CC licences for open access
All peer-reviewed articles and SLU publications must be published with open access. This page gives you the information you need about copyright and choosing a CC licence for open access publishing.
Publishing with open access means that you as the author give others the opportunity to read, download, copy and distribute your work. This is a requirement under SLU's policy for scientific publishing. It is therefore important that you are familiar with copyright and what applies when choosing a licence for open access.
Choice of CC licence
When you publish in an open access journal, you choose an open licence for your publication, usually a Creative Commons (CC) licence. You can also choose a licence for, for example, the summarising chapter of your theses, or other types of publications published by SLU.
By assigning a CC licence to your publication, you inform users and readers about what they can and cannot do with the publication.
SLU recommends that you choose to CC-license publications published by SLU but has no explicit guidelines for which licence you should choose. There are also no guidelines from SLU on which licence to choose when publishing an article in a journal. However, your funders may impose requirements on which licence you must use when you publish the results of the project. Formas and the Swedish Research Council have such guidelines.
Here you can read more about the four most common licences in scientific publishing. If you are unsure about what the licences mean, you are welcome to contact the library.
CC BY
Creative Commons Attribution
The work may be re-distributed, remixed, adapted and built upon. The author must be attributed. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-ND
Creative Commons Attribution, No-Derivs
The work may be distributed commercially or non-commercially as long as the work is not adapted but reproduced in its original form. The author must be attributed.
CC BY-NC
Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial
The work may be re-distributed, remixed, adapted and built upon but not for commercial purposes. The author must be attributed.
CC BY-NC-ND
Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, No-Derivs
The work may be distributed but not in a commercial context. No derivatives or adaptions are allowed, the work should be copied or distributed in its original form. The author must be attributed.
Copyright and open access publishing
Copyright legislation provides legal protection to the author of a work. This also applies to a work published with open access. As an author, copyright is automatically applied to the work when the work is created and it consists of two parts:
- Moral rights – you have the right to be named as the author of your work, as well as to oppose any improper use of the work.
- Economic rights - you have the rights to control how your work is distributed, published, sold etc.
When a manuscript has been accepted for publication in a journal, you sign a publication agreement that regulates your rights in relation to the publisher. This applies regardless of the type of journal, but be aware if you plan to publish in a subscription-based journal. Check whether you retain the right to freely distribute your article, and if so, how it may be distributed. If you publish in an open access journal, you usually retain the copyright to your publication and are then free to use and distribute it as you wish.