Materials from Authors’ Rights Event

Weren’t able to attend last Friday’s workshop “You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights? Understanding and Protecting Your Rights As an Author”?  Attended but want to review the materials again, at your own pace? Here are all the materials shown and discussed at the event — and a few extras, to boot!

You might notice that “moral rights” are mentioned in the Journal of Library Innovation agreement. Moral rights have to do with the right to be attributed and the right to control the fate/integrity of a work.  The Journal of Library Innovation doesn’t touch moral rights, but it was just reported with horror that the Nature Publishing Group asks authors to waive moral rights to articles published in their journals!  Here are two articles on that topic: Nature Publishing Group Requires Faculty Authors to Waive ‘Moral Rights’ (from the Chronicle of Higher Education) and Attacking Academic Values (from the Scholarly Communications @ Duke blog).

More about licenses:

And bit about open access repositories (the best places to self-archive):

Listen to Joe Strummer: Know your rights (about what you write)!
Photo is © edenpictures, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights?

You are invited to an event in the Information Interventions @ CUNY series:

You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights?
Understanding and Protecting Your Rights As an Author

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Click to embiggen.

When you publish a journal article, you sign a copyright agreement. Do you know what you’re agreeing to when you sign it? Different journals have different policies:

  • Some journals require you to relinquish your copyright. (You then have to ask permission or even pay to share your article with students and colleagues!)
  • Some journals allow you to retain some rights (e.g., the right to post online).
  • Some journals leave copyright in your hands. (You simply give the journal a non-exclusive license to publish the article.)

How can you find out a journal’s policy? How can you negotiate your contract to make the most of your rights as a scholar, researcher, and author? Come learn how to preserve your rights to reproduce, distribute, and display the work you create.

And what about articles you’ve already published? What did you sign when you were publishing them? Bring agreements you signed in the past, and we’ll examine what you agreed to, as well as what options you have now for altering the terms.

Friday, March 28, 2014
2pm – 4pm
Graduate Center, Room C197 (Concourse Level)
Space is limited! Please RSVP at http://tinyurl.com/cunyrights

There is one more Information Interventions @ CUNY coming up this year: Stay tuned for a panel about the controversy surrounding dissertations and open access!

Sponsored by the OpenCUNY, LACUNY Junior Faculty Research Roundtable, LACUNY Scholarly Communications Roundtable, and Just Publics @ 365.

OA Week Wrap Up: Double Feature @ the Grad Center

To finish off Open Access Week @ CUNY we had a fantastic, well-attended day of presentation and conversation at the Graduate Center on October 26th. If you couldn’t make it, please feel free to browse through the presentations and handouts below!

We started off the morning with an Authors’ Rights Workshop (and great discussion!) led by Stephen Francoeur (Library, Baruch), Ann Matsuuchi (Library, LaGuardia), and Maura Smale (Library, City Tech). Here’s the presentation and handout from that session.

Our second morning session was a terrific panel on Progress Toward a CUNY Institutional Repository, with Jill Cirasella (Library, Brooklyn), Stephen Klein (Library, Grad Center), and Polly Thistlethwaite (Library, Grad Center). Here’s the presentation from that panel.

After breaking for lunch, we returned to hear two afternoon sessions on open educational materials. First we learned about Temple University Library’s Ditch That Textbook Project from Kristina Baumli (English, Temple University). Then we pivoted to hear about open access textbooks and educational materials from four CUNY faculty:

Susan Amper (English, Bronx)
James DiGiovanna (Philosophy, John Jay)
Philip Pecorino (Philosophy, Queensborough and SPS)
Michael Waldman (Library, Baruch)

Many thanks to those who presented and attended!