Copyright agreements and licenses used by Nordic OJS-Journals

Abstract

In this article we present the results from a short survey on copyright and self-archiving. The survey was sent by e-mail to Nordic academic journals using the Open Journal System (OJS). Initially 50 journals were identified. Out of these, 24 journals from different academic disciplines answered the questionnaire. Some of these journals are published by the same publisher. This article highlights the difficulties and differences in interpreting copyright agreements and how the transition towards electronic publishing may alter understandings of copyright agreements. This is an issue we feel is in need of further attention. Our survey also shows that the transition towards electronic publishing has practical implications on how copyright agreements are made. Even though this is easily dealt with as a function built into OJS, copyright agreements and regulations can still be a complicated issue for some of these small journals.