The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have specific legal questions pertaining to SPU, please contact the Office of Risk Management.
We’re very excited to see the work that you will produce while participating in the Bill Pollard Faith and Business Research Fellowship. Both the Center for Faithful Business and the SPU Library would like to have copies of anything you produce – whether that be a peer- reviewed paper, whitepaper, or even a website post – during your time as a Pollard Scholar.
Completed products should be sent to Kate Barker, Assistant Director of the Center for Faithful Business, at cfb@spu.edu, by January 31, 2025. The Fellowship committee will review the papers in February and select a paper for the “best paper” award. The winner of this award will be invited back to SPU’s campus in the 2025-2026 academic year to present their paper. The top paper from a US author or from an international author with a US work permit will be awarded a $1,000 honorarium. We regret that we are unable to provide stipends for international participants who do not hold US work permits, but in the event of a a winning international paper, that author will be honored with a certificate so stating.
In summer 2025, the papers will be uploaded to SPU Digital Commons, the institutional repository, where the author, title, and abstract will be available immediately. The full text of your paper can be made available immediately or up to 18 months later so as not to interfere with any plans you may have to publish elsewhere.* We do ask, however, for your permission to post the work online after this period of time. In addition, we kindly request that you acknowledge and credit Seattle Pacific University, the Center for Faithful Business, and the Bill Pollard Faith and Business Research Fellowship in anything you might produce.
As the author/creator of your research paper, you hold copyright in your work, unless and until you transfer the copyright to someone else in a signed agreement, such as when publishing with a journal. This process is similar to sharing a paper in conference proceedings, and then later publishing a revised version of that paper in a journal or as a book chapter. 
We'll ask that you sign a non-exclusive license agreement to share your completed paper in Digital Commons @ SPU. You as author remain the copyright holder of this version of your work, and you may choose to share your work elsewhere (including publishing with a journal or in a book).
Sharing your work in this way provides long-term access to and preservation of your work, increases visibility to your work through Google and other search engines, and provides free worldwide open access.
Sharing your work in this way is also known as "self-archiving," or "green open access," and is allowed or even encouraged by most publishers. Before you publish your work elsewhere, it can be helpful to check Sherpa Romeo on publisher self-archiving policies. Sherpa Romeo will link you back to the specific publisher pages related to author sharing policies (see more below).
For more information about copyright, take a look at our Copyright Guide and contact Kristen Hoffman with questions.
As the author, you own the copyright to your work.
This is true of your research paper, dissertation, thesis, project, a journal article, a website, or any other original creative work that you create and is fixed in some tangible form.
For more information, visit Copyright for Authors.
Under Digital Commons @ SPU's Publication Agreement:
a. you remain the copyright owner
b. you grant a nonexclusive license to publish & distribute your paper
As the copyright owner, you can choose to distribute your paper through additional channels other than DC@SPU. Because the license you grant is nonexclusive, you remain free to grant similar publication or distribution rights to other individuals, publishers, etc.
You may choose to share your paper immediately or embargo your paper up to 18 months, so as not to interfere with any plans you have to publish elsewhere. During an embargo, only the abstract and other descriptive information will be made available. At the end of the embargo period, full-text worldwide access will be provided.
How can you publish this paper you've written in a journal?
Maybe you'll want to post it on your website later on, or share in your discipline's subject repository?
What you can share, where and when you can share it, and what version (i.e. published version, accepted version, or submitted version) will vary by publisher, and by what you negotiate with them.
