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.