Copyright

Journal papers

The majority of publishers support the right of authors to make their own work available online.

To check whether it will be possible to add your journal paper to the repository:

• It may be helpful to read the copyright agreement you signed when you published your paper.
• If you do not have a copy of the agreement or if the agreement does not address the question of self-archiving, you may find it helpful to check the RoMEO database. RoMEO summarises the permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement. RoMEO does not have information on all journal publishers but it is a good place to start
• The publisher's own web site may give information on self-archiving permissions for authors.
• If you are unsure of the copyright position, contact PlyMSEA staff for assistance. In some cases it will be necessary to seek archiving permission directly from the publisher concerned. If you need to, seek permission from your publisher. The repository team can provide further advice and limited assistance. We are a small team and cannot undertake widespread copyright checking but will help where we can.
• We may have to embargo some work to fulfil publisher policies but deposit the work in any case - we will make it live as soon as the embargo expires and it will be good publicity for the work in the meantime.

Conference papers

These can often be deposited. If copyright has not been assigned elsewhere, you can deposit your own copy of the work. Otherwise, it may be necessary to contact the publisher of the proceedings.

Book chapters

If you have retained copyright, you should be able to deposit your own version of the work - though it is worth checking the terms and conditions of your publishing agreement. There is no equivalent to the RoMEO database for book publishers so it is difficult to generalise about book chapter archiving. The simplest approach is to send an email to your book publisher.