Legal Information

ULiège Member

What are my rights?

In order to submit publications for Open Access on ORBi, the author must have the necessary permissions.

Belgian law

The 2018 amendment to the copyright provisions of the Economic Law Code allows affected authors to submit their journal articles in Open Access, regardless of the contract signed with the publisher. Learn +

Copyright transfer

The author who has not transferred their copyright for electronic distribution to the publisher can deposit his publication in open access (unless the agreement with the publisher was renegotiated later).

This is, in principle, the case for all publications published before 1993.
This is the case for publications published under a free license such as Creative Commons

Open access submission authorisation

Does the publisher of the work authorise the submission to an institutional database? To find out, you can consult the publisher's website (or contact them directly) or the Open Policy Finder (formerly SHERPA/RoMEO), which lists editorial policies, especially for self-archiving.

What are my obligations?

Some institutions, research programs and funding agencies make it compulsory to submit in OA the publications resulting from the research that concerns them. This is also the case at the ULiège.

The ULiège mandate

Since 2007, ULiège has applied an institutional mandate of mandatory submission in its open archive, ORBi. This mandate, updated in 2014, implies:

An obligation for all ULiège members to submit the references of all publications in ORBi;
An obligation to deposit the full text of all scientific articles published by ULiège members since 2002 in ORBi, as soon as they are accepted by the publisher;
An obligation to submit doctoral theses in ORBi, prior to the defense (in full text or partial, with at least the table of contents and the abstract);
The use of only the references of publications submitted in ORBi for the internal evaluation of researchers

LEARN +

The "Open Access" decree of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation

Since September 2018, the Open Access decree has made it mandatory for articles funded in whole or in part by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to be submitted with Open Access. LEARN +

The FRS-FNRS

The FRS-FNRS mandate makes the Open Access deposit of journal articles mandatory for all recipients of their funding. LEARN +

Plan S

Plan S makes it mandatory, as of January 1, 2021, to publish and/or disseminate the full text of all scientific publication submissions funded by the Coalition S member, in Open Access and under an open license. LEARN +

Horizon 2020

The H2020 mandate requires Open Access to peer-reviewed scientific publications addressing the results of Horizon 2020-funded research. LEARN +

Horizon Europe

The Horizon Europe mandate requires Open Access to peer-reviewed scientific publications – including books and other extended forms of publication – where these comprise the results of research that were carried out thanks to funding from the Horizon Europe project. LEARN +

What about images in my publications ?

As a general rule, you should always ensure that you have the right to use images in your publications and presentations. An image is defined as any visual representation: photograph, drawing, illustration, graphic, diagram or other.

When using an image of which you are not the author, it is necessary to seek the agreement of the copyright holder for the use you intend to make of it or to use so-called "royalty-free" images.

In particular, when you upload a file to ORBi for open access, you must ensure that you have the right to distribute the images it contains online; this is the case if :

you are the sole author and have not transferred (or exclusively licensed) your online exploitation rights;
you have the specific agreement of the copyright owner (with or without financial compensation)
you have purchased the necessary rights to distribute the image on the internet (e.g. via an image database)
you use images under a free licence (for example, a Creative Commons licence) and you respect the conditions of use.

To help you, there are several databases containing images that are more or less freely exploitable; for example

Google image. It allows you to filter according to the rights of use and thus to display only the images under free license. Once you have done your search, click on "Tools"; then under the "Usage rights" tab select "Creative Commons licences".
Wikimedia
Unsplash
Gratisography

You can also use the ULiège image bank available on the Communication Service's intranet (see the Communication Service's intranet)

In all cases, you are required to cite the source of the image and, as far as possible, the name of its author.

How to do this?

add an abbreviated quotation directly under the image (name of the author and year) and put the full quotation or simply the URL referring to the source of the image at the end of the document
assign a number to each of your illustrations and figures and cite your sources at the end of the document

Contact Us:

If you need specific legal information (e.g. when signing a contract with the publisher).
If you encounter a legal problem. The Institution is committed to helping members of the community who encounter problems following submission, in good faith, of a work in ORBi (for example, modification of editorial policy regarding self-archiving).

Also check the legal guide: THYS, L. (2009). "Legal aspects of scientific publishing: a practical guide for members of the academic community."

User of the site

What can readers of the site do?

Users of the directory may read, download, copy, distribute and print any piece of work as long as they respect the basic rights of the authors of the University of Liège. Also, Open Access to a full text on ORBi is subject to the acceptance of a user license under which users agree to:

Indicate, in any citation, the source of the work and the name(s) of the author(s)
Not to modify, transform or adapt the work, without the explicit authorisation of the author
Not to use the work for commercial purposes (i.e. with the primary intention or purpose of obtaining commercial advantage or financial compensation)
Not to use the work in such a way as to interfere with its exploitation in other forms

You can access the complete license agreement.

Which licenses for files uploaded to ORBi?

ORBi licence

For any document available in Open Access on ORBi, the author must sign the submission application in order to authorise the electronic diffusion of their publication.

If several authors are involved, they will all have to sign the license in order for the reference to be made available on Open Access. The license will be sent to them via the email address indicated by the submitter for each co-author.

Creative Commons licences

These licenses used in Gold Open Access publication allow to define permitted uses for the readers. If a publication is under a free license, it can be indicated as such on ORBi and distributed under the same license.

See the different types of CC licenses on creativecommons.org

We take care to respect the rights of each participant as much as possible. If you feel you have been wronged, please inform the ORBi team and we will immediately restrict access to the disputed document while we investigate the case.