FIU Digital Project Guidelines and Help Materials

Pre-Print: This is the original version submitted to the journal. It has not gone through the review process and it has no publisher formatting.

Post-Print: Also known as an Author’s Accepted Manuscript, this is the version of the manuscript that has undergone peer review and the requested changes have been made and accepted. There is no publisher formatting on this copy.

Publisher PDF: This is the version that has been published and can be found on the publisher’s website.

Rights Checking for Repository Content

1. Examine the actual document. Copyright information can typically be found on the published article itself. Look for © All Rights Reserved, © The Authors, CC-BY licenses, or other statements regarding copyright. When a Creative Commons licenses is used redistribution is allowed according to the terms of the license. It is important to check each article because publishers may use a hybrid model of publishing, meaning some content is open access/licensed under creative commons while other content is not.  
2. If you are unsure about the copyright information on the physical article, there are tools that can assist you in determining the publisher’s policy for archiving in an institutional repository.
   1. Sherpa/Romeo – Use Sherpa/Romeo to search by journal title/ISSN or by Publisher Name. Sherpa/Romeo records provide a host of information including restrictions on the use of publisher pdfs and post-prints, required metadata to accompany archived documents, or embargo periods. This type of information can be found in the General Conditions section. This section is the most important and provides you with the most information. The publisher’s copyright statements are usually linked to in the copyright section, if you require further clarification directly from the publisher's website.

Sample Sherpa Record:

3. Contact the Publisher. If it is still unclear from the article or the information provided in Sherpa/Romeo whether or not you can post the article in the IR, visit the journal’s homepage. Information about posting in an IR can usually be found in information about submissions or portions of the site targeted for the author. If the website provides no indication about their archiving policy for author’s, contact the publisher directly. You can use this sample form letter:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to request permission to deposit an electronic copy of the article

Gebelein, J. 2003. “Astronaut-Acquired Photography of Earth: Its History and Continued Applicability in Quantitative Analyses,” Journal of Space Communications, Issue 3

into our institutional repository Digital Commons.  We are working with Dr. Jennifer Gebelein at FIU to archive her work in Digital Commons and would like to have an open access, electronic copy of this research available.

Digital Commons is an institutional repository for FIU academic research, both pre-and post-publication, that serves as an archive of research from our faculty.  It is a non-profit service, designed to showcase the work of academics at this university, and no charge is made for the use of any of the material deposited there.

Should your response be a yes, would your agreement be limited to this instance only, or can we assume that this granting of reproduction permission reflects a policy that we could apply to other articles from academics at this institution who have also published in this journal?

Yours sincerely,

Jill Krefft

Institutional Repository Coordinator

Florida International University

Posting Pre and Post Prints in the Repository

Publishers typically require some statement regarding the original published version of the article. The publishers may require a DOI, citation, or other information to be placed on the record for the alternate version of the published article. Make sure to follow the publisher’s requirements, including embargos, when posting.

This statement typically covers the majority of requirements by publishers across the board. In the comments section include the following statement:

[Post Print or Pre Print] Version.

Copyright © 2012 Springer.

The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at http//dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185X.2011.00208.x

Posting Works with a Creative Commons License

Select a Creative Commons license from the Drop Down menu on the Creative Commons License Section of the article submission form in Digital Commons. Make sure you have selected the same version (ie 2.0, 3.0 etc) that the article is published under:

Rights Statement

Use the Rights Statement dropdown to select the appropriate Rights Statement for the article. Review the publisher's policy or the Creative Commons License to choose the appropriate Rights Statement.

DOI

In addition, add the DOI in the DOI field. This is important for all content, whether it is a post print or the version of record because the DOI is pulled onto the cover sheets of all content.

Recommended Citation

Always include a custom citation in the Recommended Citation Section of the submission form. Recommended citations may be found on the article itself, through the publisher's site, or for content in PubMed on the record for the article.