A self-archiving checklist for before submission, before publication, and after paper publication.

Writing a scientific paper is pretty challenging. But there are also a lot of ancillary things to do to ensure that people can access a free-version of your paper, and so that your funders/institutions have a version for them to track impact, and so that your paper gets some publicity! There is so much to keep track of, that I decided to come up with this helpful check-list! I hope others find it helpful. If you think I should include any other tips, then please leave a comment below or email me at: L.MacKenzie1@Leeds.ac.uk

P.S. I know not everyone is a fan of Research Gate or Google Scholar. But if you don't self-archive here, then you are putting your publications at a disadvantage for no real reason.

Before submitting your article to journal(s)

  • Check the journal's self-archiving policies with ROMEO: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php
  • Upload a pre-print to BiorXiv or similar. Get a pre-print DOI.
  • Update your CV with preprint and link to preprint.
  • Upload datasets/software to your institution's Research Data Repository. Get a nice DOI for your datasets/software! For the University of Leeds, this is the Research Data Repository.
  • Tweet about your exciting pre-print!
  • Add your pre-print to your Google Scholar profile. NB: it may take a few weeks for your paper to be indexed by Google Scholar. It may be helpful for you to set up a scholar alert so you know when it has been indexed.

 

After acceptance, but before publication of final version.

  • Add pre-print of article to your personal website with download links.
  • Add pre-print of article to Research Gate.
  • Add pre-print of article to your research group's webpage with links to download.
  • update your CV with "manuscript accepted" and a download link.
  • Tweet about your exciting new paper! 

 

After acceptance, and after publication of final version

  • Add your article to your ORCID profile
  • Add the details of/the final version of your article to Research Gate.
  • Update to version of the article on pre-print server (e.g. BioRxiv)
  • Add your article/pre-print/final version to your personal website.
  • Add your article to your research group's webpage.
  • Update your CV with final details/version and download link.
  • Add your article to your institution's research output repository. For the University of Leeds this is the White Rose repository: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/
  • Add your article to your research funder's repository so that they can track research outcomes and assess impact. This may be a service such as Research Fish.
  • Add your article to your Google Scholar profile. NB: it may take a few weeks for your paper to be indexed by Google Scholar.
  • Tweet about your exciting new paper! Tag funders and institutions. Maybe include a cool picture.