Authors signing author agreements during covid 19 lockdown

Signing author agreements during Covid-19 lockdown

Signing journal author agreements during the Covid-19 lockdown period

Cambridge University Press and its many learned societies recognise that the various lockdown measures in countries all over the world may be presenting challenges to authors in respect of completing and signing author agreements in the normal way.

Under normal circumstances, the standard procedure for signing your journal article author agreement is as follows:

download a PDF copy of the correct author agreement for your article from the journal’s webpage on Cambridge Core
complete, by hand, all the necessary fields in the agreement
sign the agreement by hand
(if applicable) pass the agreement to your co-authors for them to sign by hand
once fully signed, scan the agreement and return to the given return address by post or email.

It remains essential that, despite the challenges arising from lockdown measures, you provide a completed and signed author agreement before your article is published. We cannot publish any articles without a signed author agreement. Therefore, if you are experiencing difficulty signing your journal author agreement using the standard procedure described above – perhaps due to lack of access to a printer and/or scanner – please take a look at the information below.

FAQ #1: I have printed, completed and signed my agreement by hand – how do I return it?

Answer:

Once the agreement is completed and signed, please either:

scan it, or
take a photograph of each page, and then
return the scans / photos to the return email address at the top of the agreement. If the agreement does not include a return email address, please send it to journalscopyright@cambridge.org

Notes about scanning or photographing your agreement:

If you have co-authors or other there are other authorised signatories who need to sign the agreement, please ensure that they follow these instructions – do not return the agreement to us until all the required signatures are in place.
If you have co-authors or there are other authorised signatories who need to sign the agreement, please take extra care to preserve the quality of the scans / photographs (see point below) so that the final agreement remains legible once all signatures have been obtained.
We need to receive all pages of the agreement. Please do not send the signature pages without the rest of the agreement.
Please check that your scans / photographs are clear and legible before returning them to us.
You may experience issues with emailing attachments if they are very large files (i.e. because your scanner / camera / phone is set to take photographs at a very high resolution). We therefore recommend scanning / taking photographs at the minimum resolution possible which still enables anyone to clearly read all the writing on the agreement. (You may also find that compressing the attachments into a zip file will help to reduce the file size.)

If you do not have access to a suitable device to scan or photograph the signed agreement, you will, unfortunately, need to treat the situation as though you do not have a printer and follow the instructions below for “FAQ #2: I do not have access to a printer – how do I provide the details requested in the author agreement and sign it to accept the terms?”

FAQ #2: I do not have access to a printer – how do I provide the details requested in the author agreement and sign it to accept the terms?

Answer:
Please follow the three-step process set out below.

Step One: obtain a PDF copy of the blank author agreement, as normal:

navigate to the author agreement page on cambridge.org/core for the journal in which your article is to be published
following the instructions on the page to identify the correct author agreement and download a PDF copy
read the terms of the agreement
continue to Step Two

Step Two (option 1 – if you do not have the professional version of Adobe Acrobat and cannot otherwise edit a PDF):

create a new email with subject line: Signed author agreement for [Article Title]
attach the PDF to your email
copy and paste the following text into the body of your email:

Step One: obtain a PDF copy of the blank author agreement, as normal:

navigate to the author agreement page on cambridge.org/core for the journal in which your article is to be published
following the instructions on the page to identify the correct author agreement and download a PDF copy
read the terms of the agreement
continue to Step Two

Step Two (option 1 – if you do not have the professional version of Adobe Acrobat and cannot otherwise edit a PDF):

create a new email with subject line: Signed author agreement for [Article Title]
attach the PDF to your email
copy and paste the following text into the body of your email:

To whom it may concern,

My name is [full legal name]. I am writing to give my agreement to publish the article specified below. The full details relating to the article and its publication are as follows:

Journal name: [journal name]

Full article title (including subtitle, if relevant): [article title]

Copyright in the article is owned by: [the sole author / the joint authors / the sole author’s employer / one or more employer of the joint authors*]

Sole / Lead author name: [full legal name]

Co-author(s)’ names (if applicable): [full legal name], [full legal name]

Article to be published on a Gold Open Access basis: [yes/no*]

For Gold Open Access articles only, the type of Creative Commons licence under which the article is to be published: [licence type]

By way of sending this email and the attached agreement, I confirm that:

1. the above details apply to and shall be considered incorporated into the attached agreement

2. I agree to all terms within the attached agreement, and

3. I am authorised to agree to the attached agreement in my capacity as [sole author / lead author / authorised rights holder*].

add the correct information into all fields highlighted in yellow:
i. where the field is marked with an asterisk, choose one of the given options and delete the other option(s)

ii. If your article is going to be published on a Gold Open Access basis, please refer to the PDF for the types of Creative Commons licences available under which your article can be published. Please then enter your chosen licence type into the Creative Commons licence field of the email

iii. if your article is not going to be published on a Gold Open Access basis, please enter “not applicable” into the Creative Commons licence field of the email

iv. continue to Step Three

Step Two (option 2 – if you have the professional version of Adobe Acrobat or can otherwise edit a PDF):

for each information box in the author agreement, create a text field / text box and enter the relevant information. (Please note that “sticky notes” are not acceptable and should not be used to add details to the form). An example of acceptable text fields / text boxes is shown below:

for each information box in the author agreement, create a text field / text box and enter the relevant information

Step Two (option 2 – if you have the professional version of Adobe Acrobat or can otherwise edit a PDF):

for each information box in the author agreement, create a text field / text box and enter the relevant information. (Please note that “sticky notes” are not acceptable and should not be used to add details to the form). An example of acceptable text fields / text boxes is shown below:

you can also create a text field / text box in the signature box and enter your full legal name as a means of indicating your acceptance to the terms. Two examples of this are shown:

you can also create a text field / text box in the signature box and enter your full legal name as a means of indicating your acceptance to the terms.

you can also create a text field / text box in the signature box and enter your full legal name as a means of indicating your acceptance to the terms. Two examples of this are shown:

add text fields / text boxes for all relevant fields in the agreement
save the edited PDF
create a new email with subject line: Signed author agreement for [Article Title]
attach the PDF to your email
copy and paste the following text into the body of your email:

To whom it may concern,

My name is [full legal name].

I have completed all fields and signed the attached agreement regarding the publication of the article specified within the agreement.

I confirm that I am authorised to sign and agree to the attached agreement in my capacity as [sole author/lead author/authorised rights holder*].

remember to add your full legal name in the highlighted section
where the field is marked with an asterisk, choose one of the given options and delete the other option(s)
continue to Step Three

Step Three:

send the completed email, with PDF attached, to the return email address at the top of the PDF
if the PDF does not include a return email address, send it to journalscopyright@cambridge.org