ResearchGate and copyright

The Library has had some queries about copyright permissions for adding the full-text of an article to ResearchGate.
Self-archiving of a full-text article on ResearchGate, or other websites, depends on the publisher - for example, some will allow posting on an institutional repository, but not on personal or other websites and vice versa. At RCSI Library, when we add a full-text article to e-publications@RCSI, the RCSI institutional repository we first check publisher copyright policies on Sherpa/RoMEO. This site acts as a good guide for many publications, with a summary of copyright permissions and a link to further details on publisher websites. However, if you use this to assist you to determine copyright guidelines, we would advise you to still check publisher websites and your copyright agreements.
For adding a full-text article to ResearchGate, we suggest:

• Where you know you can definitely use a publisher PDF or other version of an article then go ahead and do so (e.g. where you can see explicit permission in your copyright agreement, a suitable Creative Commons re-use licence OR the publisher has told you it’s ok to post to any internet website).
• Where you are not sure, there is a “request full-text” option, where another ResearchGate user can contact you to ask for a personal copy of the article. Most publishers will allow this. Again, we would advise that this may not be the case with all publishers so it is advisable to check and confirm.

There is some information about this in the ResearchGate Help Center (see under Publications – Full-texts and self-archiving - Am I breaching copyright by uploading my publication’s full-text?).

For more information or to submit articles to the RCSI institutional repository, see http://epubs.rcsi.ie/  or contact epubs@rcsi.ie.

JB