Sharing and hosting policy FAQs
Introduction
These FAQs are based on feedback from researchers and the wider academic community. If you have further questions or feedback, please contact us via the Permissions Helpdesk Support Center opens in new tab/window.
Sharing policy
Green open access (also termed self-archiving) is the result of making a version of a subscription article available to everyone, following a time delay called an embargo period. Our sharing policy gives authors guidelines about how they can do this and also how to share their articles in other ways. For example, they may want to share their latest paper with colleagues, students or other members of an online working group.
Every author who publishes with us retains important rights, including the right to share their paper for personal use, for example, through e-mail to known research colleagues for internal use at their institution. The sharing policy is aligned with these author rights and provides additional explanations around ways authors can share their research, for example, on their institutional repository.
Private sharing is about the audience, for example, sharing with a colleague or with an invitation-only online group. Mendeley, for example, is one platform that provides support for both private group sharing and public sharing. Visit the Mendeley Support Center opens in new tab/window for more details.
Preprint: The author's own write-up of their research results and analysis that has not been peer-reviewed, nor had any other value added to it by a publisher (such as formatting, copy-editing, technical enhancements, etc.).
Accepted manuscript: The version of an article that has been accepted for publication. It typically includes changes resulting from publisher checks and screening for integrity and other factors, the peer review process and editorial assessment. It does not include additional publisher value-added contributions such as copy-editing, formatting, machine-readable linking, technical enhancements and, if relevant, pagination.
Published journal article: This is the definitive final record of published research that appears in the journal and embodies all value-adding publisher activities including peer review co-ordination, copy-editing, formatting, pagination (if relevant) and online enrichment.
For information on sharing Articles in Press, please see the below FAQ: ‘Can I share Articles in Press?'
Preprints can be shared anytime and anywhere by authors. We encourage authors seeking to publish in Cell Press, The Lancet and some society-owned titles to check the author section on the journal homepage for additional information.
In line with our sharing policy, authors can share their preprints anytime and anywhere, and we encourage them to do so. We also offer Elsevier authors an automated process to share their preprint on our own preprint server SSRN opens in new tab/window.
You can find the embargo period information for all Elsevier journals on the journal homepage or, alternatively, refer to our list of embargo periods opens in new tab/window. The embargo period begins from the date the article is formally published online in its final and fully citable form (i.e., online publication date).
Elsevier has a number of funding body agreements in place to help authors publishing in our journals to comply with their funder or institutional open access policies. Please find more details on specific open access agreements.
Yes. Authors may share their Accepted Manuscripts immediately in their institutional repository for internal institutional uses. After the embargo period opens in new tab/window, manuscripts can be shared in the author’s institutional repository publicly, as well.
Our journal specific embargo periods are evidence-based and typically range from 12-24 months. There are, however, exceptions which can be both longer and shorter than 12-24 months. Ideally, embargo periods should be set on a title-by-title basis by publishers. We recognize, however, that other stakeholders — in particular, funders — would prefer adjusted embargo lengths. We have worked in partnership with funding bodies for many years on open access, and are committed to continued collaboration.
Articles in Press should be treated the same as published journal articles, as per our sharing and hosting policies. Articles in Press are made available on ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window as we finalize the publication process. Articles in Press are not Accepted Manuscripts and, instead, more closely resemble the final published journal article.
There are three stages opens in new tab/window of Articles in Press:
Journal pre-proofs: Versions of an article that have undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability. These versions will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before being published in final form.
Uncorrected proofs: Articles that have been copy edited and formatted. They still need to be proof-read and corrected by the author(s).
Corrected proofs: Articles that contain the author(s)' corrections. Final citation details, for example, volume and/or issue number, publication year and page numbers, still need to be added and the text might change before final publication.
When the final published article is made available online, it replaces the Article in Press version, which no longer appears.
A Creative Commons non-commercial license opens in new tab/window must be applied to publicly posted Accepted Manuscripts to ensure that readers understand how they can reuse the version of article they are accessing. We have provided some easy guidance on how to attach a user license.
A Creative Commons opens in new tab/window (CC) license is an end-user license that provides a simple, standardized way for researchers to give their permission for their work to be shared and used. A license tells readers what they can and can’t do with an article and ensures authors get credit for their work.
Authors publishing open access have a choice of three Creative Commons (CC) licenses: CC BY (“Attribution”), CC BY-NC (“Attribution-NonCommercial”) and CC BY-NC-ND (“Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives”). Find out more about the CC licenses opens in new tab/window. Our licensing page also provides more details.
Authors who have received public funding and choose to publish open access with Elsevier are offered a choice of three CC licenses. We are unable to offer this choice when authors self-archive subscription manuscripts and instead request they use a non-commercial CC BY-NC-ND license.
Self-archiving the accepted manuscript must work in harmony with the pay-to-read (subscription) business model and subscriptions are important for the sustainability of many journals, so the use of a non-commercial CC license is in place as an important safeguard.
This Creative Commons license allows anyone to reuse your accepted manuscript for non-commercial purposes. In general, the license permits users to read, print and download it, and redistribute or display it, such as in a repository. Readers can download your article for text and data mining purposes and translate it for their own private use only; they cannot share these adaptations of the original work with others. Users must give appropriate credit opens in new tab/window, provide a link to the CC BY-NC-ND opens in new tab/window license and indicate if any changes were made, but may not do so in a way that suggests you or the publisher have endorsed the user or their use of your work.
Users may reuse all, or unaltered portions or extracts (including tables), of the article for non-commercial purposes (including non-commercial teaching) only. Uses such as posting on commercial websites or selling the manuscript are not allowed.
If you are unsure, contact the Permissions Helpdesk opens in new tab/window.
Full details about this license can be found from the Creative Commons website opens in new tab/window and also on our licensing page.
Sample publishing agreements are available to download in English, French and Spanish at the end of Elsevier’s Copyright policy page.
It is important to make sure that readers and users can find and cite the final version of your article from ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window. The way to do this is to include the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) link in your posted article. A DOI is a standardized method for identifying an electronic object, and you can easily find your DOI under the title of your article.
To convert a DOI to a Web address, add the following URL to the DOI: https://dx.doi.org/ followed by your DOI number. We recommend you include this information to your title page or header/footer.
No, Elsevier does not view publication as an academic thesis as prior publication. Please note that Cell Press, The Lancet and some society-owned titles have different policies on prior publication.
For further information on Elsevier’s prior publication policy please see: Policies and Ethics for Journal Authors (Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication). Please also see “I’ve seen this somewhere before!” What counts as prior publication?(Elsevier Connect)
Elsevier supports sharing of articles in private work groups on various platforms, such as Mendeley. Please contact Permissions Helpdesk Support Center opens in new tab/window to verify whether the platform or application you would like to use meets these criteria.
Yes. Corporate researchers may share articles they have written in line with the sharing policy. However, it should be noted that author’s rights in their own work do not extend to their employer. Corporate researchers should check the terms of their organization’s license agreements for guidance on how to share other articles access via ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window (and other Elsevier platforms).
A small number of authors may have circumstances where special copyright conditions apply. If you believe this is the case for your article, please email us opens in new tab/window and explain your specific case.
Hosting policy
We believe we should be working with other platforms that host content to build best practices and industry standards, so that researchers can share in simple and seamless ways. Our hosting policy aims to give clear guidelines for platforms that wish to aggregate content self-archived by researchers and make it available.
In the context of our hosting policy, commercial use or posting of articles can be defined as follows:
For commercial gain. For example, to receive advertising revenue from the use of the full-text of the article, by providing hosting services to other repositories or to other organizations (including where an otherwise non-commercial site or repository provides a service to other organizations or agencies), or by charging fees for document delivery or access.
To substitute for the services provided directly by the journal. For example: article aggregation, systematic distribution via e-mail lists or share buttons, posting, indexing or linking for promotional/marketing activities by commercial companies for use by customers and/or intended target audience of such companies (e.g., pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals/physician-prescribers).
This means:
Use by the author's institution for classroom teaching at the institution and for internal training purposes within the institution (including distribution of copies, paper or electronic, and use in (online) coursework and courseware programs, and use in non-commercial Massive Open Online Courses)
Inclusion of the Article in applications for grant funding
For authors employed by companies, the use by that company for internal training purposes
Note that the author’s institution can also post the article publicly as part of theses and dissertations, with DOI links to the formal publication.
Our new hosting guidelines make it clear that IRs can host their researchers’:
Open access articles
Preprints
Accepted manuscripts immediately for internal use and for private sharing
Accepted manuscripts publicly, after the journal-specific embargo opens in new tab/window and with a CC-BY-NC-ND license
Metadata and links
Subscription articles for private sharing as per their ScienceDirect agreement
We also have a number of hosting services available for institutional repositories opens in new tab/window.
The ScienceDirect APIs are free for non-commercial platforms to use — register your interest opens in new tab/window.
Millions of researchers already have access to ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window. We have an API which has this information and we are willing to share this with hosting platforms so that they can display the best available version to their users. The process is simple, the platform would need to include the Crossref DOI or the Elsevier article identifier, called PII in the API request. For non-commercial platforms, please contact us via the Support Hub opens in new tab/window.
ResearchGate
Elsevier and ResearchGate have agreed on a technical solution that enables authors who have published research articles with Elsevier to share their work on the ResearchGate platform in a copyright-compliant way. Automated checks occur instantly at the point of upload, helping researchers to save time. ResearchGate’s copyright check system is a tool that identifies copyrighted content and notifies authors what sharing options are available to them. As authors create publication pages and upload files for their work, their content is automatically checked against ResearchGate’s database of copyright information. If the system finds a match, authors are notified about what sharing options are available to them.
What you can share on ResearchGate depends on the selection made by the corresponding author, on behalf of all the authors, about how to publish your article.
If your article was published open access, then you can publicly share the published journal article on ResearchGate. You can check whether your article is open access by searching for it on ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window and checking if it is tagged ‘Open access’ above the article title on the search results or, alternatively, next to the DOI on the article page.
If your article was not published open access, you cannot publicly share the published journal article on ResearchGate. However, you can still upload the published journal article privately. This can be shared with your co-authors and other researchers who specifically request that article on ResearchGate. If you wish to share publicly, you need to use the preprint (the version that was submitted to the journal, before peer review took place).
Further explanation on the difference between the published journal article, accepted manuscript, and preprint can be found here opens in new tab/window.
Please first check with the corresponding author about the option they selected for the publication of your article. For an article to be published open access, the corresponding author will typically either need to pay an Article Publishing Charge, or have their charge already covered via an agreement with their institution. If the corresponding author also believes the article should be open access, please email us opens in new tab/window and explain your specific case.
If your article was published open access, then you can publicly share the published journal article on ResearchGate, so there is no need to use the accepted manuscript version. You can check whether your article is open access by searching for it on ScienceDirect opens in new tab/windowand checking if it is tagged ‘Open access’ above the article title on the search results or, alternatively, next to the DOI on the article page. If your article was not published open access, you cannot publicly share the accepted manuscript version on ResearchGate. However, you can still upload the published journal article or accepted manuscript privately. This can be shared with your co-authors and other researchers who specifically request that article on ResearchGate. If you wish to share publicly on ResearchGate, you need to use the preprint (the version that was submitted to the journal, before peer review took place). If you wish to share the accepted manuscript version publicly, it can be posted immediately on your non-commercial personal homepage or blog, or after an embargo period on a non-commercial hosting platform, such as your institutional repository. The embargo period can be found here opens in new tab/window. You can also share it immediately in your research institute or institutional repository for internal institutional uses. Further explanation on the difference between the published journal article, accepted manuscript, and preprint can be found here opens in new tab/window.
A small number of authors may have circumstances where special copyright conditions apply. If you believe this is the case for your article, please email us opens in new tab/window and explain your specific case.