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Using all the information in the publishing agreements and open access policies, and to be interoperable with the RoMEO/SHERPA database, the OAKList classifies publishers and publications using the RoMEO/SHERPA colour categories:

 

ROMEO Colour	Archiving policy
Green	can archive pre-print and post-print
Blue	can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing)
Yellow	can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)
White	archiving not formally supported

What does Pre-print, Post-print and Publisher Version mean?

Pre-print

Pre-print is the version of the article as first submitted to the journal, before any peer review has been done.

Post-print

Post-prints are the version of the paper after peer-review, with revisions having been made. These include the publisher's version as it appears in the journal and any other version of the article as accepted for publication (non publisher version). Although the content of these versions are identical, the appearances are different.

Peter Suber recognises these two versions of post-print.[1]

Publisher Version

Publisher Version is a form of the post-print that is copy-edited and formatted as it appears in the journal.

For more information on these definitions, see the SHERPA Project.

[1] Peter Suber explains that it is important to distinguish two kinds of "post-print": "(a) those that have been peer reviewed but not copy-edited and (b) those that have been both peer reviewed and copy-edited. Some journals give authors permission to deposit the first kind of postprint but not the second kind in an OA repository". Peter Suber, Open Access Overview available at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm at 15 January 2007. These definitions have been used by the European Research Advisory Board in its December 2006 Final Report, Scientific Publication: Policy on Open Access pp 6 and 7 available at http://ec.europa.eu/research/eurab/pdf/eurab_scipub_report_recomm_dec06_en.pdf at 15 January 2007.