Can we submit accepted and online published IEEE journal (IEEE-JBHI) article to arXiv?

Question

I was reading that submitting a research article to arXiv gives it better visibility. I was wondering if I can submit a research article that is accepted and published in the IEEE-JBHI, to arXiv?

Answer 1

Based on few research on the question, I found the following:

As per the IEEE policy,

Can an author post his manuscript on a preprint server such as ArXiv?

Yes. The IEEE recognizes that many authors share their unpublished manuscripts on public sites. Once manuscripts have been accepted for publication by IEEE, an author is required to post an IEEE copyright notice on his preprint. Upon publication, the author must replace the preprint with either 1) the full citation to the IEEE work with Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) or a link to the paper’s abstract in IEEE Xplore, or 2) the accepted version only (not the IEEEpublished version), including the IEEE copyright notice and full citation, with a link to the final, published paper in IEEE Xplore.

What other steps are necessary for authors who would like to post their accepted articles?

The following copyright notice must be displayed on the initial screen displaying IEEE copyrighted material: © 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

And as per ArXiv,

Note on IEEE submissions. Please note arXiv will currently take the 'Accepted' IEEE version but not the 'Published' IEEE version. For more information on IEEE policies.

More Info: IEEE Author FAQ 1, IEEE Author FAQ 1, arXiv Submission

Answer 2

If your paper has already been published then you were required to sign a copyright release assigning the copyright to the IEEE. As such, your ability to post your paper on arXiv depends on the language and wording of that contract. As with any such matter, it is best to consult a lawyer.

However, in my inexpert opinion, you are probably not allowed to do this unless JBHI has an unusual copyright agreement (and a quick Google search suggests this is not the case).

According to the standard IEEE copyright agreement (emphasis mine):

Authors/employers may reproduce or authorize others to reproduce the Work, material extracted verbatim from the Work, or derivative works for the author’s personal use or for company use, provided that the source and the IEEE copyright notice are indicated, the copies are not used in any way that implies IEEE endorsement of a product or service of any employer, and the copies themselves are not offered for sale.

And later in the same document:

Although authors are permitted to re-use all or portions of the Work in other works, this does not include granting third-party requests for reprinting, republishing, or other types of re-use. The IEEE Intellectual Property Rights office must handle all such third-party requests.

Posting your work to arXiv in this case looks to me like unauthorized reproduction.

Answer 3

The policy of IEEE-JBHI allows the following according to Sherpa/RoMEO:

• Author's pre-print on Author's personal website, employers website or publicly accessible server
• Author's post-print on Author's server or Institutional server

But they have some very specific conditions what to do after the article has been published like adding a copyright statement to the pre-print. Please check the Sherpa/RoMEO link for detailed information.

Since they have no policy regarding arXiv, I'd suggest to contact the editor.