Resources for Authors

Copyright, Fair Use, and Permissions

Have questions about copyright of your publications, or whether you need to seek permission for using the copyrighted work of others in your publications? Our guide to Copyright and Fair Use provides answers to many common questions.

Funder Requirements

Many government agencies and private foundations now require public availability of research output as a condition of funding. The MIT Libraries have created an excellent Research Funder Requirements guide that outlines the important details of major funders’ policies. If your funder requires you to submit a data management plan as part of your application, visit our Data Management Support page.

Choosing a Publication Venue

Are you just getting started in scholarly publishing? Or have you received a solicitation from a publisher you’ve never heard of? Our guide to choosing a publication venue and assessing publisher quality provides many resources to help you publish in the right places.

Managing and Negotiating Author Agreements

As the author or creator of an original work, you automatically have copyright for it, which gives exclusive control of how the work is reproduced, distributed or performed. If you transfer copyright, you no longer have control of how your work is distributed or used.

Scholars who sign away all rights can find themselves requesting permission from publishers to place their own articles on a personal website, in a course pack or an institutional repository, or to distribute copies to colleagues. Managing your copyrights can help serve your interests and those of the scholarly community.

• SPARC’s Resources for Authors page introduces the SPARC Author Addendum, a legal form that enables authors of journal articles to modify publishers’ copyright transfer agreements and keep key rights to their own articles.
• The Authors Alliance provides many free resources to help authors understand legal issues that affect them such as transfer, retention, and reversion of rights.