Open Access and Institutional Repositories: How Should Subscription Journals Respond? : American Journal of Roentgenology: Vol. 205, No. 2 (AJR)

"Our recent experience with institutional repositories and the impact of open-access policy raise concerns for subscription biomedical journals. We have been notified by only one of the 57 institutions with repositories that it has its own repository regulations that are applied to all authors. Does this mean we need to obtain a list of the repository rules at each of the 57 institutions and check every submission to see whether any of the authors is on the faculty? A daunting task, indeed. As we study the most effective approach to this issue, there are several first steps that we are in the process of implementing. We are currently in the process of modifying portions of the copyright transfer agreement [4] and the author guidelines, including the content requirements of the cover letter.

Our author guidelines follow those set forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors [5]. Our current author guidelines already state that any similar work must be disclosed and documented. Copies of any work that might be considered similar should be included with the cover letter when submitting the manuscript. We will also need to emphasize work included in registries and repositories, making it very clear that any such work should be documented. Before initiating the peer-review process, we require institutional waivers or documentation that authors have opted out of participation in institutional repositories. Failure to provide this documentation can result in copyright issues and even the retraction of articles published in AJR that may be redundant because of institutional licensing issues. This approach requires AJR staff to determine during an initial technical check whether any of the authors of a submission are from institutions with repositories...."