Scholarly Publishing: Institutional Repositories

Institutional repositories are open access, electronic archives of manuscripts and articles written by the researchers at specific institutions. Unlike the traditional publishing model, these repositories allow researchers to retain their copyrights to their manuscripts. However, institutional repositories rely largely on voluntary contributions of papers at individual institutions. Decisions regarding contributing articles to an institutional archive may be driven by policies of grant funders, institutional policies, and journal policies.  

In November 2012, Himmelfarb Library launched a new institutional repository called Health Sciences Research Commons. The repository is intended to serve as a place for you to preserve and share your work with colleagues here at GW, and with the scholarly community at large. 

Many publishing agreements stipulate that you may only archive a specific version of a publication in an institutional repository.  These versions may include: 

Pre-Prints: “Pre-print” refers to an original version of a manuscript that is submitted to a journal for publication, before it has gone through the peer review process.

Post-Prints:  “Post-print” or “Accepted Manuscript” drafts have gone through peer review and have incorporated all revisions.

Version of Record: The publisher’s version, also known as the Version of Record, is the final version of an article after it has gone through typesetting and final copyediting by the publisher. This version is usually not permitted to be archived in an institutional repository.

For information on which version you can archive, consult the SHERPA/RoMEO website which provides information on publisher copyright and self-archiving policies. Also consult your publisher to ensure that these guidelines are up-to-date.