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Even when exploitation rights are transferred to the publisher, in most cases you do not have to retain the copyright in order to self-archive your articles. 93 per cent of the 8,603 journals surveyed so far by EPrints.org allow their authors to self-archive (source: ). The Copyright Knowledge Bank database is an extension of the SHERPA/RoMEO database of publishers’ self-archiving policies, and contains information on more than 130 leading publishers, including those who publish Open Access journals. Both of these resources should provide the information you need to find out the copyright and self-archiving policies of journals and publishers, and to act on them.
You must check which version of your work the publisher allows you to self-archive; for example, terms such as ‘pre-print’ and ‘post-print’ are sometimes understood differently by publishers and the academic community. Many publishers stipulate that only the author’s version of the post-print can be self-archived so you should always keep your own version, with your own additions and revisions in place, for this purpose. Do not delete it once you have been sent the publisher’s PDF of your article; despite appearing to be the ‘final’ version, this is often not the one you are allowed to self-archive. In the OA world, publishers and journals are colour-coded according to the degree to which their self-archiving policies are liberal or restrictive; a ‘green’ journal allows self-archiving of both post-prints and pre-prints, for example. This colour-coding is used in both the Copyright Knowledge Bank and SHERPA/RoMEO database, and is well known in the scholarly communications community, including publishers.
Other restrictions on self-archiving
Be conscious of certain other conditions and restrictions the publisher may have imposed on self-archiving, some of which are less of a hindrance than others. Typical conditions which may not, in practice, be any impediment to self-archiving include the requirement to acknowledge the copyright holder of the work and the journal to which it was submitted. Restrictions are more problematic as they may prevent an author from self-archiving work in the long-term and could include a stipulation to remove the pre-print on publication of the post-print, or the imposition of an embargo, typically of 6-12 months, before work can be self-archived. You may also be required to self-archive only in a specific digital repository, such as PubMed Central (the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature). None of this should be an impediment to conducting your own investigation into the possibilities of self-archiving your work, using the Copyright Knowledge Bank as a starting point, or for your institution to develop a clear policy on self-archiving. Remember that the vast majority of journals allow you to self-archive in one form or another, letting you reap the benefits of the liberal access associated with OA, without necessarily abandoning traditional routes or compromising your relationship with publishers.
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