FAQs

To add your paper to White Rose Research Online follow the appropriate link:

The repository contains research outputs of staff from each of the three Universities, including journal articles, books, book chapters, working papers, conference papers, discussion papers, and more. Our aim is to collect full-text versions of research so that our scholars' outputs are made available to a global audience. Where this is not possible due to copyright or other restrictions we create a citation and abstract and link to a publisher's version of the research (where available).

See Information for depositors for more details.

Adding your paper to White Rose Research Online may meet your funder requirements. You can check funder policies for OA using Sherpa Juliet or see the guidance for your institution:

Papers can meet the requirements of the REF open access policy by being deposited to White Rose Research Online, either directly or through your institution's research information system. To meet the requirements papers must be deposited and made accessible as early as possible, and within the timescales stated in the REF policy. For more information see the guidance for your institution:

You can check what your publisher/journal allow you to do by looking up the journal in Sherpa/Romeo. When you deposit a paper to the repository it is checked by staff before it is made live to ensure that it complies with the journal’s policy.

If there is something incorrect regarding the content or metadata for an item where you are an author:

Items in White Rose Research Online are indexed by major academic search engines, including Google Scholar.

As well as being available through White Rose Research Online, items are harvested and/or made discoverable through a number of services including, but not limited to:

CORE - The world’s largest aggregator of full text open access scientific content

Semantic Scholar

BASE Academic Search Engine

Library search systems such as YorSearch (York), StarPlus (Sheffield) and the Leeds University Library Catalogue

The repository holds published versions, accepted version and submitted versions of papers, as fits with publisher policies. Where possible, the version type is indicated.

If the publisher does not allow the published version to be freely shared, supplying a permitted version allows people to access and read the content for free. It is a requirement of many funders to make an accepted manuscript available via a repository. More guidance about article versions can be found at:

University of Sheffield - Open Access - Article versions: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/openaccess/articles

The DOI assigned to the paper will point to the version on the publisher’s site. We will store the DOI for a paper which will allow services such as Unpaywall and Open Access Button to find this copy of the publication.

The benefit of making your paper available via the repository is that the institution will be able to ensure that the publisher self-archiving policies are applied correctly. The repository is indexed by major academic search engines, meaning your paper will be more easily found. It also ensures that the institution can accurately report on the compliance of your output with any funder policies that apply to it.

No. You only need to create an account to create and save personalised searches. To download and read a paper you can just click on the download link. If the content is not available for download, the content may be embargoed or may not be held within the repository.

Many publishers require a delay - known as an embargo period - before a paper can be made openly available from a repository such as WRRO. If there is a ‘request a copy’ button in the record in WRRO, you can use this to ask the author for a copy of the paper. You may also be able to get a copy of the paper through your Library.

Content in White Rose Research Online is subject to copyright but where possible is made available under a licence that allows sharing and reuse. For further details see Licence and Reuse Information - https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/licences.html.

There are different reasons why your content might already be available:

  • Co-author Your paper may have been added by a co-author. If you have any questions please contact us https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/contact.html
  • Embargo  Repository staff will check what the publisher allows us to do before making a paper available in WRRO. If there is no embargo (delay) required, or the embargo period has expired we will make the file available straight away.

If you believe that an output has been made available when it should be under embargo please contact the Library at your institution.

Some publishers do allow articles to be made available in a repository before they are published. Staff at your institution will check publisher policies before making articles available. If you believe your article should not have been made available prior to publication, please contact the Library at your institution.

Your paper will be checked and processed by staff from your home institution. The length of time taken will vary, and it may take longer during busy periods. If you need your paper to be made available urgently, please contact the Library at your institution.

It you think that there is something in the repository that needs to be removed, please contact us by emailing: eprints@whiterose.ac.uk. We will pass your request on to the appropriate institution, who will review this and determine the appropriate action. Depending on the circumstances, the content may be temporarily withdrawn while the request is considered.

The paper has not yet been fully published. The publisher does not permit us to make the file available at this time. It may be subject to an embargo once published.