Across the next seven days, the Research and Scholarly Communications Team in the University Library Services will share with you some initiatives that aim to transform scholarly publishing and move away from the for-profit publishing that has largely dominated academic publishing.
Theme 2: Rights Retention Policy
As the movement towards Open Access (OA) gathered momentum, it became clear that one of the issues locking scholarly publications behind paywalls was the direct transfer of copyright from authors to publishers as soon as the publication was accepted. This meant that authors could not share their work as they wished. This created issues for the green route to Open Access. The green route to Open Access, also called self-archiving route, is when an author places their Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in an institutional repository.
Currently, there is no consistency in the policies of publishers on whether authors can upload their AMMs, and whether or not they can do so without an embargo period. An embargo period locks the AMM in the repository for a certain period of time (generally 12 to 24 months depending on the discipline) making it inaccessible.
Of course, this is in direct conflict with the new Open Access requirements of UKRI for journal articles. It is also in opposition with the principles outlined by PlanS that demand immediate OA.
A strategy being developed by a number of institutions is to put in place Institutional Rights Retention Policies. These initiatives are supported by Plan S and JISC who will act as an advisory body to institutions who want to implement these policies. Many funders, including UKRI (April 2022), the Wellcome Trust (January 2021), the NIHR (June 2022), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (January 2021) have Plan S aligned policies, which include a rights retention requirement.
The principle is that authors retain the rights to their AMMs. Currently, 30 UK universities have put in place Institutional Rights Retention Policies. The University of Sunderland also has a Rights Retention Policy which currently supports researchers in receipt of funding from UKRI and other funding bodies requiring immediate OA.
Live map available here. Map https://sje30.github.io/rrs/rrs.html
As an Open Access initiative, Rights Retention policies have become a way to ensure authors would retain their copyright. Issues of copyright are integral to Open Access which advocates for creative commons licences to allow sharing and reusing research published as long as it is attributed fairly.
One publisher has already pushed back against these efforts to introduce Rights Retention polices. Indeed, ACS recently announced a new type of charge for AMMs that are submitted with Rights Retention . A response from Coalition S is already available.
It is important to think about whether the traditional model of giving over your copyright to the publisher serves you, the rest of the research community or the communities you are trying to help through your research. While using Rights Retention statements on your submissions might feel like a risk, it is about taking a stance about the value and importance of Open Research.