Policies for JTRP Technical Reports

Clearances and Copyrighted Material

Authors must secure necessary clearances and written permissions for publication from any contracting or supervisory agencies involved in the research or from holders of copyrights on material used in the report. Authors must have agreement from coauthors or coworkers before submitting reports for publication by JTRP, and all contributions to the work must be properly acknowledged.

Authors are required to secure all permissions in a manuscript. When drafting a report manuscript, authors should keep track of any material that may require permission. Authors should begin requesting permission from the copyright holders of the material as soon as possibly—before a final draft is submitted. Obtaining permissions can take months, and PUP cannot send reports into production until all permissions have been received. As part of a final submission, authors will need to submit copies of the granting of all required permissions. If at any point you have a question, please contact the JTRP Production Editor.

Copyright on JTRP reports is retained by author(s). As part of the report submission process, author(s) grant a non-exclusive license to publish JTRP reports. Authors are free to publish material elsewhere, but permission from the JTRP Director should be requested.

Patent/Intellectual Property Embargo Policy

Authors who wish to delay publication of their JTRP technical report while they investigate filing a patent application must send this request to the JTRP Production Editor. Upon receipt of the request, Purdue University Scholarly Publishing will agree to delay publication for 3 months. During this 3-month embargo, the author is expected to contact Purdue Research Foundation’s Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC)disclosure form to the OTC. At the conclusion of the 3-month embargo period, JTRP editorial staff will contact the OTC to confirm that the author has filed the disclosure form and is working with OTC to complete the process. Purdue University Scholarly Publishing will continue to embargo the report and will not publish until it receives confirmation from OTC that it is safe to do so. If the author has failed to contact the OTC at the conclusion of the initial 3-month embargo, Purdue University Scholarly Publishing will end the embargo and publish the report on Purdue e-Pubs.

Alternative Text

In order to ensure published reports can be used and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, alternative (alt) text is required for all photos, drawings, charts, graphs, equations, etc. Alt text is a concise (25-30 word) visual description of an image used by screen readers that enable people to listen to a publication rather than read it.

Once a report manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors should provide alt text for all figures in their work. Supplying alt text is a mandatory responsibility of the authors, and no work will be published without it.

More information about alt text and best practices for writing is available at Purdue’s LibGuide on Accessibility, as well as the Federal government’s Section 508 site.

Version: 21 January 2026