Tools for copyright management in Open Access repositories

Abstract

The objective of this work is to introduce, to describe and to assess the legal, normative and political instruments adopted by research and academic institutions, funding agencies, national states and regional government agencies in promoting institutional repositories and managing copyright in the Open Access environment. The features of the main Open Access statements and mandates are described, as well as authorizations for the deposit in repositories, addendas to copyright transfer agreements with publishers, other regulations tools and national legislations related to Open Access, inasmuch as they represent instruments with diverse institutional and jurisdictional scope. Documents and data analyzed were drawn from the survey of websites in Latin America, United States and Europe running institutional repositories, of funding agencies and of national legislation in Spain, Brazil, Argentina and the United States. ROARMAP (Registry of Open Access Repository Material Archiving Policies) and Sherpa (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access)/Juliet on Open Access policies form funding institutions were also consulted. The conclusions summarise the way in which the analyzed instruments rule the relations among the different stakeholders in scientific communication in the Open Access model, also acknowledging their roles and rights. Finally, some reflections on the scope and impact of these instruments are presented.