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Research Guides

Open Access, Scholarly Communication, and Copyright: Home

What is Scholarly Communication?

Scholarly communication is the process of academics, scholars and researchers sharing and publishing their research findings so that they are available to the wider academic community and beyond.

Open access, author's rights, institutional repositories, and copyright are some of the many issues related to scholarly communication.

Key Terms

This guide was created to assist students, faculty, and staff with questions on topics related to scholarly communication, open access, and copyright.

Check out some of the key terms below:

Author Rights - The rights an author may choose to retain or give to publishers when signing a publisher agreement. 

Author Rights Addendum (a SPARC document) - A document that can be supplemented with a publisher agreement in order to negotiate retention of specific author rights. Download the document and learn more here.

Creative Commons - An organization that gives information and tools for modifying copyright agreements for those creating materials. http://creativecommons.org/

Directory of Open Access Journals - An organization that provides access to freely accessible scholarly publications. http://www.doaj.org/.

Fair use - An aspect of copyright law that gives permission for a copyrighted work to be used or reproduced without consent of the author (subject to specific provisions).

Institutional repository - A digital collection and preservation storage system used by a specific group, often being an educational institution.

License - A legal document between the author and publisher of the work or a subscriber and publisher.

Open Access - Information that is freely accessible, open to all, and free of restrictions.

OAI (Open Access Initiative) - Movement designed to improve the understanding and dissemination of open access materials and open access issues. 

Public Domain - Works in the public domain may be freely used without any copyright issues. This includes work with expired or lost copyright, works not copyrightable by nature, works produced by a federal government employ in the course of their job, works clearly donated to the public, and works published in the United States prior to 1923.

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Jylisa Kenyon
Social Sciences Librarian

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