Publication versions
Which version to deposit in Spiral
The version, refers to the stage in the publication life cycle a publication has reached.
When uploading a paper to Spiral, you will be asked to select one of the milestone versions below.
The Versions project recommends that authors save these milestone versions. The Versions toolkit (PDF) gives further information on versions, file naming and publishing agreements.
To ensure that Spiral remains copyright-safe and contains high quality research papers, you should upload a peer-reviewed version.
If the publisher permits it, upload the final published PDF, if not, choose the accepted version, corrected after peer-review.
By uploading the accepted or published version of your paper you are meeting the College’s open access mandate.
Milestone versions
| Version | Description | Who is the copyright holder? |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Early version circulated as a work in progress | You are the copyright holder |
| Submitted | Version submitted to a journal for publication and/or peer review | You are the copyright holder but the publisher may control your use of this version once you have signed their publishing agreement |
| Accepted | Author-created version incorporating referee and/or editorial comments as accepted for publication | At acceptance you transfer or exclusively license copyright in the accepted manuscript to the publisher. The signed publishing agreement now determines what you can and can't do with the accepted version of your paper. Many publishers request a delay of 12 months in making this version publicly available in an open access repository. |
| Published | The publisher-created published version (PDF) | Copyright in this version will be either assigned or exclusively licensed to the publisher. Read your publishing agreement to determine if you can deposit a copy of the published version of your ppaer to an open access repository. This is more common where you have paid an open access fee. |
| Updated | A version updated since publication | Check publishing agreement |
Publishers and Sherpa Romeo use different terminology for versions. This table shows how these can be mapped to the Spiral terminology.
Version terminology
| Spiral | Sherpa Romeo | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Published version | Post-print | Publisher version/PDF |
| Accepted version | Post-print | Pre-print |
| Submitted version | Pre-print | Pre-print |