Scholarly Publishing

Self-archiving is a form of preservation of a scholarly work and a subset of open access. Self-archiving is where an author deposits a copy of their publication in a repository or hosts it on a website to preserve it long term and provide public access. Often this version of your work will be a pre-print or post-print copy.

Your work will remain preserved with it's original publication for as long as it is supported and available, with the level of access that the publisher has set, so it is not necessary to self-archive. Depending on the publisher access policies this can limit broad access to your work, and has potential to lose availability to your work if the publisher become defunct. Self-archiving in another repository or on a website can allow other avenues of access for your work. While self-archiving does have similar problems as copy store with the publisher copy, multiple copies in various locations is one of the most effective ways to ensure the long-term preservation of a digital work. Self-archived items also need to follow copyright and licensing restrictions

If you are interested in self-archiving your work there are considerations you have to make.

• If you retained the rights to your works you should be able to post a copy where you wish. You should check your publishing licensing agreement to see if there are restrictions related to sharing the version they published with their typesetting.
• If you have signed away your copyrights to the publisher the ability to self-archive becomes more complicated as you have to abide by any restrictions they have put in place and you can only use the rights the publisher grants back to you. Most publishers will allow options to post a version of your article in an institutional repository, subject repository, or on a personal website, though it usually will be a pre-print or post-print version and and not the final published one.
• If your work was published under a Creative Commons (CC) License then you will have more freedom to post and share it elsewhere as long as you abide by the stipulations of the CC License that was used.

When self-archiving it is important to know the difference between the versions of your work. This way you can know what you are able to post based off your copyright and agreements. While there can be many variations of your manuscript in self-archiving policies there are three terms that are important to know:

Pre-Print

A pre-print is the version of your work that you first submitted to the publication prior to it under going peer review. This version is unedited and has not been corrected.

Post-Print

A post-print is the version of your work after it has under gone peer review and has been corrected with required changes needed to be accepted for publication, but it is prior to the final publisher editing and type-setting.

Version of Record/Published Version

This is the final published version of your work with the publisher's branding and formatting. This is the version you will find in the journal, book, or database. It is the simplest version to obtain, but also the version that will have the most restrictions regarding archiving and sharing.

Retrieving a Manuscript

If you kept a copy of the original manuscript you submitted (pre-print), or the version with the peer review edits (post-print), you should be able to use them to self-archive according to the publisher's policies. If you did not retain a copy but submitted within the last 5 years it is possible you may be able to retrieve a copy from their submission systems. The retrieval process will vary from publisher to publisher depending on what systems they are using, but generally you will log into the manuscript submission system on the journal's website and look for your list of submitted manuscripts in the author dashboard.

As part of self-archiving policies many publishers will allow you to share of a copy of your work on your personal website. This usually only allows a pre-print or post-print copy, though it is best to check the publishers policies to know which version can be shared. If you retained your rights or it was published with a Creative Commons License then you have the freedom to post the version you please. These policies are limited to your personal website, which can include both university provided sites and  sites you have independently. This does not include posting on academic social media sites such as Academia.edu or Research Gate. Some publishers have policies for those types of sites, but know that they count legally as neither your own personal website nor as a repository.

An institutional repository is a system designed to store, preserve, and share the scholarly work of researchers of an institution in an open access format following the requirements of copyright laws and policies of the copyright holder. This is a common place to self-archive scholarly works as the majority of publishers include institutional repositories in their self-archiving policies and the repository systems are designed to preserve and share digital materials. This includes systems to embargo works for a time and set access restrictions as needed. Institutional repositories can help archive and share your scholarly published works such as articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and posters, white papers, and other such written materials, as well as other more unique materials such as research data, grant documentation, and other objects. Many universities will use them to provide access to the digital versions of university archival materials as well. What is supported in an institutional repository will vary by institution. Make sure to check your publisher's policies to ensure you are allowed to self-archive in your institutional repository and which version of your work you can archive.

Digital Scholarship @ Tennessee State University - Tennessee State University's institutional repository

As well as institutional repositories a number of organizations have also created discipline and subject specific repositories for works related to their particular fields. Many publisher policies make provisions for sharing in subject repositories and they can be another good location to preserve and share your work. Most subject repositories have similar advantages to institutional repositories and since your work is stored in a system with works related to the same field it can help increase the ability of your work to be found by relevant scholars. There many subject repositories so it is best to identify the most relevant ones to self-archive in. Note that while many publishers have policies about subject repositories not all do, so you should check the publisher policy. Policies in regards to subject repositories are not necessarily the same as the policies for institutional repositories.

Disciplinary Repositories - A listing of subject repositories kept by Simmons University

PubMed Central - The federal repository and database of biomedical and life sciences journal literature kept by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

ArXiv - An open access subject repository which contains preprints the disciplines of:  physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics

BioRxiv - An open access subject repository which contains preprints for biology

PubAg - The federal repository of agricultural research and information kept by the Department of Agriculture

CDC Stacks - The federal repository of scientific research and literature produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Sherpa Romeo - A database that tracks publisher and journal copyright and self-archiving policies

Open DOAR - A database of vetted open access repositories from around the world across a number of disciplines

Pre-prints, post-prints, and publisher's PDF explained - A short document explaining the different versions of your work, how to find each, and when you are able share them

Direct2AAM: Helping Authors Find Author Accepted Manuscripts - A guide to locating a copy of your accepted manuscripts

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