Most articles in DORA can be made freely accessible to everyone without any additional costs, neither for you as the author, nor for the reader (Green Road to Open Access). This gets you a wider audience to increase your research impact and facilitates compliance with Open Access policies of research funders. However, it can be a bit tricky to choose the right version of your work to share. Here we outline the different versions of your article, each version corresponding to the different stages of the peer review and publication process.
The archived digital publication is a secondary publication, mostly the accepted version, in addition to the published version (also called version of record) in traditional, subscription-based journals. Most publishers allow this green road to OA. The majority of academic journals provide a summary of permissions. They are usually part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement and can be checked at the Open policy finder.
There are three distinct versions that authors should become familiar with when submitting their work to DORA:
The submitted version is the author’s original manuscript that has been submitted to a journal for consideration for publication. Like the accepted version, the submitted version does not contain any layout or copy editing done by the publisher in preparation for publication.
The submitted version of a manuscript can also be published as a preprint. See our dedicated preprint page about the advantages - but also the risks to consider - when publishing a preprint. While submitted versions and preprints cannot contain the formatting and copy editing done by a journal, you are free to format these manuscripts yourself to increase readability and accessibility by readers. This can attract more readers for your preprint and increase its visibility.
The accepted version is your final manuscript, that has been accepted for publication by the editor. It contains all revisions made during the peer review process. As for the submitted version (see above), the publisher has not yet started any copy-editing or typesetting in preparation for publication of the manuscript.
If you article will not be published Open Access with a CC licence, the accepted manuscript is your chance to implement Open Access via the Green Road. You can just wait until we contact you after we posted your published manuscript on DORA. If the published manuscript is not Open Access, you will receive an automatic email asking you to provide us with the accepted manuscript.
Once we receive the accepted version of your publication:
And feel free to format your accepted manuscript in a way that improves readability for readers. As mentioned above for the submitted version/preprint, formatting your manuscript will make it more attractive and increase the number of readers of your research work.
Some publishers also allow the self-archiving of book chapters as well; and some allow it as soon as you ask them. Have a look at the conditions some publishers have set or insist on the allowance for archiving in DORA to increase your visibility even further!
The published version is the final version of your article produced by the publisher with the journal's typeset and branding. In the digital environment, the published version is usually a PDF available through the publisher’s website, although for some online publications, the published version may be in HTML or other web-compatible file formats. Only a small number of publishers will allow this version to be made Open Access, even after an embargo. A few publishers, however, do allow this and we will make the published version of these articles Open Access in DORA on your behalf.
