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Open access: Preprints

Preprints

A preprint (submitted version) is the version of an article that is ready to be submitted to a publisher but has not yet undergone peer review. Since the publication process is often slow, sharing preprints has become important for faster research visibility and dissemination. The intention is to receive early feedback from other researchers, speed up the formation of possible collaborations, and make research more transparent.

For sharing preprints, many preprint servers are available. Sharing preprints is free, and most servers assign the preprint a permanent identifier, such as a DOI, so it can be cited. Many journals allow citation of preprints in the same way as peer-reviewed articles.

Sharing preprints is especially important in natural sciences, technology, and economics, but in recent years, its popularity has increased also in psychology, social sciences, and humanities.


Preprints change the publishing process:

How to proceed:

  1. Before sharing a preprint, carefully check the preprint guidelines of any journals you intend to publish in using Sherpa/Romeo. Some journals require submitted articles to be “entirely new” and without shared preprints. Journals may also have guidelines for the preprint's license and choice of preprint server.
  2. Choose an appropriate preprint server (see options to the right).
  3. License your preprint to ensure that copyright remains with you and that others can reuse your work. Read more about licenses in the section Open Licenses (Creative Commons). Note that the preprint may have a different license than the finished article!
  4. Consider whether you simultaneously want to share related data. In that case, remember to link to the data in the preprint! Some preprint servers also offer data storage.
  5. Including metadata such as keywords increases the visibility of the preprint.
  6. Ensure the preprint is complete in every way before submission. Shared preprints cannot be deleted! In exceptional situations, a preprint can be withdrawn, but in these cases, information about the preprint's title, authors, and reason for withdrawal remains.
  7. When submitting the manuscript to the publisher: Ensure that the final article will link back to the preprint. Check if the journal does this automatically; otherwise, add a footnote with a link to the preprint in your manuscript.
  8. Once the manuscript is published: Ensure the preprint links to the final article. Some preprint servers automatically generate a link to the published article; otherwise, check with the server on how to add the link.
     

Please note:

Sharing preprints is encouraged by many funders but usually does not alone meet their OA requirements. Note that preprints are also not considered OA under the Ministry of Education and Culture's current funding model, as a preprint is not peer-reviewed.


Read more in A Practical Guide to Preprints

 

Preprint servers

When choosing a preprint server, primarily consider to whom the article is directed and ensure the server has good service levels. The following features characterize reliable preprint servers:

  • Permanent identifiers, e.g., DOI (the preprint can thus be cited)

  • Quality control (e.g., plagiarism check)

  • Guarantee of long-term server availability (good archiving policy)

  • Open licensing (Creative Commons)

  • Indexing in search engines (e.g., Google Scholar)

  • Versioning (when uploading an updated version, it links to the previous version)

     

Multidisciplinary preprint servers:

 

Examples of subject-specific preprint servers:

 

Databases of preprint servers:

This guide by Åbo Akademi University Library is licensed under CC BY 4.0