Self-archiving

Self-archiving is one way to publish openly and take social responsibility for the dissemination of research results. At the University of Helsinki, HELDA serves as an open full text repository and open access publishing platform.
Self-archiving options for researcher

Self-archiving refers to the open access storage of a publication in an organisation’s publication archive in compliance with the terms of the publisher. Most publishers allow the final version of a peer-reviewed manuscript submitted to the publisher, final draft, to be deposited in the organisation repository. Researchers affiliated with the University self-archive their scientific articles in the University’s Open Access repository Helda via the research information system TUHAT. 

As a researcher at the University of Helsinki, you can:

  1. Use the library’s self-archiving service. Email the final peer-reviewed manuscript submitted to the publisher to the library: openaccess@helsinki.fi.
  2. Alternatively, you can self-archive your publications yourself to the digital repository Helda through the research information system TUHAT.

We remind the University of Helsinki researchers, if the self-archiving is lacking. The library transfers most of the publications directly from various databases, but not all publications can be harvested from the web. 
1. Do you want to use self-archiving service?

University of Helsinki researcher, send author´s accepted manuscript file to be deposited in the library:
openaccess@helsinki.fi

Please, attach also publication information (title / number) to come.

We will find out publishing policy and conditions. If you are unsure which version of your publication you are entitled to self-archive, send all versions to us.

  • If you have research funding from the Research Council of Finland (from 2021 onward), please include this information in to your message.
  • You can submit parts of your publicatio, e.g., text, images and tables, as separate files for archiving.
  • Concerning subject specific repositories such as arXiv, we ask you to send the link to the published version.
2. Do it yourself
  • The version to upload is either the final accepted manuscript (after peer-review, before the publisher’s typesetting) or publisher´s pdf.
  • Check from Open Policy Finder database publishers´ self-archiving policy which version can be self-archived and if there is an embargo period.
  • Save the final draft version (usually AAM), or ask it from the corresponding author.
  • If the publication is peer-reviewed, also the self-archived version must include the changes made after peer-review.
  • Articles published in open access journals should also be self-archived in the University of Helsinki’s repository to ensure their long-term storage.
  • The University recommends using a current version of the Creative Commons license unless the publisher or funder requires otherwise.

These instructions take notice of alignments for Open Science defined by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

All questions regarding open access publishing, please contact email: openaccess@helsinki.fi. The library can also take care of the self-archiving and check the policies on your behalf.

Publisher´s pdf 

Published article, final publisher´s version with the layout

  • Alternative terminology: publisher´s pdf, final published article, publisher's version, Version of Record (Vor)
  • Primarily self-archived version if publisher approves self-archiving into the institutional open access repository.

Post-print

Version of manuscript, improved and corrected by the peer-reviewing. Publisher´s layout and page numbers excluded

  • Alternative terminology: final draft, accepted article, Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM), author's post-print
  • Secondary option in case the publisher does not approve open access self-archiving of the publisher´s pdf. The most common case.

Pre-print

Manuscript before peer-review

  • Alternative terminology: submitted version, author-submitted article, pre-refereed, author’s draft
  • Usually pre-prints are not deposited to TUHAT

Proof

The version of an accepted manuscript that includes final layout and other specifications from the publisher 

  • Alternative terminology: revised version
  • Proof version is not suitable for self-archiving.

You can check the publishers´ policy from Open Policy Finder.

NB! Citations should always refer to original publications not the self-archived version. If you wish to link to self-arhcived version, use the permanent identifier (URN, handle).

The University of Helsinki’s theses (bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral dissertations) are published openly in the Helda publication archive unless there are reasonable grounds for doing otherwise.

For copyright reasons, often only the summarising report of an article-based thesis is published in the repository. This is why you should self-archive your publications regarding the publisher´s open access (green oa) policy and conditions. You can self-archive the publications (pdf files) yourself to research information system TUHAT or send them to the library´s deposit service (email: openaccess@helsinki.fi).

It is recommended to use the Creative Commons CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND licence.