Faculty Publishing Guide

Copyright & Faculty Work

Douglas College faculty members retain the copyright to works prepared or created as part of assigned duties, provided they have not been:

• specifically hired to create the work for the institution;
• given release time to create the work;
• paid extra money in addition to their normal salary to produce the work (FPSE Common Agreement & Collective Agreement Letter of Understanding #5).
   

So, barring the conditions noted above, you own the copyright to your research unless you sign some or all of your copyrights away in a publishing contract. 

• Many people don't realize that it may be possible to retain some or all of their copyrights - by choosing to publish in an Open Access journal, an Open Textbook platform, or by negotiation with the publisher.

Negotiating your rights

Your first step in the negotiation process should be to review your contract terms and conditions carefully.  You can also check for your publisher's Open Access policies on the following sites:

• SHERPA/RoMEO database
• Shareyourpaper.org

Some common rights that you may be able to retain include:

• the ability to reproduce your work for non-commercial purposes
   
• the ability to perform your work for non-commercial purposes
   
• the ability to adapt or modify your work for non-commercial purposes
   
• the ability to upload a version of your work, e.g., pre-print or post-print, to your institutional repository and/or other openly accessible scholarly repository
   
• the ability to opt-in or opt-out of data-sharing with AI Tools. 
   
  • To learn more about Author Rights and Generative AI tools see this post from the University of Saskatchewan: Author Rights in the Age of Generative AI
     
• the ability to upload your research data into an openly available data repository
  • Note, if this is a funding requirement it will be a crucial right to retain

Addendum Templates

An excellent option for authors is to make use of a contract addendum, which modifies and/or supplements the publisher-provided contract. 

Templates

Canadian Author Addendum to Publication Agreement

• CARL Guide to Using the Author Addendum
   

SPARC Author Addendum

Science Commons Copyright Addendum Engine