Contributing Reviewer Agreement for Rapid Reviews: COVID-19

We look forward to publishing your contribution in the form of a review (the “Review”) in a forthcoming issue of Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 (“RRC19”).  Every Review submitted to RRC19 is subject to the following terms and submission to RRC19 signifies your acceptance of these terms. The following terms will become binding upon acceptance of your Review for publication and electronic signature of this form.  

Open Access Publication: Your Review will be published under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license in Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 rapidreviewscovid19.mitpress.mit.edu.  For more information regarding this license, please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Retention of Copyright: You will retain copyright to your Review with the exception of first publication rights in English. To enable the publisher of Rapid Reviews: COVID-19, The MIT Press (“MIT Press”), to effect wide dissemination of your Review under the terms of a CC BY NC license, you agree to the following: 

Rights Reserved by Author: By retaining the copyright to your Review, you are reserving for yourself the right to publish the Review or permit it to be published by other publishers subject to certain anthology and periodical rights given to MIT Press in the following paragraph. Since, with the exception of first publication rights in English, the licenses we require are nonexclusive, they do not prevent you, the author, from giving or selling similar licenses such as abstracting, indexing, translation, reprinting, educational photocopying, electronic reproduction/distribution, and document delivery rights to other publishers. You will ensure that any future publication of the Review authorized by you includes appropriate first publication credit to Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 and the MIT Press. 

Licenses to MIT Press: You hereby grant to the MIT Press exclusive first publication rights in English for your Review, for distribution in all media and formats throughout the world. You acknowledge and agree that publication of your Review may include publication on a standalone basis – e.g. in reprints and in downloads from the MIT Press PubPub website. You hereby authorize us to license the Review in any manner in which we license the contents of any issue of RRC19 generally, with the understanding that all uses are allowed via the terms of distribution of your Review under a CC BY-NC license.     

Editing: The RRC19 editorial office has the right to select and change the title and capsule descriptions of the Review and associated graphics, type style or other optics, as well as edit the language for consistency within the journal. The RRC19 editorial office has the sole discretion to decide whether, when, and how to publish the Review. We shall edit the text to conform to the style that appears to us best suited to the Review. After it has been copy-edited, the Review will be returned to you for your approval. Unless we receive revisions to the copy-edited manuscript within thirty (30) days after we have mailed or emailed it to you, we shall be free to proceed with typesetting and composition. Any substantive revisions you make to the copy-edited manuscript will themselves be subject to copy-editing, and may not increase the word count beyond what is stipulated in the submission guidelines.

Warranties: You represent and warrant that the Review will be an original contribution by you and has not been previously published in the English language, will not infringe upon the personal or proprietary right of any third party, and that you are free to enter into this Agreement and grant the rights you have granted to the MIT Press. In the event any complaint relating to the Review is made by any third party at any time, whether by a formal legal claim or otherwise, you will fully cooperate with the MIT Press in responding to and defending against such complaint or claim and will indemnify the RRC19 editorial office and MIT Press against any loss or damage caused to it by breach of any such representation or warranty.

Miscellaneous: This agreement sets forth the entire agreement of the parties, supersedes all prior communications between them with respect to the subject matter hereof, and may not be altered excerpt in a document signed by both parties.  Your obligations under this agreement are personal and may not be assigned.  This agreement is binding on, and will inure to the benefit of, the parties’ respective heirs, personal representatives, successors, and permitted assigns, and all sublicensees of the MIT Press.  It will be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts applicable to contracts to be wholly performed therein; any action arising out of or related to this agreement must be brought in the state or federal courts in Massachusetts, and the parties hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of such courts.

Multiple Authors: If there is more than one author of the article, the word "you" includes all authors jointly and severally.