When the agreement concerning the publication is made it is legally binding and it impacts on what you can do with your article afterwards.

In the contract between the author and the publisher, the publisher often refers to their open access policy or self-filing policy, which concerns these rights.

When you as an author looks into your rights, there are two questions which are important to what you are allowed to do:

• Concerning where you wish to make your article visible
• Concerning the version of the article you wish to make visible

UC Viden is the self-filing database for the university colleges. Here we gather all publications from the university colleges in Denmark.

In UC Viden your readers can access a full-text version of your article if you link to it or attach the article. Whether you are allowed to upload your article depends on your rights and the agreement you have made with the publisher.

Knowledge workers at VIA are encouraged on the basis of the declaration of the Danish University colleges intent on open access to upload articles in UC Knowledge if not violating any rights.

Using LinkedIn, Twitter, Mendeley, ResearchGate og Academia.edu you will share the article in your network and with many readers.

It is easy to share using these media, but be aware if you have the rights to share the file with your network. The publisher typically allows sharing through non-profit sites; none of the above are in this category.

Not all publishers allow you to make the article accessible in the professional layout version. Publishers of research articles typically distinguish between three different versions of a manuscript for a research article:

• Pre-print: the submitted version before the journal’s/publisher’s acceptance for publication, editing and peer review
• Post-print: the accepted version of the article, which has been through the editing and peer review process of the publisher but without professional layout
• Publisher’s version: the final version of the article from the publisher after editing and peer review, year, number and page numbers.

The contract between your manuscript and the publisher is a legally binding agreement. If you no longer has this agreement, you can check up on your rights concerning self-filing and sharing of research articles in the database Sherpa/Romeo.

Sherpa/Romeo registers copyright policies for international journals in relation to four colour codes, depending on the rights you have as an author to share your article. In Sherpa/Romeo you can see if you are allowed to upload e.g. a print of the article in UC Viden.

The time when you are allowed to make your article freely accessible will appear from your contract or information in Sherpa/Romeo.

Some journals only allow you to make the article available 6-12 months after publication; the publisher calls this an embargo period which means that only subscribers have access in this period.

Journals’ and publishers’ open access policy often appear from their website. Small publishers do not have a policy, but as an author of an article, you can contact the editorial board of the journal and ask about their policy.

Danish journals are to some extent registered in Sherpa/Romeo. If you are in doubt, please contact Birgit Larsen, VIA Library at bitl@via.dk.