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Open Access

This page contains information on how to determine copyright and open access policies. This information helps understand: how to use or share research, how to use Open policy finder, and how to understand copyright.

Determining Copyright and Publisher Policies

How To Determine Journal Policies

Are you wondering if you can share your published work on your homepage? Or if your institution can archive your published work in a institutional or subject repository? There are several ways to determine a journal or publisher's copyright and open access policies:

  • Publishing agreement - Review your publishing agreement or copyright transfer agreement. Relevant information about sharing your work might be found under section headings like 'Rights Retained By You As Author' or 'Permitted Uses By Contributor'.
  • Publisher or journal website - Check the publisher's or journal's website for copyright or usage webpages. Copyright policies are usually located on pages with titles like: Publishing Policies, Author Guidelines, Copyright Policies, Sharing Policies or sometimes under Frequently Asked Questions. 
  • Open policy finder - Use Open policy finder to determine publisher copyright and open access archiving policies. Open policy finder compiles and summaries policies making them easier to find and understand. They also have a version called Open Access for Books that provides an overview of publishers' book policies.
  • ROARMAP - Use The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) to search their registry of open access mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require or request their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository.

Publishers' policies may change or be unclear; if you're uncertain, check the policies for the publisher/journal you're working with directly.

How to Use Open Policy Finder

Open policy finder is a tool that can be used when researching journals to publish in or when determining how works published in certain journals can be shared. Open policy finder aggregates, summarizes, and includes direct links to journal policies, making it easier to research and compare open access policies and requirements.

A this image shows the process of an article's development through three stages: Preprint, Postprint, and Published. Each stage is represented by an arrow with an icon of a document. Preprint Icon: A document with a pencil writing on it. Text: "Preprint - Work in progress - Submitted version" Postprint Icon: A document with a checkmark. Text: "Postprint - Author-accepted manuscript (AAM)" Published Icon: A document with a checkmark and lines indicating text. Text: "Published - Version of record - PDF / HTML / XML - DOI from journal" The arrows connecting these stages imply the progression from the initial submission to the accepted version, and finally to the published version, with each stage having a different status and format.

Article Versions

When using Open policy finder it is important to know the differences between Published, Accepted, and Submitted versions of scholarly articles:

  • Published Version - This is the version of record published in the journal. It has been through peer review and copy editing, so it will usually contain publisher logos and other enhancements. 
  • Accepted Version - This is the final version of a scholarly work that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by a journal, but before copyediting, so it does not contain the publisher's logos or other enhancements. 
  • Submitted Version - This is the version of a scholarly work prior to formal peer-review.

Locations for Sharing

It is also important to know the differences between institutional repositories, non-profit and preprint repositories, commercial scholarly commons, and other websites:

  • Non-commercial Institutional Repository - A digital library that preserves and disseminates research created by a society, university, or other organization.
    • Example - UDSpace, DASH, EliScholar
  • Funder-designated Repository - A digital library that an organization that sponsors research has specified as the place where authors should deposit any publications that were supported by grant funding from the organization.
    • Example - PubMed Central

Thomas Shafee, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

  • Non-commercial Subject Repository or Preprint Repository - A subject repository is a digital library containing publications pertaining to particular topics. A preprint server is a digital repository that collects and stores author's original manuscripts or submitted manuscripts, which are versions of articles submitted to journals before peer review.
    • Example - arXiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, medRxiv 
  • Named Repository - An officially designated repository for a particular organization or institution.
  • National Repository System - The official, recognized repository of a particular country or group of countries that stores broad scholarly outputs of that nation or nations. 
    • Example - Europe PMC
  • Commercial Scholarly Commons or Scholarly Collaboration Networks - An online platform where researchers can collaborate and share their ideas and research.
    • Example - Figshare, ResearchGate, Academia.edu
  • Author's Homepage - A personal website or a personal website on an employers' website.

Learn More:

Open policy finder glossary

Manuscript detectives – submitted, accepted or published?

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