Open Access rights and licenses
Do not assign the rights to your texts exclusively and for an unlimited period of time to a publisher. Insist on a license that allows you to meet the requirements of your funding institution and your university.
We will be happy to advise you - before you have signed a contract.
Creative Commons licenses
The authors of academic and artistic works use Creative Commons licences to specify the legal conditions under which their works may be published, disseminated and used. The licenses are available in over 60 languages and are legally valid throughout the world. They feature a variety of icons which indicate the conditions that must be respected during re-use. They are therefore easy to understand, and users know exactly what they may use the works for – even if they do not have legal expertise.
CC licenses function as a modular system. The license conditions can be combined with each other, giving a choice of six different licenses in all. Depending on the combination, a liberal or restrictive use of the content may be permitted.
Funding agencies and universities recommend the use of the most open license, such as CC BY.
What are CC licenses?
As the author of a scientific text, you decide when, how, by whom and for what purpose your text can be used.
Creative-Commons (CC) licenses are standardized contracts with which you, as the author, determine how your work can be reused.
The license is valid as long as a work is protected by copyright - up to 70 years after the death of the author.
Once a license has been granted, it cannot be withdrawn. Restrictive licenses can be replaced by more open licenses.
System of CC licenses
The combination of license terms allow for a number of different CC-BY licenses.
With each of these licenses, you have the right to acknowledge authorship.
Open
CC-BY allows unrestricted redistribution and use
Non-commercial
CC-BY-NC (non commercial) allows only non-commercial redistribution and use.
Restrictive
CC-BY-ND (no derivativs) only allows redistribution - with the addition of NC only non-commercial redistribution.
Declaration
Publications are marked with the appropriate icon, the reference to the license and a link, e.g.:
Diese Publikation steht unter der Creative-Lizenz CC-BY 4.0
This work is licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 license.
This work is licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Research Funding
Requirements
The Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF, like many other funding agencies (cOAlition S), requires that publications resulting from projects it funds (project submission as of January 2023) be published with a CC license.
Contributions to journals
CC-BY
Books and book chapters
CC-BY (recommended), more restrictive licenses like CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND are possible
Rights Retention
The SNSF has adopted the "Rights Retention Strategy" developed by the cOAlition S. Researchers must indicate a rights retention for the post-review revised version when submitting a journal article with the following passage:
"This research was funded in whole or in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, a CC BY public copyright licence is applied to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission."