Frequently asked questions - Rights retention policy

Open access requirements and expectations have changed during the last years. Funders, such as the Research Council of Norway and the EU, now requires immediate open access to scholarly publications under an open license.

Through publishing agreements and support to publish open access, UiB enables researchers to make many of their articles immediately openly available upon publication. However, these arrangements do not cover all published articles. To achieve the goal of open access and to comply with funder requirements, UiB has adopted a rights retention policy. The policy ensures that employees and students at UiB can make a peer reviewed version of their articles immediately open access upon publication with an open license, regardless of which publication channels they choose.

UiB has adopted a rights retention policy which gives the institution a non-exclusive right to make scholarly articles authored by employees and students at UiB, available under a Creative Commons license. This right is prior to any later agreements authors may make with publishers.

The policy covers scholarly articles, not books, book chapters or other types of publications.

You must upload the article in Cristin. It is the author accepted manuscript that should be uploaded and that can be made available under the rights retention policy.

Articles that are uploaded in Cristin are automatically transferred to UiB’s open repository BORA and made openly available in accordance with existing rights.

It is the author accepted manuscript that will be made open access under the rights retention policy. The author accepted manuscript (AAM, also called postprint) is the last version of the article that the author sends to the journal, after peer-review, but before being type-set by the publisher. It contains all revisions made during the peer-review process.  

The published version will only be made available if it is published open access under a Creative Commons license.

The rights retention policy covers all scholarly articles, but if the article is published open access under a Creative Commons license, the goal of immediate open access will be achieved. You must still upload the article in Cristin, and the published PDF will be made available in BORA with the license it is published under.

Some open access articles are published with bespoke licenses or with no clear license information. For such articles we recommend uploading the author accepted manuscript in Cristin to be made openly available in BORA with a CC BY-license.

No, the policy only applies to articles submitted after 1^st December 2022.

Yes, the policy applies to all articles where UiB researchers and students are (co-)authors. You must inform your co-authors that UiB has the right to make the article immediately open access under a Creative Commons license, by default CC BY. If your co-authors do not consent to these conditions, you can request a waiver from the policy or that the manuscript is made available under another license.

You may request a waiver from the rights retention policy for a specific article using the waiver form. The request must be submitted before the article is uploaded in Cristin.

Please note that you cannot opt out of the requirement to upload the article in Cristin. If you have requested a waiver from the policy for a specific article, the author accepted manuscript will be made available in BORA in accordance with the publisher’s terms.

Articles that are results of projects funded by The Norwegian Research Council or EU must be made immediately open access under a CC BY-license (as default). Opting out may cause the articles to be non-compliant with funders policies.

Yes. The default license is CC BY, but you are free to choose another license using the waiver form.

If the article is published open access under a Creative Commons license, it will be made available in BORA with the license it is published under.

Read more about Creative Commons licenses.

UiB has published information on the rights retention policy on the institutional website. As an author you do not need to include any statement about the policy when submitting a manuscript.

You can request a waiver for the specific article. You can also ask the journal to accept an embargo period and/or to make the manuscript available with a different (or no) Creative Commons license.

Most journals permit that the author accepted manuscript is made available in an institutional repository. It you request a waiver from the policy, the author accepted manuscript will be made openly available in BORA under the publisher’s terms.

While a publisher may require you to sign a publishing agreement that transfers the copyright to the publisher, UiB’s prior right to make the article open access will take precedence. If a dispute should arise, please contact bora@uib.no

If an article includes material where you as authors are not the copyright holders, for instance figures or pictures, you must either:

1. Obtain permission from the copyright holder to make the material available under a CC BY-license.
2. Clearly indicate within the manuscript the terms under which the material is released and state that the CC BY license is not applicable to this material.
3. Make the manuscript available without the third-party material by removing it from the manuscript before uploading it in Cristin.
4. Request that the article is made available under a different Creative Commons license or without a Creative Commons license by using the waiver form.