The Annals of Biomedical Science and Engineering (ABSE) actively supports open knowledge dissemination and encourages authors to deposit their published work in institutional and subject-specific repositories. This Repository Policy ensures full compliance with SHERPA/RoMEO standards, OAI-PMH interoperability, and global Open Access best practices.

1. Purpose of the Policy

This policy defines the rights of authors to self-archive their work and ensures that all published content remains freely accessible for long-term preservation and reuse. It aligns with ABSE’s commitment to transparency, data accessibility, and research reproducibility.

2. Repository Rights

ABSE grants authors the non-exclusive right to deposit and distribute their article versions in institutional, disciplinary, or funder-mandated repositories. Authors may also share content on personal websites, professional profiles, or academic networks (e.g., ResearchGate, Academia.edu) in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 License.

3. Versions Permitted for Archiving

Article Version	Archiving Allowed	Conditions
Preprint (Submitted Version)	Yes	May be shared anytime; should include citation or DOI once accepted.
Postprint (Accepted Manuscript)	Yes	Immediate sharing permitted; must link to final version of record on journal website.
Publisher Version (Final PDF)	Yes	Can be archived immediately after publication; citation and DOI required.

“ABSE’s repository-friendly policy ensures unrestricted sharing of all versions of research articles to promote global accessibility and citation impact.”

4. Embargo Period

There is no embargo period for depositing any version of an article. Authors may make their work publicly available immediately upon publication under the journal’s Gold Open Access model.

5. Repository Examples

Authors are encouraged to deposit their manuscripts in one or more of the following repository types:

Institutional Repositories: e.g., university or laboratory archives.
Subject-Specific Repositories: PubMed Central, arXiv, bioRxiv, or Figshare.
Funding Agency Repositories: repositories mandated by NIH, ERC, UKRI, or Horizon Europe.
General Repositories: Zenodo, Dryad, or OpenAIRE.

6. Metadata and Linking Requirements

All deposited versions must include complete bibliographic metadata such as:

Full citation (authors, title, journal name, year, volume, DOI).
Link to the final published version on the ABSE website.
License information (CC BY 4.0).
Date of publication and version identification.

7. Repository Integration and OAI-PMH

ABSE supports the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to enable interoperability and automated metadata harvesting. Repositories and indexing services can harvest metadata using:

https://www.biomedscijournal.com/oai

This ensures ABSE’s articles are discoverable via major aggregators such as DOAJ, CrossRef, and Google Scholar.

8. Compliance with Funder and Institutional Mandates

ABSE complies with open-access mandates of major research funders, including the European Commission (Horizon Europe), NIH (USA), UKRI, and Plan S. Authors can deposit their accepted or published articles in repositories without violating copyright or license terms.

9. Preservation and Indexing

All ABSE articles are preserved and archived in digital preservation systems, including:

Portico — for long-term preservation and digital continuity.
LOCKSS/CLOCKSS — for decentralized and redundant archiving.
SHERPA/RoMEO — for transparency in repository policies.

10. Data and Supplementary Material

Authors are encouraged to deposit research data, supplementary files, and multimedia components in open repositories. Data sharing enhances reproducibility, collaboration, and innovation in biomedical research.

11. Policy Updates

This Repository Policy is reviewed annually to align with evolving global open-access and repository standards. Updated versions are published on the journal’s website.

12. Contact Information

Email: [email protected]
Editorial Office: Annals of Biomedical Science and Engineering (ABSE), USA