Frequently asked questions about authorship commissions

The authorship contract you receive will be individual, confidential and non-transferable. Its content will depend largely on the characteristics of the work you have been commissioned to undertake (the type of resource, the subject matter of the content, etc.).

By way of example, here is a standard work contract for the development of UOC-made learning resources.

Once you have accepted the authorship commission and it has been processed by the UOC's Library and Learning Resources department, you will receive an email from recursosaprenentatge@uoc.edu confirming that you have been registered as an author.

This email contains instructions on how to complete a form with your personal details on the UOC Campus. If this is the first time you have received an authorship commission, you can log in using the username provided.

When the contract is ready to be signed, you will be notified via an email to your UOC inbox.

UOC authorship contracts are signed using your Virtual Campus password.

When you log in to the Virtual Campus with your username, you will see the Links module. Click on All to see all the direct links:

The first step is to review and complete, if necessary, your bank details, address and other personal details. All these details are essential so we can pay you for your work.

If you do not live in Spain, to avoid double taxation you must send a residence certificate to factures@uoc.edu.

You can access your contract and sign it electronically using the Download and sign your digital contract link.

You can choose the language in which you want to receive the contract: Catalan, Spanish or English. Just notify the person who commissioned you.

No, authorship contracts for the creation of learning resources at the UOC must be signed in your own name, not in the name of a juridical entity.

If you have been hired as an expert, you do not have to deliver any content in text format.

Under an expert interviewee contract, you undertake to contribute knowledge on your area of expertise in an audiovisual format.

If you can’t accept a fee as an expert interviewee, simply advise us when you accept the commission.

In this case, you will have to sign an agreement to assign image or voice rights to the UOC.

The UOC's working languages are Spanish, Catalan and English. Unless the person commissioning you has given you specific instructions otherwise, you can write the content in whichever language you feel most comfortable in.

The Guides for producing UOC learning resources, which you will find in the How do I create a UOC learning resource section of this Kit, give instructions for each type of the UOC-produced learning resource. The person who sent you the commission can also provide examples with the final layout, as reference material. 

In this kit, we provide some resources to help you incorporate a gender perspective into your commissioned content. In the section How do I create a UOC learning resource? we provide you with information on diversity and gender. In the kit, we also provide an infographic to help sensitize content creators to the use of non-sexist language when writing content. You will also find royalty-free image banks that include, among other things, transgender and non-binary models. Finally, in the resource How should I cite my sources? you will also find citation templates and examples that include the full name of the author.

The person who sent you the commission will tell you when you have to deliver your work. Deadlines are based on courses' teaching calendars and also the time required to produce the learning resources.

For this reason it is very important to deliver punctually. The deadline for delivery is specified in the contract that you will sign, in the Delivery of the commission section.

Final delivery of the content you have prepared must be made to the same person who gave you the commission. 

As author you are entitled to proofread the learning resource. This is so that you can check that the final content matches the content that you authored, that it has not been incorrectly produced and that nothing has been left out.

Depending on the type of resource commissioned, you may be sent the final product so that you can review it.

Proofreading is a part of a review process intended to ensure the quality of our learning resources. 

Its objective is to verify that the content that you have delivered is correctly transformed into a learning resource, that it has not been produced incorrectly, and that no important information is missing.

In some cases, the copy editor may raise certain doubts that need an answer from you (for example, broken links, information that is not clearly explained, or doubts that have been raised during editing to avoid unwanted meaning changes).

The proofreading is NOT to be used to add new content or change texts that should have been checked before they were submitted. It cannot be used to re-write the text or make changes in register, style or structure, nor to make any other change that will lead to the final number of pages being different. It is considered that the original that you have delivered is the complete, reviewed, final version of the text, and not a draft that require changes during the proofreading phase, thus requiring reworking.

The Guides for producing UOC learning resources which you will find in the How do I create a UOC learning resource section of this Kit, give some recommendations for proofreading different types of learning resources.

When you are sent the finished learning resource for review, you will also be given a deadline for returning it.

Bear in mind that this review is bound by a schedule belonging to the publishing process. It is important to stick to this schedule so that the learning materials can be ready by the planned date.

In order to receive payment, you must have signed the contract and made final delivery of the content that was commissioned.

Once it has received this delivery from the person who sent you the commission, the Library for Learning unit will validate payment around the middle of each month.

Once the person to whom you delivered the content has validated it and submitted it to the Library and Learning Resources department, a payment order will be issued in the middle of the following month.

For the payment process to work correctly, all your personal and bank details must be correctly entered on the Virtual Campus.

The personal details include your usual postal address and, if you do not live in Spain, a certificate of residence in order to avoid double taxation.

Example: 

Content delivered on 1 January

Payment order 10 February

Content delivered on 30 January

Payment order 10 March

PLEASE NOTE: Content delivered in December will not be paid until February of the following year.

NOTE: Payment of authorship contracts concluded with UOC staff will be included in their salary. See here to find out more.

Yes. Go to the Doubts, queries or problems link in the Links module in the Virtual Campus, and enter the following information:

• The language in which you want to receive the certificate.
• The course name and the code and title of the resource you prepared for the UOC and a link to the resource, if you have one.
• The email address where you want to receive the certificate.
• Any comments you would like us to add.

After checking that the authorship contract for the resource you have prepared has been signed and the fee paid, the UOC will send the requested certificate to the email address you provided.

The UOC publishes the learning resources it creates in-house under a copyright licence.

However, in accordance with the UOC Open Knowledge Plan, if you want to use an open licence to publish the resource you have been asked to produce, the UOC allows it to be published by default (with no need for justification), under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

This licence allows users to download and share the resource with others, but they are not authorized to modify the content (and if they do, they must not redistribute it) nor must they use the material for commercial purposes.

If you ask the member of teaching staff who asked you to do the work, under exceptional circumstances the UOC also authorizes the publication of learning resources under the CC BY-SA licence.

With this licence, users can transform the content of the learning resource and adapt it, provided that all works derived from the original publication are distributed under the same CC-BY-SA licence.

This request must be justified by the coordinating professor of the course and approved by the UOC.

The UOC must be clearly identified as the copyright owner of the original publication in both cases.

Once you have delivered the commissioned content and it has been incorporated into the final product in the editing process, if the contract has already been signed and the corresponding payment has been made, the content will become the exclusive property of the UOC. You will not have access to it or be provided with a copy unless expressly agreed in the contract.

However, as an author, during the galley review, you have the right to revise the material before the final edit, to ensure that the UOC is respecting your moral rights.

If you would like a copy of the resource to be provided once it has been published, you can request it from the person who commissioned it. However, it should be made very clear that this is for personal use only, and that you must apply to the UOC for authorization for any non-personal use.

In theory, no. The authorship contract that you have signed after being commissioned by the UOC includes an exclusive assignment of the rights to exploit the content that you have written, for all languages and for all the formats and types of exploitation specified in the contract. This means that only the UOC can use the material.

If you want to use the UOC learning resource that you have written, you must request authorization at the Doubts, queries or problems link, which you will find in the Links module on the Virtual Campus, stating: 

• Author status: UOC author / non-UOC author / affiliated teaching staff
  First name and surname(s)
• The teaching content you want to use: PID no., material title and/or link to the resource.
• Brief description of the purpose for which you wish to use it.
• Explanation of how it will be used and/or where the material will be disseminated: website, author's YouTube channel, other universities' virtual campuses, use in face-to-face teaching, etc.

However, if the UOC learning resource you want to use is already published with a Creative Commons licence, you can use it provided that you abide by the conditions specified in the type of licence.

The UOC publishes its content (work) on the internet under the following Creative Commons licences:

If you need an invoice with the amount you have been paid, ask for it at the email address factures@uoc.edu. You can also ask for it at the Doubts, queries or problems link, which you will find in the Links module on the Virtual Campus. In both cases, you will have to give the following information:

• First name and surname(s)
• Language you want to receive the invoice in
• The contract number associated with the invoice you want to receive
• The email address where you want the invoice sent to 

Unless stated otherwise, the authorship invoices are VAT-exempt according to Article 20.1.26 of the VAT Law. In the case of authors who are resident in Spain, 15% of the amount will be withheld on account of Personal Income Tax. In the case of authors resident abroad for tax purposes, 24% will be withheld unless you furnish the certificate to avoid double taxation. 

NOTE: The income for authorship of learning resources will be classified as economic activity, not earned income. If you do not want this classification, you must request this expressly through the Doubts, queries or problems link, which you will find in the Links module on the Virtual Campus. 

If your tax residence is abroad and you want to avoid double taxation, you must send a certificate issued by the tax authority corresponding to the country where you have your tax residence to factures@uoc.edu. This certificate must specify the convention signed with Spain to avoid double taxation. 

If you cannot furnish this document, the withholding tax applied will be 24%, as required by Spanish tax regulations. If the certificate has not been received at the time of making payment as stated in the contract, the 24% withholding tax will be deducted directly.