Copyright refers to the intellectual property laws applying to how a work is used, including publication, distribution and copying of a created work. The creator of the work usually owns copyright over the work. 

However, if you publish in a traditional academic journal you may be required to sign an agreement that hands copyright over to the journal publisher. This is important to take into account if you later wish to deposit the article in an Institutional Repository. Consult the publisher website for more information. 

An author who publishes via an open access route will usually retain copyright. 

You can learn more about copyright from an author’s perspective by visiting  the OASIS (Open Access Scholarly  Information Source Book) website.  They also cover Author Addenda and licences-to-publish. 

If you wish to make your research findings widely available, consider using Creative Common Licenses. The Creative Commons website provides standardized and user friendly copyright licences for free. Using Creative Commons licences, an author can modify copyright terms to suit his or her own requirements. 

Useful Links:

SHERPA/RoMEO for information on publisher policies 

SPARC for author addenda

DkIT Library Copyright FAQs: