FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions about Open Access, our Creative Commons license, and Fair Use

What is meant by “Open Access”?

Open Access (OA) is a movement to make publications freely accessible online. Open Access has its roots with attempts to ensure that crucial research literature can be made equitably available to all who need to use it, regardless of their institutional affiliations, memberships, and geographic locations. In recent years, Open Access has expanded, to make cultural works—like images from museum collections or historical documents—freely available to users with clear guidelines about how they may be used.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

Why has Wordgathering become identified as an Open Access journal, since moving to Syracuse University? Wasn’t Wordgathering Open Access, before? What’s the difference?

Essentially, yes. Wordgathering has always been available for readers to read and share online at no charge. However, in becoming an explicitly Open Access publication, Wordgathering can now participate in the Open Access ecosystem and connect with the Open Access infrastructure for online discovery. Soon after transitioning to its publication home at Syracuse University, Wordgathering acquired a formal ISSN number (ISSN: 2690-7089), which identifies it internationally as a unique serial publication. Furthermore, in applying a Creative Commons license to the material that Wordgathering publishes going forward (effective June 2020), it is clear to users how they may engage with the work. Importantly, making Wordgathering an explicitly Open Access publication is consistent with Wordgathering’s goals and mission.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

What is meant by “Creative Commons”?

From the Creative Commons website:

“Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a globally-accessible public commons of knowledge and culture. We make it easier for people to share their creative and academic work, as well as to access and build upon the work of others. By helping people and organizations share knowledge and creativity, we aim to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world.”

Creative Commons is the originator of the license through which work published in Wordgathering is now made available. Those engaged in Open Access publications or projects view Creative Commons licenses as critical tools because they assist in making explicitly clear how the work they publish may be read and used. For example, a museum may want to make images from their collections available for the general public to view and adapt, so long as they attribute the source, but they might want to prevent businesses from using those images in products for sale. The museum could share those images under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, thereby allowing the museum to designate that the images they share are available for noncommercial use only, and that users must acknowledge the source if they distribute any of the museum’s images in allowable noncommercial use. There are different types of Creative Common licenses available for different situations. Effective June 2020, Wordgathering is using the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

Why has Wordgathering adopted an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, effective June 2020? How does the Creative Commons License Wordgathering has chosen (effective June 2020) work, exactly?

Effective June 2020, Wordgathering will publish work under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. This license is the most restrictive of the six main Creative Commons licenses, only allowing others to download works and share them with others, as long as they credit the creator, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

This license was chosen to make it clear to readers that no uses beyond reading and sharing the work with attribution are permitted. This does not prevent the creator of a work they had published in Wordgathering from adapting, altering, republishing, or any other use of their work, but it allows Wordgathering to make it clear to anyone other than the creator that they may not do so without the creator’s permission.

Publications that do not make it clear what uses are permitted or prohibited risk that users may feel free to do whatever they like with the works they access via the publication. Wordgathering has chosen to incorporate the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license to protect its creators from unauthorized use while also making explicit what is allowed (in this case, only reading and sharing with attribution).

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

Do I retain my copyright to my own creative work, after it’s been published in Wordgathering?

Yes, you do. Authors DO NOT transfer their copyrights to Wordgathering upon publication. In agreeing to have your work published in Wordgathering, you grant us only the right to publish it on the website under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, which limits readers form doing anything beyond reading and sharing the work. Any other use would require permission from you, the creator and copyright holder.

You may do what you like with the work you publish in Wordgathering, but further use (subsequent inclusion in an anthology or printing on a poster, for example) by anyone else, including us, would be in violation of the license if your permission is not granted. If you subsequently publish your own work (that was published in Wordgathering) elsewhere, you are expected to cite its having been published previously in Wordgathering (as the same work, or, in some cases, as an earlier form of the work).

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

After I’ve been published in Wordgathering, can anyone take my published work and use it however they want?

No. According to the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, any use by anyone but you beyond reading and non-commercial sharing (with attribution) is not permitted.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

After I’ve been published in Wordgathering, can anyone take my published work and update it, change it, or otherwise amend it, without my permission?

The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license does not permit any adaptation, remixing, or changes without the creator’s permission; only reading and sharing the work (unchanged) with attribution are allowed.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

What is meant by “fair use”?

Fair Use is a set of exemptions to copyright law that allow certain uses of copyrighted work in certain situations–usually these situations are educational and non-commercial. For example, the Center for Media and Social Impact’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry documents community-derived guidelines for making use of copyrighted works in teaching, performance, and education. You can read more about these guidelines on the Center for Media and Social Impact website.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Home Page

Other questions or concerns? Email us at wordgathering@syr.edu