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Open Access & OARS: Rights Retention

What is Rights Retention?

Rights Retention (RR) is a mechanism that enables authors to maintain ownership and dissemination rights over works they have created.  This is achieved at no cost to the authors and without access restrictions such as embargoes.

Initially Rights Retention Strategies were born from funder open access requirements, with cOAlition S developing their own, and many individual publishers soon following.  Later, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) also realised the benefits and authored their own institutional strategies and policies.

Rights Retention at the University of Suffolk

In order to aid our publishing researchers, we have authored an Institutional Rights Retention Policy (IRRP).  In addition to the compliance benefits of RR as mentioned above we are conscious that this is a valuable mechanism for empowering researchers in maintaining ownership of their own work, and with many other HEIs implementing such policies we have chosen to pilot our own policy this coming academic year.  This is an opt-in pilot with no mandatory requirement for authors to opt-in should they prefer not to.

While many of our institutional authors have secured bids for research funding many will not have funding for dissemination (publication).  We also have a significant number of researchers who do not require funding for their project, but would still like to openly publish their output.  For these authors we are sometimes able to aid them in sourcing publication funding via agreements we have with a number of publishers, these are called Transformative Agreements (TAs).  Please check our guidance pages here for further information, or contact David Upson-dale (Research Repository & Open Access Compliance Manager) for guidance.

Aside from our TAs, there is no dedicated institutional funding for OA publication, so the only option is often for researchers to publish in journals which offer subscription access.  This is a free publication route but it generally only permits authors to share the AAM in an institutional repository after an embargo period specified by the publisher.  The RRP provides a mechanism for overcoming this obstacle.

How it Works

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  • Author’s retain ownership of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version of their research articles 
  • Authors can freely share the AAM OA under the terms of a Creative Commons (CC) licence (most commonly CC BY)
  • Authors can share the AAM immediately on acceptance for publication, with no embargoes, or timed access restrictions
  • The research output will meet funder OA mandates (where applicable) and will ensure REF compliance*
  • The author will benefit from the many advantages of OA publication such as greater discoverability, increased citations, equity of access, etc.
  • Aligns with the Open Research (OR) culture

*Based on the likelihood that future REF exercises will require outputs to be OA without embargo

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Applies to:

  • Outputs where no funding for dissemination is available (via grants, institutional funds or publishing agreements).
  • Outputs submitted to non-OA or Hybrid OA publications (subscription titles with restricted access)
  • The Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) of an authored work (this is usually the final version following peer review but without any publisher formatting).
  • Journal articles/papers only, specifically those for submission to journals which include an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN).
  • Authors affiliated with the University of Suffolk who have opted-in to the terms of the policy, and are identified as the ‘corresponding’ author of an eligible work being submitted for publication.

Please view the policy here for full details

Please read the full policy here, and if you would like to opt-in to the pilot please complete the form here

Full details can be found in the policy, but ultimately retaining rights is actioned via these 2 simple steps:

       1.  Apply the following Rights Retention Statement (RRS), to the acknowledgements section of the manuscript as well as the publisher cover letter or note when submitting eligible works for publication:

‘For the purposes of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.’

       2.  Upon acceptance for publication add a copy of the AAM to OARS (Guidance is available here)

Your work is now fully OA and copyright over the AAM resides with the author.

After applying the CC BY licence and depositing the AAM into OARS you have effectively granted UoS a licence to openly share the work via OARS.  OARS is therefore the initial publication platform, and this action means a ‘prior licence’ has at that point been applied to the work.  Any later claims of ownership from the publisher will therefore not apply.  Please note that while you have granted UoS a licence to publish via OARS this is a non-exclusive licence and overall ownership resides with the original author.  

Edited version of a document created by the Office of Scholarly Communication, Cambridge University Libraries, available under a CC BY licence 
 

FAQs

The policy is available here.
Most publishers accept that RR is a necessary part of the OA publishing landscape so will often accept submissions with RR language applied, and many are now including information about their stance on RR into their own policies and submission guideline. While a concern for some authors the evidence makes clear that very few submissions have been rejected purely due to an author retaining rights over their work.
Please complete the form here..
Unfortunately not, it would only apply to submissions made since opting-in and adding the RRS.
No. While RR makes it easier for outputs to meet (expected) future REF criteria, RR provides authors with a mechanism for maintaining ownership over their own work and not signing it over to publishers.
While we hope to include other output types in the future, the policy only currently applies to journal articles.
You should still sign the CTA (in order for publication to proceed), but rest assured that any language suggesting that the publisher will gain ownership of the AAM can be ignored. Due to the RRS/OARS deposit the work will already be granted with a ‘prior licence’ and this will supersede anything that comes later.
While the green route is often effective it generally depends on an embargo being applied to a work (usually 12-24 months). This restriction limits the author’s ability to freely share their work at the point of acceptance.
Where an individual of the institution is the corresponding author, has opted-in to the RRP, and intends to apply an RRS upon submission, it would be their responsibility to communicate this intention to all co-authors before proceeding.
If you are fortunate enough to have funding for dissemination/publication then the terms of the policy would not apply and you can proceed to publish via the gold route.
No, opting-in authors only need to apply the statements to outputs when they are certain that they have no dissemination funding. While ownership of the AAM and early sharing is always desirable the terms of the policy and pilot only currently apply to unfunded outputs.
Potentially. Many are publishing their views on RR via their official platforms so this should be clear to authors on submission. If the published information is at odds with our institutional approach please contact David Upson-dale (Research Repository & Open Access Compliance Manager) for guidance.

 

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Please see the infographic in the section above.
Yes of course. We provide full support at every step for authors wishing to opt-in and retain rights over their work. Please contact David Upson-dale (Research Repository & Open Access Compliance Manager) for guidance.

 

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For one year; from Aug 1 2024-July 31 2025. With aims to extend beyond this period

Key documents & links

The University of Suffolk Rights Retention Policy is available here 

The policy opt-in form is available here

Access OARS here

Rights Retention workshops will be added here soon