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What You Need to Know Before Signing a Publishing Agreement
When your work is accepted for publication, you will typically be presented with a publishing agreement that seeks your consent to transfer all or part of your copyright to the publisher. Here are some essential considerations before signing.
Always read the publishing agreement thoroughly before signing! Once you assign your copyright to the publisher, you are no longer the copyright owner of your work. Thus, it is crucial to understand what you are agreeing to and the implications for reusing your work in the future.
Anticipate your future needs and assess whether transferring copyright will limit your ability to disseminate and reuse your work in teaching, future publications, and other scholarly activities, including but not limit to:
The HKU Open Access Policy mandates that you deposit the final accepted manuscript in our institutional repository, the HKU Scholars Hub. This requirement is also outlined in section 5.1.1(c) of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy.
Many publishers permit sharing of final accepted manuscripts via institutional repositories. You can check the publisher's website or use Open Policy Finder (formerly Sherpa Services) to explore the default copyright and self-archiving policies of specific journals or publishers.
You are also encouraged to publish your work in open access (OA), as OA publishers usually do not require a transfer of copyright.
An Author addendum is an agreement between you and the publisher that enables you to retain non-exclusive rights for professional use of your work. This includes archiving the published version or final accepted manuscript for non-commercial purposes while still permitting the publisher to publish it.