Scholarly Publishing

The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy is effective July 1, 2025. It requires Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication in a journal on or after July 1, 2025, to be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication, for public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication. On the effective date, this policy replaces the previous 2008 Public Access Policy, which provided for an embargo of up to twelve months on the PubMed Central copy of the article.

Publishers often make distinctions between three primary versions of an article when referring to the self-archiving or deposit rights retained by authors (e.g. Green open access). 

• Pre-print – A pre-print is the original version of the manuscript as it is submitted to a journal. While the authors may have sought help from their colleagues in selecting data analysis techniques, improving manuscript clarity, and correcting grammar, a pre-print version has usually not been through a formal process of peer review. A paper will typically look like a double spaced document with minimal or plain formatting.  Some publishers will use the term Author’s Original Manuscript or Original Manuscript when referring to a pre-print version.
   
• Postprint – A postprint is a paper that has been through the peer review process and the author has incorporated reviewers’ comments into a new version.  It is the final version of the paper before it is sent off to the journal for final publication, but it will not be formatted to look like the journal. It may still look like a double spaced document.  Some publishers will use the term Author’s Accepted Manuscript or Accepted Manuscript to refer to a postprint version.  Often, publishers will place restrictions or embargos on placing postprint versions in an institutional or subject repository.  They may also place required statements that you will need to add to the place where you place your postprint.
   
• Publisher’s version/Publisher’s PDF/Published Article – This is the formal, published version of a paper.  It will be formatted differently from a plain document as it has been professionally typeset by the publisher.  Library databases will usually link to this version of the paper.

Open access publishing, refers to making scholarly and research information freely available to the public online, without financial, legal, or technical barriers. The practice is based on open publishing models such as gold open access, green open access, and repositories. The followings are selected examples:

Federal government

• BMC open access publishing in biology, health and medicine
• NSF Public Access Repository: Focuses on publications and peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from National Science Foundation (NSF) grants.
• PubMed Central: A free archive of biomedical and life sciences literature, primarily from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 

Preprints

• arXiv: An online archive of non-peer-reviewed scholarly articles in STEM and social science disciplines
• medRxiv: A collection of unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in medical, clinical, and health sciences
• SSRN: A commercial platform for working papers in various fields

Disciplinary repositories

• AgEcon Search: An online database of papers in applied economics
• Humanities Commons: An OA repository for the Humanities
• Directory of Open Access Preprint Repositories for disciplines

Open repository directories 

• Directory of Open Access Preprint Repositories
• re3data (Registry of Research Data Repositories)
• ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories)
• OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)