.org/ctf2.pdf Elsevier open access agreementshttp://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/funding-body-agreements Nature licence to publish http://npg.nature.com/pdf/05_news.pdf Sage journal contributor’s publishing agreement http://www.sagepub.com/authors/journal/permissions.sp Taylor and Francishttp://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/

Examples CSIROhttp://www.publish.csiro.au/media/client/CopyrightAssign.pdf Emeraldhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/authors/writing/author_rights.htmWiley http://media.wiley.com/assets/1540/98/ctavchglobal.pdf

One of these is a licence to publish, one includes copyright transfer and the other has more restrictions. This illustrates the importance of reading the fine print.

Author – publisher agreementsMany publishers provide a form with tick box options for the author to declare the type of agreement i.e. Who owns the copyright.

Elsevier journal publishing agreementhttp://cdn.elsevier.com/assets/pdf_file/0014/111380/journal-publishing-agreement_v17.pdf

4. Institution – publisher agreements Some publishers are developing and promoting the execution of

publishing agreements with institutions and funding agencies, to provide a framework with respect to publisher position on open access.

e.g. Elsevier http://www.elsevier.com

/journal-authors/funding-body-agreements Australian universities and research funding agencies have not

signed these.

5. Predatory publishing practices• The internet has allowed many new start companies to offer

pseudo publishing services• Poor or deceptive practices, compromised peer review • Academic supervisors, assessment panels and libraries can advise

authors not to enter in to publisher agreements with suspect publishers

• Wasted research publication potential for authors • Scholarly open access – critical analysis of scholarly open access

publishing “Beall’s List” http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

Cont.Less than exemplar publishing practices can sometime look like:• The publisher spamming

authors, inviting publish and using OA repositories to do so•Minimal publishing history

• Often target early career authors

• Overnight acceptance of papers

• Minimal feedback indicating little or no peer review

• No evidence of an editorial committee

6. Copyright Who owns the copyright to begin with?• The author(s)• The employer (institution)• The society?Copyright is automaticEmployer intellectual property policyEmployer copyright policy (in most universities the author owns

copyright)Open access policy

Does publication change this?Not automaticallyMany publishers allow the

author or employer to retain copyright

Many publishers require a Copyright Transfer Agreement

Or it may be embedded in the publisher agreement

7. Creative Commons Creative Commons Australia http://creativecommons.org.au/

“Creative Commons is a world wide non-profit organisation that provides copyright owners with free licences allowing them to share, reuse and remix their material, legally.”

Six licences are available with standardised wording, combining:• Attribution (BY); NonCommercial (NC); No Derivatives (ND); Share Alike (SA)

Some commercial OA journals charge higher APCs for CC-BY than for CC-BY-NC

Examples of publishers using CC BioMed Central (BMC)http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license

Institute of Physics (IoP)http://www.plos.org/open-access/

Nature open access and hybrid journalshttp://www.nature.com/authors/policies/license.html

and NPG Scientific Reports http://www.nature.com/srep/index.html

Public Library of Science (PLOS)http://www.plos.org/open-access/

Springer Open http://www.springeropen.com/about/copyright

Wiley open accesshttp://www.wileyopenaccess.com/details/content/12f25db4c87/Copyright--License.html

8. Crown copyright • The Australian Federal Government holds Crown Copyright for 50 years of any work

first published by or under the direction of government – Part VII Copyright Act 1968. or http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/

• “Crown copyright may cover the works produced by statutory authorities or other government owned organisations. However, an examination of the Act establishing an authority or organisation will be necessary to confirm this. If you work for this type of organisation, you may wish to check its enabling legislation or obtain legal advice.”

• See AusGOAL 2014 http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/copyright

Application • Publishers generally consider that government has “command and

control” over employees.• Publishers do not try to execute transfer of copyright from government

operating under crown copyright. • Publications by government employees can be made available under

government open access policy, if there is one.• Universities do not generally operate the same level of “command and

control” as do governments. In fact there is a long history of academics operating with a high degree of independence.

• For most universities, the author owns the copyright.

9. Open Access• Benefits of open access are knownConsider:• Institutional open access policy – maximum supported embargo?• ARC open access policy and

NHMRC policy on the dissemination of research findings• Institutional copyright policy • Publisher open access policy Use:• Sherpa-Romeo publisher copyright policies and self archiving as a guiding

resource. Be aware of local applications such a funder mandates.

10. Green open access • Will publishers of traditional subscription wall

journals allow the author to deposit a version of the article into an institutional or subject repository?

• If yes – what version?• And is there an embargo?• If no – should the author select another outlet?

Examples IEEE Statement on open access and public accesshttp://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/pubnews/vol3issue3/1010ieee_draft_open_access.html

Author rights and responsibilities http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/authorrightsresponsibilities.html

11. Gold open access Many publishers offer gold open access journal publishing

optionsDoes you institution support hybrid options?Who pays for the Article Processing Charges (APCs)?Does the publisher ask for copyright transfer?Does the publisher ask for an exclusive licence?Can you deposit a copy into the institutional open access

repository?

12. Research funding agencies ARC open access policy and NHMRC policy on the dissemination of research findingsAny publication arising from ARC or NHMRC funding must

have fulltext deposit into an open access repository within 12 months of publication, or otherwise state reason the publisher does not allow in the final report. Publication may be via an open access journal.

13. Research dataSome publishers are accepting or requiring that research data be deposited to support a paperPublishers have generally not been working with data under a publisher agreement.

Nature NPG Linked Data Platform provides data hosting for authors publishing in Nature journals via its Data Hubhttp://datahub.io/group/npg http://www.nature.com/developers/documentation/linked-data-platform/

Dryad offers journal integration services to link journal article publication with data deposithttp://datadryad.org/ Dryad terms of service http://datadryad.org/pages/policies

Figshare provides data hosting for publishershttp://figshare.com/services/publishers Figshare terms http://figshare.com/terms

14. Negotiating• Publishing agreements are contracts and everything is negotiable.• Publishers may use haste, a low level of author awareness, and the

author’s desire to be published, to execute contracts in the publisher’s favour.

• For most authors, the negotiation is between the author and the publisher.

• Some institutions own the copyright and publisher agreements. The institution could assign the right to publish to the author.

• Authors should be aware that they have choices.

• Try using track changes to make changes and see how the publisher responds.

• Try to (insist on) retain copyright, and try to exert (insist on) your right to publish the best version of your paper possible into an open access repository within 6 months, or at worst 12 months after publication.

• If all else fails, consider publishing with another publisher with more acceptable terms of publication. Take your business elsewhere.

• The author’s dilemma is that they encouraged to retain rights, yet on the other hand they are encouraged to publish in the high status journals.

• Collective action will likely be required. Reference: Andrew Adams email to GOAL email list 29 September 2014.

15. Support services Institutions can provide:• A productive partnership between the researcher, the research office and the

library • Supporting web information • Workshops and seminars• Consultation services• Assistance with understanding agreements• Assistance with understanding copyright retention• Assistance with negotiations • Assistance with payment of APCs for gold OA journals (funder, faculty or library

payments)

Well that’s the end of my talk!I hope you found it useful.

Questions ? Comments?

and special thank you to the AOASG and to all webinar participants...