Frequently Asked Questions Regarding ACS Author-driven Initiatives
Does the author-directed e-prints initiative change the ACS Sales Agreement?
This initiative is intended to facilitate exposure for authors and their published articles. It will not affect the contractual relationship between a subscribing institution and ACS.
Will all ACS journal content
be free 12 months following publication?
Through an expanded version of our author e-prints program, any author’s article may be accessed without restriction one year after publication. Our current practice permits ACS authors to email or post a link on their website to distribute up to 50 free e-prints of their final published articles to interested colleagues. By this new initiative, the access restriction will be lifted at 12 months, allowing free access to such articles via those same author-directed links.
In addition to this initiative, peer-reviewed and unedited versions of author manuscripts accepted for publication, if funded in whole or in part by the NIH, will be accessible to the public through PubMed Central, 12 months after publication by the ACS.
How is this different than the NIH Policy?
The content available via author-directed links will be in PDF format and represent the final, edited version of the article. The content submitted to NIH will be uncorrected versions of authors’ accepted manuscripts (peer-reviewed but unedited/unformatted).
Is everything in the ACS Journal Archives now freely
available to the public?
Or will the new author-directed initiative affect years
of availability in the ACS Journal Archives?
Paid access to the ACS Journal Archives is still intended as an institutional offering made possible through a yearly access fee, and none of the content in the Archives will be affected or freely available for public access by this initiative. The practice of author-directed links to enable e-print distribution has been in place since 1999, and ACS is still determining if articles published prior to the implementation of this new initiative will also be made available via author-directed links.
Is the “full-text version”
the same as the “final” published version?
The full-text version as delivered via author-directed web links is the fully-edited and typeset article as published by ACS in PDF format.
Is the “peer-reviewed version”
different from the “full-text” version?
The peer-reviewed author version of the manuscript is the version of the research article that has been accepted for publication by an ACS journal but not yet edited or typeset in journal format by the ACS. The uncorrected author’s version is the version the ACS will deposit into NIH’s PubMed Central on behalf of our authors.
Is ACS sending all articles to
PubMed Central?
Or, only those articles funded by NIH?
Only those articles funded in whole or in part by NIH will be deposited in PubMed Central.
What is an author-directed link?
The author may distribute a link to the final version of the article at his or her own discretion. The link may be posted on the author’s web site or sent via email from the author to interested colleagues. The link directs readers to the PDF version of the article on the ACS website. Those users who already have subscription access privileges obtain seamless IP-based access. Such access is not metered.
Users without subscription-based access complete a simple registration form that enables immediate free access to a copy of the article.
Would an author-directed link
include institutional repositories?
While the article itself may not be posted in an institutional repository, if the author wishes to place a link on his or her own institutional website, that practice is currently allowed. By remaining the repository of record, the ACS believes it can uphold the integrity of the final published article.
Will SciFinder link to articles
in the author-directed web link?
SciFinder links to those articles will work as they do currently, and will not be affected by this initiative.
Is the author-directed link to
the article OpenURL compliant?
Author-directed links to the article are not OpenURL compliant.
How will a library find the author-directed
web link for an article of interest?
This initiative is designed for ACS authors to facilitate awareness and enhance distribution of their published research. Authors will determine the dissemination of the author-directed web links.
Will Cross-Ref links work to
and from these articles?
Yes, but not because of these author-directed URLs. CrossRef linking is enabled via DOIs; Article DOIs are deposited for all ACS Journal publications.
Will downloads be attributed
to, or included in, the COUNTER-stats?
Every article download from users at a subscribing institution will be counted in the ACS Web Usage Reports. Access via author-directed web links will be included in COUNTER usage reports if such usage is via a subscribing institution’s access privileges.
