The version of record of an article is the fully copyedited, typeset and formatted copy of a manuscript as

published Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, in contrast with earlier versions such as

preprint In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versi ...

s (unaccepted manuscripts) and

postprint A postprint is a digital draft of a research journal article ''after'' it has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication, but ''before'' it has been typeset and formatted by the journal. Related terminology A digital draft before peer re ...

s (accepted manuscripts). The terminology is used in a wide variety of written media (e.g.

books A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mo ...

, journals,

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

s).

Description

For print documents, the version of record will be the version as printed and distributed. For electronic documents it is typically the

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

and

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

version. For items published in both a print and electronic version, the electronic copy is often the version of record. An article's version of record is often assigned a

persistent identifier A persistent identifier (PI or PID) is a long-lasting reference to a document, file, web page, or other object. The term "persistent identifier" is usually used in the context of digital objects that are accessible over the Internet. Typically, s ...

handle A handle is a part of, or an attachment to, an object that allows it to be grasped and object manipulation, manipulated by hand. The design of each type of handle involves substantial ergonomics, ergonomic issues, even where these are dealt wi ...

(e.g. a DOI) to unambiguously disambiguate the version being referred to.

Ownership and copyright

subscription publishing model The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It i ...

s, authors transfer copyright of the version of record to the

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

and it is this version that is paywalled to generate revenue. For

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

publications, copyright for the version of record is retained by the authors, with a

license A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

attached (typically a Creative Commons variant) that allows hosting by the publisher, and free reuse, sharing and adaptation.

References

{{Reflist Academic publishing Publications by format