UWSpace Self-Archiving Support

What is self-archiving? 

Self-archiving is the act of depositing a version of a published article into an open access repository, such as an institutional repository, such as UWSpace. 

Self-archiving benefits 

  • If you are unable to make your article openly accessible due to high article processing charges (APCs), most journals allow you to self-archive the author accepted manuscript (AAM) of your work.  
  • Open Access, particularly green open access articles, (open access via self-archiving) tend to: 
    • Receive more citations 
    • Receive citations from a wider range of scholars from varying locations, institutions, and disciplines (Huang et al., 2024) 
  • If you have received a SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR grant from the federal government of Canada, you are required to make either the final published version or the author accepted manuscript openly accessible within 12 months of publication.  
  • Other international funding agencies, such as the NIH in the United States, and the Wellcome Trust, Research Councils, Cancer Research UK in the United Kingdom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also have open access requirements. Keep your funders' open access policies in mind when selecting a journal for the publication of your research. 

Read more about the benefits of self-archiving in the article, Sharing your work by self-archiving by Abigail Goben and Katherine G. Akers. 

Where should I self-archive my work? 

There are a variety of places that authors may consider self-archiving their work, including: 

  • Disciplinary repositories, such as arXiv 
  • Institutional repositories, such as UWSpace 
  • An author's personal website  

We encourage you to submit your work to UWSpace. Review our submission help documentation to learn how to get started. 

For Profit Academic Sites: Various academic social networking sites, such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu, encourage the sharing and reuse of author accepted manuscripts. Please note that several journals and academic publishers do not allow authors to self-archive their work on for-profit sites, so please read your publishing agreement carefully prior to posting (Goben & Akers, 2020). These sites may also not be able to guarantee the preservation of your work. 

Article versions 

Publishing agreements often include instructions on how three different article versions can be shared by the article's author(s). These versions include the pre-print, the author-accepted manuscript, and the publisher's version. 

  • Pre-print (or Author's original manuscript): Version of the article submitted to the journal, prior to peer review, copyediting, or typesetting by the publisher.  
  • Author-Accepted Manuscript (or the post-print): Version of the article that has passed the peer review stage but has not been copyedited or typeset by the publisher. This version may sometimes include watermarks, the peer-reviewer's comments or notes, and/or line counts. 
  • Publisher's Version (or Version of the Record): Final version of the article, published in the journal, after peer review, copyediting, and typesetting. 

Further resources:  

Checking self-archiving policies 

Self-archiving policies can typically be found in your publishing agreement with a journal. This agreement is a contract between the author and the journal used to protect the rights of the author and the journal (PKP, n.d.). If you are unable to locate your publishing agreement, try one of the following strategies listed below: 

  • Sherpa Romeo: Sherpa Romeo by JISC is a website that aggregates self-archiving and open-access policies of many journals and publishers across the globe. See the Sherpa Romeo Help Guide to get started. 
  • Journal Website: If you cannot find your journal or publisher using the Sherpa Romeo tool, go to the journal's website and search for the journal's self-archiving, permissions, or copyright webpages.  
  • Contacting the Publisher: If you are unable to locate the self-archiving policy, contact the publisher directly in writing to request their self-archiving information, or to request permission to deposit a version of your work to an open access repository. 

Creative Commons licences 

Creative Commons Licences work within the bounds of copyright law and allow the author to indicate the ways in which their work can be shared, used, and remixed. Creative Commons Licences are often applied to published Open Access Articles, and occasionally to author accepted manuscripts.  

Questions? 

Contact the UWSpace team using the UWSpace questions and contact form. 

References 

Goben, A., & Akers, K. G. (2020). Sharing your work by self-archiving: encouragement from the Journal of the Medical Library Association. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 108(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2020.877 

Government of Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Office of the Deputy Minister, Communications and Marketing Branch & Communications and Marketing Branch. (2016, December 20). Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2015). https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/interagency-research-funding/policies-and-guidelines/open-access/tri-agency-open-access-policy-publications 

Huang, C., Neylon, C., Montgomery, L., Hosking, R., Diprose, J. P., Handcock, R. N., & Wilson, K. (2024). Open access research outputs receive more diverse citations. Scientometrics, 129(2), 825–845. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04894-0 

Piwowar, H. A., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J. D., & Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, 6, e4375. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375 

Public Knowledge Project. (n.d.). Things to Consider - Student Journal Toolkit. PKP Docs. https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/student-toolkit/en/things-to-consider#publishing-agreements 

University of Cambridge (2020). UK Open access policies. https://www.openaccess.cam.ac.uk/funder-open-access-policies/uk-open-access-policies 

White House (2022). OSTP issues guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/ostp-issues-guidance-to-make-federally-funded-research-freely-available-without-delay/ 

Acknowledgements:  

The content on this page was adapted from YorkSpace Self-Archiving Support, written by Priscilla Carmini and Stephanie Quail, which is licensed under an Attribution 4.0 Creative Commons License.