Journal articles and conference papers
To be compliant with the Research Excellence Framework (REF), most funder open access (OA) policies and the University Research Publication Policy (RPP) (DOCX - 100 KB), you should upload the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to Pure as soon as you receive it.
What is the author-accepted manuscript?
Sometimes referred to as the “final-author version”, “final manuscript” or “post-print”, the AAM is the version of your manuscript that has:
- Been peer reviewed.
- Been formally accepted for publication.
- Not yet had the publishers final layout and typesetting applied.
Publishers will usually send the corresponding author a copy of the AAM (often as a Word document or LaTeX file) before a copyright transfer or licence to publish is completed.
The diagram below illustrates where in the publishing process the AAM emerges. The process typically follows the following steps:
- Submit article (pre-print) to journal
- Peer-review
- Edit, return to Peer review, or,
- Publisher accepts revisions, agrees final version of text and sends a version to the author. This is the Author Accepted Manuscript.
At this point the transfer of copyright occurs (or an exclusive licence to publish is granted to the publisher)
- The manuscript is copyedited and typeset. While proofs may be shared with the author, copyright or licensing arrangements mean they cannot be made open access via a repository
- Version of record is published online and in print. This version cannot be made open access via a repository, unless it has been published open access.
Image reused under CC BY 4.0 Rhev Lutchman, City University London.
Other versions of the article
You are welcome to upload other versions of an article to Pure, but please bear in mind that these will not usually be compliant with the REF and other funder policies either because they have not been peer-reviewed (pre-prints) or agreements may prevent us making them openly accessible, such as the Version of Record (VoR) that appears on the publisher website.
Following publication, the library will make the VoR openly accessible on Pure where permitted, for example, if it is published OAs under a suitable licence. However, even if you believe the VoR will be OA, please always upload the AAM to avoid any issues with REF compliance should OA publication be delayed.
Research monographs and chapters
In some cases, the publication process for long-form outputs will be similar to that detailed above for journal articles and a clearly defined AAM will be provided to an author. In those cases, that AAM should be uploaded to Pure.
However, particularly for full research monographs, there may be more revisions and more document versions that go back and forth following the formal peer-review process. For the purposes of the Research Publications Policy, the version that is deposited in Pure should be the final post-review manuscript the author receives and understands to include all final corrections, prior to typesetting and production.
It is acceptable for authors to make minor amendments to the document uploaded to Pure to reflect any further final textual changes that emerge during the production process. This includes uploading a revised version of the post-review manuscript to Pure if necessary.