Now that engrXiv eprints receive their own DOI assignments, the value of submitting your engineering preprints to engrXiv is even greater. We already know that making your engineering work available through OA venues such as engrXiv has benefits such as increased access in developing nations, wider readership, and increased citation counts^1-5. With DOIs now available for all engrXiv eprints, it is easier than ever for others to cite your work using a persistent identifier. Further, since engrXiv is indexed by Google Scholar, any citations your preprint receives prior to formal publication will be combined in the Google Scholar citation metrics.

After formal publication, it is easy to update your preprint’s record on engrXiv with a DOI link to the publisher version. Even if the final version is not published in an OA venue, readers without access to that publication will still be able to read your preprint version on engrXiv!

Preprinting your article with engrXiv at the time of submission and updating the record after peer reviewed publication is the best way to ensure that your work is being read (and cited) quickly and by the greatest number of people.

References cited

¹Berg, D.R., Fleischfresser, L., and Niemeyer, K. Open publishing in engineering. Editorial in The Journal of Open Engineering. DOI: 10.21428/12302
²Rocha da Silva, P. Born Digital: building the ultimate open-access publisher. Frontiers OA Commentary. Link: https://blog.frontiersin.org/2015/12/22/born-digital-building-the-ultimate-open-access-publisher/
³McKiernan, E.C., Bourne, P.E., Brown, C.T., et al. How open science helps researchers succeed. eLife. 5. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.16800.001
⁴Tennant J.P., Waldner F., Jacques D.C., et al. The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: an evidence-based review. F1000Research. 5, 632. DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.8460.3
⁵Koler-Povh, T., Južnič, P., and Turk, G. Impact of open access on citation of scholarly publications in the field of civil engineering. Scientometrics. 98, 2, 1033–1045. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-013-1101-x

We are happy to announce that all eprints posted to engrXiv are now being automatically assigned a DOI on submission! Once your eprint is posted, the page will display the DOI on the right hand side.

If during the submission process (or in a later update) you add a DOI for the final published article, it will display alongside the eprint DOI.

This way readers will always be able to find and reference the appropriate version of your article.

We are also excited to announce that the engrXiv URL has gotten a little cleaner. Prior to today engrxiv.org acted as a simple redirect to osf.io/preprints/engrxiv. However, as of now, engrXiv.org will act as your final destination for engineering eprints! Further, all preprints hosted on engrxiv have their own url using their unique identifier of the form engrxiv.org/k7fgk/. We think that this new, cleaner URL scheme will make it easier to identify engrXiv URLs and we hope you like it too!

NOTE

You may add yourself as a signatory on this letter by submitting a pull request here or by sending an email to ASMEletter@engrxiv.org with your name, title, and affiliation in the subject line.

We, the undersigned academics and researchers from a variety of engineering and supporting fields of study, backgrounds, and personal convictions, are reaching out to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to request the society’s consideration in the matter of support for the practice of posting for public consumption, manuscripts prior to peer-review intended for later submission to an ASME published journal.

As you know, there have been ongoing concerns in the engineering research community regarding timely access to published research. The practice of posting preprints prior to formal peer review can greatly accelerate the pace of research progress. As ASME is a major publisher in the engineering field, we are requesting modification and improvement of the ASME Copyright Transfer Agreement (backup copy here) to allow ASME authors to archive their manuscripts with an eprint server prior to submission to an ASME journal without affecting the status of their submission. We feel that this would be best accomplished by including specific language in the copyright transfer policy that permits the posting of pre-reviewed manuscripts. In order to assist ASME with crafting this language, we specifically suggest:

Change the language found in Section 2: Permitted Uses:

“You may not deposit your Paper in a publicly accessible archive (whether print or electronic) that permits users to copy and distribute its contents without first contacting ASME for permission.”

to instead read:

“Authors retain the right to post preprints and postprints in an institutional or subject matter repository or to self-archive on their personal website.”

We hope that as a result of this letter, we may work with relevant leadership from ASME to draft a revised Copyright Transfer Agreement and to help ASME be at the forefront of this new means of research dissemination.

Signed,

1. Zach Baird, Junior Researcher, Tallinn University of Technology
2. Lorena A. Barba, Associate Professor, The George Washington University
3. Devin R. Berg, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Stout
4. Kevin M. Moerman, Research Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5. Jason K. Moore, Faculty, University of California, Davis
6. Kyle E. Niemeyer, Assistant Professor, Oregon State University
7. Andrew Phillips, Senior Lecturer, Imperial College London
8. Elizabeth Rasmussen, PhD Student, University of Washington
9. Douglas L. Van Bossuyt, Partner, KTM Research LLC