Questions about this Topic?
What are my Rights as an Author?
The importance of copyright is that it ensures that an author has control over how their work is distributed and used. No matter what you are creating - whether it is a research article to be published in a journal, an open access textbook that you are creating for your class and making available on the Web, or a piece of software you've designed - you should consider the following questions:
How will my chosen method of distribution affect my copyright?
Subscription Journals
Most standard journal publishing agreements require authors to sign their copyright over to the publisher - effectively removing all control about distribution and future use from the author. This also limits the author's ability to disseminate the work elsewhere, meaning that access to the work is only available to those with a subscription to the journal.
The Dartmouth Faculty Open Access Policy adopted in 2015 grants Dartmouth College a prior license to make faculty work available open access in our institutional repository. This means that even authors transfer copyright to the publisher, the College can place a pre-print version in the institutional repository. This ensures wider dissemination of the work.
Open Access Journals
Many open access journals allow authors to retain their copyright and thus their ability to disseminate the work through other channels. Check the author agreement to see if this is the case for the journal to which you are submitting.
If I'm planning to make my work available open access, should I copyright it?
Yes - it is still your work and you should get credit for it! This applies to open access articles, open educational resources, software, databases, online learning guides, etc. Anything you create and make freely available is still yours.
You should consider copyright under a Creative Commons license, which allows for open use of your work but under certain restrictions that you set. The basic CC license requires that anyone who uses your work attributes it to you, but you can also restrict use to noncommercial activity only or reuse but not modification.