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I published one of my manuscripts in June 2015 in a relatively new journal (6 volumes so far). The journal makes it clear in the website that it is available online and in print with ISSN. The key idea was getting a printed copy of the issue/journal for promotion requirements in my University. I contacted them many times to send the hard copy but till today I did not get it and I believe that they will not. I contacted them to remove the paper from their website to re-submit the paper in another journal for publication.

The question is: is this possible? and what is consequences for submitting the same manuscript to another journal?

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    "getting a printed copy of the issue/journal for promotion requirements in my University." Surely the easier thing is getting the University to understand and accommodate the situation, rather than republishing the article? The latter is a ridiculous amount of effort just to meet a silly paperwork requirement. Also, the requirement is out of step with the reality of modern academia, where many journals are online only.
    – user24098
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 11:11
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    Don't do it. Once the paper is published, that's it - it cannot be unpublished, only perhaps retracted if it is revealed to be flawed or fraudulent. Aside from that, any self-respecting journal would not accept a submission that was already published elsewhere. This is considered unethical behavior, you will either be flat out rejected if you are honest about your intentions, or worse if you hide your intentions and are discovered to have tried to publish the same paper twice.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 15:33
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    Have you explicitly checked that a printout (or pdf) of an eprint is not acceptable? Most journals (at least in my field) do not provide physical offprints to authors anymore.
    – Kimball
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 16:16

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The question is: is this possible?

If you have signed over the copyright of your paper to this journal, or given them an irrevocable license to distribute, then they don't have to take down the paper just because you have asked them. In fact, if they are a reputable journal and the paper has already been published, they shouldn't just take down the paper without a very good reason, because that would distort the scientific record.

and what is consequences for submitting the same manuscript to another journal?

Submitting a manuscript to a journal that is already published in another journal is called "duplicate publication", and it is considered a kind of research misconduct. Consequences can include retraction of the duplicate publication, being banned from submitting papers to that journal for some period of time, or being banned from submitting papers to that publisher's journals for some period of time.

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    I think the copyright transfer is a contract. If the publisher does not hold up their end (i.e., providing a print version), I would be surprised if the transfer was valid. That said, that aspect is a legal question and probably requiresome a lawyer. Further, it would not change the prior publication status, at least in my mind.
    – StrongBad
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 14:31
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    @StrongBad I'd be surprised to see a copyright transfer that says the publisher will provide a print version. Especially for an online journal.
    – Joel
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 21:05
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    The copyright transfer does not say that, of course. However, we have to remember that one of the main criteria we use to publish is the availability of print copy.
    – Alaa Sadik
    Commented May 17, 2016 at 9:34
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    one of the main criteria we use to publish is the availability of print copy. [citation needed]
    – LLlAMnYP
    Commented Aug 14, 2017 at 11:15

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