Digital Commons: Open Access and author rights

Keep your rights by...

• using a contract addendum
• publishing in an open access journal
• depositing a version of the article in Digital Commons

Keeping the copyright to your work lets you

• Use your work in a course pack
• Place copies on print or electronic reserves
• Upload a copy to your web site
• Distribute a copy to colleagues

With scholarly, peer-reviewed articles, the version of the article you can place in the repository is determined by the journal.  Most journals do not allow you to deposit the final version of the article (i.e. Publisher's PDF), but many may allow other verions listed below:

Pre-print: the version of the article before it has been submitted for peer-review

Post-print: the version of the article as it was submitted for printing (after peer-review changes have been made)

Publisher's PDF: the version of the article as it appeared in the published journal

To determine what the policy is:

• Search SHERPA/RoMEO by journal title to find out which version your publisher allows to be deposited in Digital Commons.

• If the UW Tacoma Library already created a record for your publication in Digital Commons, you can still upload a copy of the file. The Version field identifies which version you can deposit.

Other kinds of materials, such as book chapters, conference procedeeings, presentation slides, data, etc. may be deposited if you have retrained the rights to do so.  If you have questions about which version may be deposited, you may email taclibdc@uw.edu.