Index Academic Repository allows the deposit and archiving of academic and scientific materials from a wide range of disciplines. The purpose of these guidelines is to explain who may deposit materials, what types of documents are accepted, what information must be provided, and what conditions must be met before a material is included in the Repository.

Depositing a material does not constitute publication in the Index Academic journal and does not imply peer review.

Who May Deposit Materials

Materials may be proposed for inclusion by:

  • the author of the work;
  • one of the co-authors, with the agreement of the other authors;
  • the copyright holder;
  • an institution or representative authorized by the author or rights holder;
  • another person who can demonstrate that they have the right to request deposit of the material.

The person making the deposit, hereinafter referred to as the depositor, must have the right to make the material available to the Repository and is responsible for the accuracy of the information provided.

For works with multiple authors, the depositor confirms that the other authors are aware of and agree to the deposit, to the extent that such consent is required.

Accepted Materials

Index Academic Repository may accept, among others:

  • scientific articles;
  • preprints;
  • manuscripts accepted for publication;
  • published versions of articles;
  • conference papers and presentations;
  • book chapters and other academic contributions;
  • research reports;
  • working papers and studies;
  • doctoral theses, dissertations, and other academic works;
  • educational and teaching materials of an academic nature;
  • monographs and other scholarly works;
  • datasets and supplementary materials;
  • other research outputs considered suitable for archiving.

Materials should have an academic, scientific, educational, or research character and contain sufficient information to identify the author, origin, and nature of the document.

The Repository reserves the right to reject materials that fall outside its scope, present legal or integrity concerns, contain insufficient information, or do not meet technical requirements.

File Formats

For text documents, the recommended format for deposit is PDF.

Where possible, the use of a PDF optimized for long-term preservation and allowing text selection and indexing is recommended.

Depending on the nature of the material, supplementary files may also be accepted, such as:

  • DOCX or ODT for editable documents;
  • CSV, XLSX, or other commonly used formats for datasets;
  • PNG, JPG, or TIFF for images;
  • PPTX or PDF for presentations;
  • ZIP for groups of files associated with a work.

Files must open normally, must not be corrupted, and must not contain malware or technical protection measures that prevent legitimate access to the content.

For the main document, PDF remains the preferred format.

Required Metadata

Each material must be accompanied by sufficient metadata for its identification, description, and citation.

Normally, the following information is required:

  • title of the work;
  • full name of the author or authors;
  • institutional affiliation, where applicable;
  • document type;
  • discipline or academic field;
  • language of the document;
  • abstract;
  • keywords;
  • date or year of the work/publication;
  • version of the deposited document;
  • copyright status and applicable license;
  • information on previous publication, where applicable;
  • DOI or other existing identifiers, where available.

For previously published materials, the bibliographic citation of the original publication must also be provided.

The authors’ ORCID identifiers are recommended whenever available.

Additional information may be requested where required by the nature of the material.

Version of the Document

The depositor must specify which version of the work is being uploaded.

Preprint

A preprint is a version of the manuscript produced before formal peer review and acceptance by a publication.

Preprints may be deposited if the authors hold the necessary rights and there are no contractual obligations prohibiting deposit.

Accepted Author Manuscript

An Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM) is the version accepted for publication following peer review but before the publisher’s final typesetting and production.

In many cases, publishers allow self-archiving of this version, sometimes after an embargo period.

Version of Record

The Version of Record (VoR) is the final version officially published by the journal or publisher.

This version may be deposited only where the author holds the necessary rights or the publisher’s policy explicitly permits archiving of the published version.

The fact that a person is the author of an article does not automatically mean that they may redistribute the final PDF supplied by the publisher.

Previously Published Materials

Index Academic Repository may include materials that have already been published by a journal, publisher, conference, or other institution.

In such cases, the following information must be provided:

  • bibliographic reference of the original publication;
  • DOI, where available;
  • link to the original publication, where available;
  • version of the document to be deposited;
  • information regarding archiving and reuse rights.

The Repository does not replace the original publication. The record must clearly identify the source in which the work was first published.

Obligation to Verify the Original Publisher’s Policy

For previously published materials, the author or depositor is responsible for verifying the original journal or publisher’s self-archiving policy.

In particular, it must be verified whether the following may be deposited:

  • the preprint version;
  • the Accepted Author Manuscript;
  • the Version of Record;
  • and whether an embargo period applies.

If the publisher’s policy allows only a specific version, the Repository will publish only that permitted version.

If an embargo applies, the material may be made publicly available after the embargo expires. Until then, only metadata may be made available, depending on the circumstances.

Where deposit rights cannot reasonably be established, the Repository may refuse publication of the file and may, where appropriate, retain only a bibliographic record and a link to the original publication.

Copyright and Licenses

The depositor must ensure that they have the right to authorize deposit and public availability of the material.

For each material, the applicable license or legal status must be indicated.

Depending on the rights involved, a document may be made available:

  • under a Creative Commons license;
  • under another explicit license;
  • or as All rights reserved, where reuse has not been authorized under an open license.

Deposit in the Repository does not automatically transfer copyright to Index Academic or MultiMedia Publishing.

Works That Already Have a DOI

If a work already has a DOI assigned by the original publication or institution, that DOI must be retained and entered in the Repository metadata.

Index Academic Repository does not assign a second DOI to a work merely because it is deposited in the Repository.

For example, an article published in a journal and later deposited in the Repository will continue to be identified by the DOI of the original publication.

The Repository may assign a DOI only to certain eligible materials that do not already have a DOI, in accordance with its persistent identifier policy.

Assignment of a DOI is not automatic and does not result solely from acceptance of a material into the Repository.

Works with Multiple Authors

For a work with multiple authors, all authors must be entered in the order in which they appear in the work or original publication.

For each author, the following should be provided where possible:

  • full name;
  • affiliation;
  • ORCID, where available.

One of the authors or an authorized person may make the deposit on behalf of the entire group.

By submitting the material, the depositor confirms that they have the necessary authority to request deposit and that the rights of the other co-authors are not infringed.

Subsequent changes to the author list or author order must be justified and may require confirmation from the other authors.

Supplementary Materials and Datasets

Where a work is accompanied by data, tables, images, appendices, source code, or other relevant materials, these may be deposited as supplementary files if:

  • they are directly related to the work;
  • the depositor has the right to distribute them;
  • they do not contain personal or confidential data that cannot lawfully be made public;
  • their format is suitable for archiving.

Each supplementary material should be described sufficiently to make its relationship to the main document clear.

Verification Before Publication

Deposited materials are not published automatically.

Before inclusion in the Repository, the following may be checked:

  • the academic nature of the material;
  • completeness of the metadata;
  • consistency between the file and the information provided;
  • version of the document;
  • existence of a DOI or other identifiers;
  • deposit rights;
  • applicable license;
  • previous publication, where relevant;
  • technical requirements.

If clarification or correction is required, the depositor may be contacted before publication.

This verification is administrative and editorial and does not constitute peer review.

Depositor Responsibility

By requesting inclusion of a material in Index Academic Repository, the depositor declares that, to the best of their knowledge:

  • the information provided is accurate;
  • authors and contributions are correctly identified;
  • they have the right to request deposit of the material;
  • the deposit does not infringe third-party rights;
  • the document version may lawfully be archived;
  • any previous publications and DOIs have been disclosed;
  • the material does not contain confidential information or personal data made public without authorization.

Index Academic may request additional information where there is uncertainty regarding rights, authorship, provenance, or the status of the material.

After Publication in the Repository

Once accepted, the material receives its own page in the Repository together with the corresponding bibliographic metadata.

Where the work already has a DOI, that DOI is retained and displayed. For certain materials without a DOI, the possibility of assigning a persistent identifier may be considered in accordance with the Repository’s policy.

Any subsequent correction, update, replacement, or withdrawal of a material is handled in accordance with Index Academic Repository policies and the principle of preserving the integrity of the scholarly record.