Permissions and Rights Question and Answer for Authors

Authors of submitted manuscripts in American Heart Association journals are required to sign a Authorship Responsibility and Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA).

Q) Where can I find the CTA?
A) The Instructions to Authors page for each AHA journal has links to the CTA form.

Q) Do all authors have to sign a CTA?
A) Yes, all authors have to sign a CTA.

Q) What happens if the AHA journal does not accept a manuscript?
A) Rights revert back to the authors.

Q) Can I post my article on the Internet?
A) Corresponding authors will receive “toll-free” links to their published article. This URL can be placed on an author’s personal or institutional web site. Those who click on the link will be able to access the article as it published online in the AHA journal (with or without a subscription). Should coauthors or colleagues be interested in viewing the article for their own use, authors may provide them with the URL; a copy of the article may not be forwarded electronically.

If your institution has a policy requiring your manuscript to be deposited in an institutional repository, the AHA Copyright Transfer Agreement grants you those rights. The manuscript should be available in the institutional repository but made publicly accessible no earlier than 6 months after publication.

Q) My manuscript was funded in whole or part by funds from the National Institutes of Health or another funding body that requests that I deposit the “accepted version” of my manuscript on PubMedCentral or an insitutional repository. What do I do?
A) Several research funding agencies now require or request authors to submit the post-print (the article after peer review and acceptance but not the final published article) to a repository that is accessible online by all without charge. Within medical research, 3 funding agencies in particular have announced such policies:

• The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires authors to deposit post-prints of articles, which have received NIH funding, in its repository PubMed Central (PMC). This deposit should be done within the 12 months after publication of the final article in the journal.

• The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) requires, as a condition of research grants, deposit in PMC, but within 6 months after publication of the final article.

• The Wellcome Trust requires, as a condition of research grants, deposit in UK PMC within 6 months after publication of the final article.

As a service to authors, the Publisher (Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) of the AHA journals will identify to PMC articles that require depositing. The CTA provides the primary mechanism for identifying such articles. The AHA also requests that, during the submission process in Bench>Press, funding be indicated.

WKH/LWW will transmit the post-print of an article, which is based on research funded in whole or in part by 1 or more of these 3 agencies, to PMC.

On NIH request, it remains the legal responsibility of the author(s) to confirm with the NIH the provenance of their manuscript for purposes of deposit.

• Author(s) will not deposit their articles themselves.

• Author(s) will not alter the post-print already transmitted to NIH.

• Author(s) will not authorize the display of the post-print prior to:

1. 12 months after publication of the final article, in the case of NIH,
2. 6 months after publication of the final article, in the case of HHMI and the Wellcome Trust

For more information about authors’ rights and responsibilities, please refer to CTA located in each journal’s Instructions to Authors.

For more information on PMC, please visit http://nihms.nih.gov.

Q) Can I reuse my figures and tables in future works without asking permission?
A) Yes. The current CTA states “Authors may use parts of the work(eg, tables, figures) in subsequent works without requesting permission from the AHA.”

Q) Can I make copies of my article for my lectures, classroom teaching and other educational use?
A) Yes, provided you cite the original source and copyright notice. See also “Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials” (section 107, title 17, US Code)

Q) I want to use figures or tables or other content from an AHA journal, but I am not an author of the original article.
A) Permission requests are handled online via Rightslink, a service of the Copyright Clearance Center. Steps to request permission are:

• Go to the online version of the AHA journal article for which you are requesting permission.

• Locate the “Request Permissions” link in the menu on the right side of the Web page (under “Services”).

• A new window opens, which is Rightslink.

• Follow the step-by-step instructions for requesting permission

1. selecting the way the content will be used
2. creating an account, if one does not exist already

   accepting the terms and conditions for reuse

   method of payment.

For AHA Scientific Statements and Guidelines, permission to reprint, modify, alter, enhance, copy, or distribute this content must be obtained from the American Heart Association. Instructions are located at http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4431. A link to the “Permission Request Form” appears on the right side of the Web page, in the “Related Items” box.

Q) How can I order reprints of my article?
A) For questions regarding reprints, please e-mail reprints{at}lww.com or call 1-800-341-2258 or order online at http://www.lww.com/periodicals/author-reprints.