Faculty Publishing

When many authors sign traditional publication agreements they sign over all their rights - including copyright - to the publisher or journal.

University of Minnesota Libraries maintains a site explaining the copyright basics surrounding ownership of scholarly works, dissertations, and student work.

Find out more about copyright in this guide.

An author addendum is a standardized form contract that authors can use to respond to a standardized form contract from a publisher. The addendum, which is written to amend the publishers' contracts, can be a useful tool for opening a discussion about rights in a work, even if a publisher does not immediately accept it.

The University of Minnesota Senate reviewed and endorsed the Author's Addendum developed by the CIC (Big Ten) in 2007. The BTAA is the successor organization to the CIC, and the BTAA's Author's Addendum contains nearly identical provisions as that endorsed in 2007. By signing the addendum and submitting it with the publisher's standard agreement, U of MN authors can retain their rights:

• to use their own articles in their teaching and other professional activities
   
• to post their articles on their web sites or on those maintained by the U of MN / scholarly societies / funding agencies (6 months after the date of publication)
   
• to grant the U of MN the right to distribute their articles for teaching and research purposes

Another Authors Addendum option is the version developed by SPARC, an advocacy group for open research and education. Their addendum is available on their site, along with instructions for implementation, at https://sparcopen.org/our-work/author-rights/#addendum

To use an addendum:

• Don't click "I agree" or otherwise click on anything related to any online versions of a publisher's author agreement! An author's addendum goes -with- your publication agreement, but if you agree to an online agreement, you may be unable to invoke the addendum. (For questions about how to handle click-through agreements and addenda, contact copyinfo@umn.edu).
• Sign your PDF or paper publisher’s copyright transfer or publication agreement with the following statement written above your signature: "subject to attached amendment"
• Fill out the addendum of your choice, sign it, and submit both to your publisher.

A quick summary of many publishers' policies on posting (or "archiving") articles is available at the SHERPA site at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php. Search on the publisher's name or the journal title to see information on the publisher's policies.  Here is a brief key to their classification of publisher policies:
 

If your publisher is not in the SHERPA database, check the publisher's web site or the web site for the journal (look for the Author's information section).