Underlying the process of publishing a journal article is a publishing agreement. A publishing agreement is an important step in achieving a balance of rights in the process of scholarly communication. It determines the rights which are important to the stakeholders involved in this process.
It is in the interest of the author to understand the implications of the agreement, and this toolbox has been compiled to enable the author and the publisher to provide a publishing agreement and to identify the issues that should be considered when a scholarly work is submitted to a journal.
The toolbox has three entries. The first one is a licence to publish enabling the author to retain copyright but giving the publisher the rights to publish his/her work. The second one gives sample wording for various options in case an author or a publisher would like to amend a publishing agreement in certain circumstances.
The last entry refers to initiatives from other organisations or academic institutes have undertaken to maximise access to scholarly publications.
Both licence and sample wording are based on The set of key needs for authors and publishers when publishing a journal article.
The licence and the sample wording are offered in the spirit of the Zwolle Principles as achieving a reasonable balance of rights between author and publisher.