Self-archiving is the act of (the author's) depositing a free copy of an
electronic document online in order to provide
open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of
peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles, as well as theses and book chapters, deposited in the author's own
institutional repository or
open archive for the purpose of maximizing its accessibility, usage and
citation impact. The term
green open access has become common in recent years, distinguishing this approach from
gold open access, where the journal itself makes the articles publicly available without charge to the reader.
