Content Hosting & Archiving

Non-commercial organizations and institutional repositories can host content from Athena publications according to the following guidelines:

• Preprints. Preprints can be hosted anytime anywhere. If accepted for publication, hosting organizations should link via the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) from the preprint to the final published article. Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications, so these links will help users to find, access, cite and use the best available version. Note that some society-owned publications may have different preprint policies which can be found on the relevant publication’s homepage if applicable. Under no circumstances should preprints be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final versions of articles.

• Accepted Manuscripts. Research institutes can host their employees’ and students’ accepted manuscripts immediately for internal institutional use or private scholarly sharing as part of an invited research collaboration working group. Internal institutional use means use for classroom teaching and internal training - including use in course packs and courseware programs, though not in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) - and inclusion of the manuscript in applications for grant funding. Such manuscripts can also be shared publicly, including by other non-commercial organizations, on the condition that applicable license terms for the manuscript are adhered to. In any case, accepted manuscripts should: (a) link to the formal publication via its DOI; (b) bear a valid Creative Commons user license; (c) not be stored on an insecure network or be discoverable or accessible except as described above; (d) not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final published article; (e) not be used or posted for commercial gain without a formal agreement with Athena International Publishing; and (f) not be used to substitute for services provided directly by the publication, for example, article aggregation, systematic distribution via email lists or list servers or share buttons, posting or linking by commercial companies for use by customers of such companies (e.g. pharmaceutical companies and physician-prescribers), etc.

• Final Published Articles (a.k.a. ‘versions of record’). These may be hosted according to the applicable end-user license. This license should appear on the hosted version of the article along with a DOI-link to the citable version of record on the Athena platform.

Commercial organizations can host content from Athena publications according to the following guidelines:

• Preprints. Preprints can be hosted anytime anywhere. If accepted for publication, hosting organizations should link via the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) from the preprint to the final published article. Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications, so these links will help users to find, access, cite and use the best available version. Note that some society-owned publications may have different preprint policies which can be found on the relevant publication’s homepage if applicable. Under no circumstances should preprints be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final versions of articles.

• Accepted Manuscripts. Commercial organizations, such as scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs), are required to have an agreement with Athena International Publishing for aggregating and making available articles on their platform. Subject to such an agreement, commercial organizations may immediately host their users’ accepted manuscripts for private scholarly sharing as part of an invitation-only working group and for public sharing on the condition that applicable license terms for the manuscript are adhered to. In any case, accepted manuscripts should: (a) link to the formal publication via its DOI; (b) bear a valid Creative Commons user license; (c) not be stored on an insecure network or be discoverable or accessible except as described above; (d) not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final published article; (e) not be used or posted for commercial gain without a formal agreement with Athena International Publishing, for example, by associating advertising with the full-text of the manuscript, providing hosting services to other repositories or other organizations, charging fees for document delivery or access, etc.; and (f) not be used to substitute for services provided directly by the publication, for example, article aggregation, systematic distribution via email lists or list servers or share buttons, posting or linking by commercial companies for use by customers of such companies (e.g. pharmaceutical companies and physician-prescribers), etc.

• Final Published Articles (a.k.a. ‘versions of record’). These may be hosted according to the applicable end-user license. This license should appear on the hosted version of the article along with a DOI-link to the citable version of record on the Athena platform. Note that this means that any articles bearing a non-commercial (NC) Creative Commons license cannot be hosted on commercial platforms or scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu.

Athena International Publishing is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and to ensure accessibility to this research by converting and upgrading digital file formats to comply with new technology standards. To this end, we work with the National Library of the Netherlands which permanently archives all content published by Athena International Publishing in their e-Depot. Note that the e-Depot is available through on-site access and if Athena International Publishing would be unable to provide access to content on our electronic platform (temporarily, in an emergency or permanently) access to the e-Depot can be provided to the global public on our request.

In addition to the e-Depot, Athena International Publishing also maintains its own digital archive to store a complete, accurate, digital version of all the content on our electronic platform. The current format standards are XML and PDF, with most files being retained in both formats. For publications that we publish on behalf of a third party, we proceed as follows:

• For titles that we no longer publish or cease to have electronic rights for, we will use reasonable efforts to ensure that either the content published by Athena remains available on our electronic platform or that the owner makes it available on the same access terms via a new host and that the publication archive remains in designated independent third-party archives.

• For titles which have been sold or are otherwise transferred to another publisher, we will use reasonable efforts to retain a non-exclusive copy of the digital archive for that title and make it available through our electronic platform. Note that the publication will also be retained in third-party archives.

• For titles which have stopped publication, the digital archive will be maintained by Athena International Publishing and be made available through our electronic platform. Note that the publication will also be retained in third-party archives.

Note that in order to comply with requirements from certain indexation databases, such as MEDLINE and PMC, some publications may also be archived in other third-party preservation services in order to be accepted for inclusion in those databases. Examples of such services are the following:

• Portico, a community-supported digital preservation service that is part of ITHAKA and which has been certified as a trusted, reliable digital preservation solution by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). Content can be made available to participating libraries if access is no longer available.

• CLOCKSS, a community-led and -supported digital preservation archive for scholarly content which is developed and governed by libraries and publishers. If content from any participating publisher is no longer available then CLOCKSS is able to make it available on an open access basis.