Copyright and Cross Connect

In order to deposit a PDF work into Cross Connect, you must hold the copyright to that work, or have permission from the copyright owner to do so.

Authors commonly assign copyright to publishers when they negotiate their contract with the commercial publisher that is publishing their journal article or conference paper. The right to submit your work to an institutional repository may be outlined in your copyright transfer agreement. Repository staff will check publisher policies and if required contact publishers to seek permission to make the full text of a work available to the public.

stack of books on study desk with pen

Which version of my research can be posted?

Which version of a work, if any, can be deposited, varies depending on the publisher.

The copyright of any material deposited in Cross Connect is retained by the depositor/creator unless otherwise explicitly stated.

Please also refer to the University Library information about Cross Connect and SCU Profiles, Open Access and the Office of SDVC Research information about Research Publications.

For CC-licensed articles, or when otherwise permitted, the publisher's PDF version is our first preference to post to Cross Connect.

The post-print is the accepted manuscript, after peer-review. Cross Connect staff will upload the post-print and the system will ensure any embargo period is observed before the file is made publicly available.

Most publishers permit the post-print of a journal article to be added to the author's institutional repository. It is important that we check the conditions attached to each publication and upload the version that is permitted by the publisher. Information about the conditions attached to publication in individual journals or with specific publishers can be found on the Open policy finder website. 

Some publishers also have deposit conditions such as a requirement to acknowledge the publisher, include specific wording and/or link to the final version on their website. It is SCU's policy to comply with all publisher deposit conditions (including embargo periods) and to include any required acknowledgments in each work's repository record.

The pre-print is the submitted manuscript, before peer-review. If there is no option to post the published version or the post-print, Cross Connect l staff will upload the pre-print and the system will ensure any embargo period is observed before the file is made publicly available.

If it is not possible to upload one of the above versions it may be possible to link to the published version on the publisher's website.

Most publishers do not permit any version of the full text of books or book chapters to be deposited in the repository, unless the author has retained copyright of the work.

Copyright takedown notice

If you believe that a copyright work is available on Cross Connect, our institutional repository, in such a way that constitutes a copyright infringement or a breach of an agreed licence or contract please notify us.