It's important to select an open access publication that is the right fit for you both academically and financially. We recommend the use of these tools to locate an open access publisher for your works.
This tool matches a draft abstract with the best-matching open access journals. Find somewhere to submit your work by pasting your abstract into the search box.
The DOAJ indexes open access scientific and scholarly journals that adhere to quality control systems such as peer-review and editorial review.
OASPA provides list of OA publishers that adhere to a code of conduct. This tool helps you determine if publisher you're considering is reputable.
This online tool compares open access author fees with article influence score (Eigenfactor). Authors can search open access journals in 35 subject fields.
Sherpa Romeo is an online resource that aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis.
The author is the copyright holder.
As the author of a work, you are the copyright holder unless and until you transfer the copyright to someone else in a signed agreement.
Assigning your rights matters.
Normally, the copyright holder possesses the exclusive rights of reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, and modification of the original work. An author who has transferred copyright without retaining these rights must ask permission unless the use is one of the statutory exemptions in copyright law.
The copyright holder controls the work.
Decisions concerning use of the work, such as distribution, access, pricing, updates, and any use restrictions belong to the copyright holder. Authors who have transferred their copyright without retaining any rights may not be able to place the work on course Web sites, copy it for students or colleagues, deposit the work in a public online archive, or reuse portions in a subsequent work. That’s why it is important to retain the rights you need.
Transferring copyright doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
The law allows you to transfer copyright while holding back rights for yourself and others.
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC) offers excellent information on securing the rights for works that your have authored.
Today many authors are signing amended publisher agreements that permit them to retain certain rights, such as the SPARC Author Addendum. Also, these same authors can selectively pre-grant permission for others to use or distribute their works according to pre-set conditions through such means as a Creative Commons license. This idea of selectively retaining rights has become a central point in reshaping the concept of Scholarly Communication.
MIT Libraries offers some information on common misconceptions concerning the author's rights, such as misconceptions about sharing your work on your web page or using your work in classroom settings. It is becoming increasingly important that authors are aware of their rights, especially when they have signed a contract with a publisher.
Thanks to libguides.calstatela.edu for the use of this information.