CLoK Copyright Policy
Copyright in any work made available on the UCLan Research repository remains the property of the owner. In uploading work to the research repository - CLoK, or asking an administrator to do so on their behalf, authors grant UCLan the non-exclusive right to to store, manage and make available on the internet the work in any digital format that is necessary to maintain the integrity of the work and its accessibility in perpetuity. This is done with the understanding that it is the authors responsibility to ensure they have the right to deposit the work and to grant this license. UCLan asserts its database rights in the collection and arrangement of the metadata records on the Research Repository - CLoK.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters on CLoK
The University of Central Lancashire has an Open Access Policy (internal only) which follows the principle that the results of research that has been publicly funded should be freely accessible in the public domain. To that end “all research output since January 2008 – or the start of employment with UCLan whichever is the later – must be deposited in the University of Central Lancashire Repository – CLoK, at the latest upon publication” (UCLan Open Access policy Appendix A, July 2015). Deposit includes the registering of bibliographic details of the work and deposit of the full text, usually in the form of the Author Accepted Manuscript or a later version. The version deposited should be representative of the final published work. This policy operates in line with RCUK Open Access policies and HEFCE requirements for REF evaluation. Requirements for HEFCE and RCUK compliance are regarded as a minimum and deposit of works not covered by these policies is expected as described by the UCLan policy.
Adherence to these policies will take into account publisher contracts and self-archiving policies. To that end CLoK offers restricted access and embargo functionality and links to JISC services that aggregate publisher and funder Open Access policies to assist with policy discovery . CLoK is also integrated into the UCLan services providing funding and support for Article Processing Charges (APCs) for hybrid, or ‘Gold’ publishing options as well as other unfunded Open Access options.
Theses
The academic regulations require that theses and dissertations submitted as part fulfilment for qualification for research degrees are presented in an electronic format and that these are deposited on CLoK. However, as unpublished work Copyright in theses and dissertations remains with the author. Therefore, we require that a licence to store, distribute and manage the work is also signed by the submitting student. This licence includes details of how the work can be used by people discovering and downloading the work; on how automated internet tools such as harvesters and ‘bots’ will have access to the work; and on how information about the work – bibliographic metadata – will remain visible on CLoK even if the work itself is taken down or hidden from access. This licence is non-exclusive, does not prevent the student from granting similar, non-exclusive rights to others or from publishing the work, or parts thereof, themselves. The licence does not affect the authors’ moral rights and the University has obligations to preserve the integrity and quality of the work while it is in its care.
Where there are specific reasons why a thesis cannot be made publicly on and Open Access basis these can be stated and access to the work will be restricted either indefinitely or for a set period. These reasons will be included in any consideration of any Freedom of information requests.
Authors should consider whether their thesis contains:
- Substantial amounts of material where the Copyright is owned by a third party – possibly a corporate partner or sponsor of the research
- Information which could, if made publicly available, compromise a patent application
- Materials that are the subject of confidentiality agreements or that may compromise personal or commercial confidentiality
They should also consider whether they intend publishing journal articles of books which will substantially reproduce the work presented in their thesis.
Positive answers to these questions do preclude deposit or Open Access availability of the thesis as long or short term embargoes, redaction and removal of parts of the materials to hidden appendices allow us to comply with the academic regulations while protecting the rights of the author and any third parties.
Deposit of theses on CLoK requires acknowledgement from the author of these issues and a declaration that publication of the work on CLoK will not to their knowledge infringe the rights of third parties. This is in line with the declarations required by publishers of academic journals and books
Copyright Responsibilities
Responsibility for the content of works uploaded to the repository lies with the authors and creators of the works. The deposit process requires that researchers and research students declare that they have the authority to deposit work and that they have exercised due diligence in ensuring their work is original and that they are not infringing any intellectual property laws or other legislation. They must assume responsibility for any breach discovered and agree that the university does not hold any obligation to take legal action on behalf of any rights holder or the author. This waiver is also applied where an administrator is delegated responsibility for uploading works on the authors’ behalf. For research students the deposit licence includes a statement whereby the student agrees that the university is not responsible for errors of accidental infringements, and neither will it be obliged to take legal action on behalf of any rights holders.
The university is obliged to ensure that reasonable care is taken to prevent general infringement of third party copyright and has in place policies, procedures and advice to ensure that this does not happen. Any doubts or concerns felt by authors should be raised with the Repository Manager who will be able to recommend a course, or courses, of action to ensure that deposits do not infringe the law.
Contact clok@uclan.ac.uk if you have any questions or concerns.
If you feel that your rights have been infringed by any material on the CLoK repository, please refer to the Takedown policy and also contact clok@uclan.ac.uk for the speediest response.
Copyright Protection of Works on CLoK
Once uploaded and made available on CLoK your work enjoys the same protection as any material available on the internet. Ownership is unchanged as permissions and licences to upload and disseminate work on CLoK do not require the transfer of copyright. Authors retain their copyright unless this has been explicitly transferred to a publisher or pother third party via a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA). In either case the rights of the publisher and the author are equally respected by CLoK and Repository staff.
In order that the principles of Open Access Archiving can be upheld and to encourage scholarly re-use and development of research outputs in a safe and equitable way the repository adopts the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA licence by default. Exceptions are where an existing publisher user licence is in place, or where a publisher or funder requires works to be made available with a specific licence, or where the nature of the work requires a different approach (materials from the University Livesey Collection are made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence).
The Creative Commons licences offer standardized and clear protection for users of works on the repository as well as depositors. It allows end users to copy, distribute, play and perform the work and make derivative works as long as full attribution is given citing both the author and source, the use of the work is non-commercial and derivatives are shared and distributed under the same licence.
This licence does not impact upon, or overwrite any existing Copyright or other legislative requirements and a similar licence is extended over the repository database itself and its collections. Database rights in this repository rest with the University of Central Lancashire.
