Self-archiving policy
Abstract
Your self-archiving policy should allow dissemination of the article preprint version at any time, the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) after acceptance, and/or the Version of Record (VoR) after publication in a repository of the authors' choice.
Main Text
Self-archiving refers to the act of authors depositing a free copy of an electronic document in a repository/archive in order to provide open access to it. The term often refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, as well as theses and dissertations, book chapters, and other research outputs in the author’s institutional repository or disciplinary or general purpose repository (e.g. Zenodo) for the purpose of maximizing availability, visibility, usage, and citation impact (Self-archiving, OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit). Repositories are digital platforms that hold research output and provide free, immediate and permanent access to research results for anyone to use, download and share (Repository (open access repository), OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit).
Diamond OA journals and publishers should encourage rather than prevent the free circulation of knowledge and accept the submissions of preprints that are already available. They should allow the deposit of any version of the published work in open repositories of authors’ choice, before or after the publication. If the journal or publisher uses a CC BY license, and/or if they have a policy allowing authors to retain publishing rights, the right to deposit and share is already granted to the authors.
Diamond OA journals and publishers can re-use the model wording below to develop their self-archiving policy:
Authors can deposit preprints (versions before peer review) at any time, Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) after acceptance, and/or Versions of Record (VoRs) after publication in a repository of the authors' choice (e.g. an institutional, disciplinary and general-purpose repository. etc.).
Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and links must be made to the article's DOI and the license.
Tips:
- Diamond OA journals and publishers could let authors decide on the license used when depositing their content, or recommend their preferred license.
- Authors should be recommended or required to deposit all supplementary materials (e.g. research data), and provide links between those deposits.
- Authors should be reminded to update the records of previously deposited versions with links to newer versions.
- Authors should be informed that sharing through academic networks and social media is not equal to the benefits of repositories. Repositories are usually non-profits, open and interoperable and ensure long-term preservation and access. See more details here: A social networking site is not an open access repository.
Related toolsuite articles
Related guidelines and training materials
References
- OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit. Self- archiving https://oabooks-toolkit.org/glossary/article/3681612-self-archiving
- OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit. Repository https://oabooks-toolkit.org/glossary/article/1519672-repository-open-access-repository
- University Of California, Office of Scholarly Communication. A social networking site is not an open access repository https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/12/a-social-networking-site-is-not-an-open-access-repository/
Further reading
Consortium of the DIAMAS project. (2024). The Diamond OA Standard (DOAS). Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.12179619
Licensing
This article is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License