It is possible to define several levels of accessibility / terms of access:

• Open access: anyone can access the document.

• Delayed (embargoed) open access: open access to a document is temporarily impossible due to an embargo imposed by the publisher. The document will automatically become accessible at the end of the embargo. (Here, authors or the depositing party can decide on the embargo period, irrespective of the publisher).

Most open archives do not provide for the withdrawal of a document once it has been archived:

• Prohibiting the withdrawal of a document via the interface ensures accountability as regards the documents deposited. This allows open archives to maintain a high scientific level.

• It also protects the archive against dishonest practices (depositing contradictory results to ensure they are dated and then later withdrawing the erroneous document, etc.).

• This system also guarantees the stability of the documents deposited and corresponding addresses (stable and long-term URL). Citing in a scholarly publication a text that risked being withdrawn by its author at any time would be unthinkable!

• The right to scientific error: 

  • The alternative to depositing without withdrawal is to upload new versions.

  • By default, readers are initially offered access to the last version but are also free to access previous versions.

  • Finally, let’s not forget that depositing a document is a means to date your work and allows you to claim authorship.

Open archives provide for the self-archiving of several successive versions of the same document.

For example, you can self-archive the preprint, then the postprint and finally the final published version of your article (if your publisher gives their consent).

In the case of HAL, a basic scientific review of all deposited documents is carried out by a network of researchers who are experts within their respective fields.

The establishment to which the archive is related can also make scientific choices and draw up a distribution charter with which all researchers must comply.

Furthermore, archive administrators conduct a legal and technical review of the deposited document.

After depositing a document, researchers have access to a number of services: 

• You can extract the references of the documents you have deposited. Both document formats (.doc, .pdf, .html, .xls) and bibliographic formats (endnote, ris, bibtex) are available. 

• Some open archives also provide for the automatic creation of the researcher’s curriculum vitae.

Overview of the services associated with an institutional open archive

Connections @ University of Illinois

• Finally, most open archives provide guidelines for using the documents you have deposited (document download rate, record view rate, etc.).

An example of the statistics provides by the HAL open archive:

The 10 most viewed deposited documents for the University of Rennes 2 Thesis collection