OpenAccessVersionen

OpenAccessVersionen is a term used in discussions of open access to describe the different versions of scholarly works and related materials that can be made openly available under open licenses. The concept emphasizes that several stages of a publication process may be accessible, each with distinct rights, metadata, and purposes, enabling verification, reuse, and reproducibility.

Typical versions include preprint (the manuscript before peer review), accepted manuscript (after peer review but before final typesetting), and the version of record (the publisher’s final, citable edition). In OA workflows, green open access refers to author deposits in repositories, while gold open access refers to works made openly available by the publisher upon publication. The framework may also cover postprints, publisher PDFs, and corresponding data or software versions.

Licensing and provenance are central to OpenAccessVersionen. Open licenses such as CC BY or CC0 are commonly used to specify reuse rights, while clear metadata identifies the exact version, the rights attached, and any embargo status. Persistent identifiers like DOIs help ensure stable citation and traceability of each version.

Repositories and infrastructure play a supporting role. Institutional and disciplinary repositories, along with registries, enable discovery and long-term access to multiple versions. Standards and services from organizations like Crossref, DataCite, and ORCID facilitate version-aware metadata, citation, and author attribution.

Policy context and challenges include avoiding version confusion, managing embargoes, ensuring license compatibility, and preserving access over time. While OpenAccessVersionen can enhance transparency and reproducibility, successful implementation requires coordination among authors, publishers, funders, and libraries, including naming conventions and clear guidelines for citation of specific versions.