As awareness of open access and its benefits grows (not to mention the open access mandates of research funders and universities, both existing and in development), authors will increasingly be looking for publishing venues that make it possible for them to enjoy the benefits of both traditional peer review and open access.
Is your journal authors' rights friendly? Perhaps you are fine with self-archiving preprints and/or postprints in institutional and disciplinary open accessrepositories, or willing to accept an Author's Addendum? If so, let authors know! This is especially important if your traditional author's agreement is in a period of review, and you routinely grant permission for authors to self-archive, while your copyright transfer agreement paradoxically still calls for complete and total transfer of copyright.
Why not post a note about your author's rights policy to your journal's website? This is a good way to make sure the best authors continue to seek your services during the time of Transitioning to Open Access
Some sample language: please note - the following is available for reuse and modification by anyone for any purposes, including commercial use:
Full Author's Rights
Author's Rights are Respected Here! [Name of journal] requests from Authors right of first publication; otherwise, the copyright is yours! Authors can feel free to post [preprints] [author's own post-peer review copy] to the open access repository of their choice.
Copyright Transfer Agreement Under Review
Authors, please note that our Copyright Transfer Agreement is currently Under Review! While the form we have been using for many years requests full transfer of copyright, as a matter of routine, we approve posting of preprints and postprints for open access in the open access repository of the author's choice.
Authors' Addendum Accepted Here
Authors who need to retain some rights to share their work please note that Authors' Addenda [SPARC, Science Commons, CARL] are welcome here!
