Authors, who take extra steps after publication by sharing and advertising their work, can help to increase the impact of their publications. One method of increasing a journal article’s audience is to make use of the publisher’s author rights or author posting policies by contributing an Author’s Approved Manuscript (AAM) to an institutional repository.
Placing AAMs in institutional repositories has been shown to increase article citation rates even more than other methods of OA publishing (Young & Brandes, 2020; Zhang & Watson, 2017). Like many repositories, the statistics that authors are provided by USF’s institutional repository, Digital Commons @ USF, give in-depth information on the institution and national origin of readers, effect of social media discussion, and number of times any one work is accessed.
The AAM, sometimes called a Post Print or the Accepted Manuscript, is the version of an article submission that has been officially accepted after updates required by the peer review process. This version is not yet formatted by the publisher in any way, but the text is much the same as it will be in the official published version, or Version of Record, including all the added value of rigorous peer review.
Loading an AAM into a repository will usually require the author to prepare the AAM separately from the publication process, but the pay-off of this work can be substantial. Authors that download or save a copy of the accepted article can remove track changes and reviewer comments. Figure files and title pages will also need to reunited with the manuscript, and any anonymization will need to be undone. Finally, many publishers require a specially formatted citation on an AAM title page that directs users to the published version.
Submitting an AAM to an institutional repository is a method of Open Access (OA), called Green Open Access. Unlike more rigid forms of OA, Green OA allows authors to publish via traditional pathways, where publication of an article is behind a paywall, with the addition of more open access to the AAM in an institutional repository. Green OA is accepted by many research funders, though it sometimes includes an embargo period required by the publisher.
The USF Libraries have a variety of services and experts to help researchers and authors with their AAM and improving research impact that can be accessed on our Scholarly Communications pages.
References
- Young, J. S. & Brandes, P. M. (2020) Green and Gold Open Access Citation and Interdisciplinary Advantage: A bibliometric study of two science journals. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. 46: 102-105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102105
- Zhang, L. & Watson, E. M. (2017) Measuring the Impact of Gold and Green Open Access. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. 43: 337-345. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.06.004