You might have noticed some changes in how your preprints are appearing on PsyArXiv, and wondered “what the hell is going on?” The big change is that the Center for Open Science/Open Science Framework has implemented DOI (Digital Object Identifier) versioning for all of their preprint communities, including PsyArXiv. This means that every time you upload a new version of your preprint manuscript, it will be given a new DOI. It also means that URLs for papers will have a suffix like _V1 or _V2 after the unique OSF preprint identifier. You will still be able to view current and previous versions in the same way that you have previously, and the system (via Crossref) knows that each of these versions are linked.
In practice, what does this mean for you when you’re uploading a preprint? For PsyArXiv, it won’t make much of a difference at all. You’ll still be able to upload your preprints in the same way, and upload updated versions when you need to. The only difference is that any new manuscript versions will have a different DOI to the original version. If you are only making a change to the manuscript metadata, that won’t lead to a new DOI being minted.
Because PsyArXiv uses a post-moderation approach, any submitted preprints will still go live immediately, and will then later go through a moderation process by our moderation team.
DOI versioning may have an impact on your current use if you need to withdraw a preprint from PsyArXiv. For example, you might find yourself submitting to a journal that does not permit preprinting (*I guess these still exist somewhere?). When you submit a withdrawal request, it will relate to a specific version. So, if you need to ensure that all versions of a preprint are removed, you’ll need to communicate this request to PsyArXiv (e.g., submitting a withdrawal request for each version) or COS support.
If DOI versioning isn’t going to make things different for users, you might wonder why you’d want to have different DOIs for different versions of a preprint. Well, having DOI versioning has been recommended by Crossref’s Preprint Metadata Advisory Group (see here:, Section 5.2.2 in particular), and is seen as best practice that supports an open peer review model to track review feedback and changes to the paper over time. For example, you could have an overlay journal that could use DOI versioning to track original submissions, an updated version in response to reviewer comments, and a final version accepted for publication. Another advantage is that translations of articles can have their own DOI, and different translated versions can be linked using appropriate meta-data. So, all in all, DOI versioning allows for more flexibility and opens up new possibilities for communities in terms of open reviewing.
If you’d like a little more detail on creating a new article version, take a look at the OSF’s help guide here, and here for some more information on how DOI versioning relates to new approaches to peer review.
I hope the above information is useful – Happy preprinting!
Dermot Lynott is an Associate Professor at Maynooth University, and the current chair of the PsyArXiv Scientific Advisory Board.
