If so, we will lose the number of views, recommendations etc relating to it! It is not good solution!

First delete the preprint, and then add the publication.

That's quite correct. Open the preprint file. On the right hand side there's a blue button with an arrow pointing down. Click it. Select "Remove". There's a question or two to answer. It might take a little time to disappear, but it will. Upload the article as an "Article".

Christopher NOCK

If so, we will lose the number of views, recommendations etc relating to it! It is not good solution!

I think all given answers are correct, and that's also my own experience. Sometimes it is an advantage to keep the preprint alive in the public sphere, But there is also th the possibility to make the file "private" For this, use the (above mentioned) blue arrow and go to "Remove", there you find the field of changing your file in the private mode.

Preprint article might have good reads and downloads but do not have an ISSN or DOI. If you want to have citations and avoid duplication of your work in future, you have to update it with the published article.

Dear Dang,

This is the most accurate and official answer from the researchgate.

How do I link my preprint to the publication page for the final version?

As soon as you publish your work, you can link your preprint to the final work's publication page. Here's how:

1. Go to the Research tab on your profile

2. On the left, select Preprints and locate your publication

3. Click Add published version under the preprint title

4. Select the published work you want to link to if it's already on ResearchGate, or create a new publication if it's not

5. Click Add published version

6. Your published work's page is now linked and accessible directly from your preprint

Reference:

https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Preprints

You can delete the unpublished data/manuscript, and then add newer one.

All the available solutions to turn a preprint reference into a published version reference imply that we retype the complete reference! If we delete the preprint reference first, the statistics on it (no. of reads etc.) are lost. Having the published version accessible from the preprint reference is ridiculous: the main reference should be the definitive article reference and not the preprint. It's better refraining from including preprint references in a ResearchGate account.

Dear Eric,

it's not necessary to refrain, if I understand Sokhee (24 April, above) correctly: The link from the preprint to the published version is not subordinate. You can first put the published paper on RG, and afterwards create the link.between preprint and paper.

Dear Michael,

Maybe. Even so, I am OK to type a reference to my papers manually for ResearchGate once, but not twice. Turning a preprint reference to a published paper reference could be automated.

I absolutely agree with this point -- RG has much room for improvement in terms of usability!

It would be so much easier to have the option to simply change the original "preprint" page to an "article" page then simply upload the published version to that new page which would then replace the preprint file. Now I have a "preprint" page to which I have had to upload the published paper and an "article" page for the same paper. This is because the link to the "full text available" on the "preprint" page brought up the preprint and not the full text. The system needs work.

ResearchGate only allows you to use the "delete" function in order to replace preprints:

Hi Ben,

Thanks for your post. With your solution, does the reference shift from the Preprint category to the Article (for example) category? How do you achieve this?

Best,

Eric

Not sure, but this will method replace the older paper

The problem is to turn a 'preprint' reference into an 'article' (for example) reference. These are distinct categories in the system, with explicit labels.

Unfortunately, I do not think this is possible. I found this information when I was trying to merge a preprint to its published version:

https://explore.researchgate.net/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=950413

Read the question "I’ve found a duplicate publication" and then the section "Please note:"

I hope that ResearchGate is changing this issue in the future!

Yes fully agree that RG should make the move of Preprint to Article possible and flexible. Meanwhile I stop using the Preprint category by switching to the Technical Report category. Here we can turn simply a Technical Report to Article and in a very natural way.

There is still a tricky thing: just tonight I receive an invitation from RG to confirm the authorship of a paper I posted on arXiv. It come with the designated Preprint category. So I have to reject the invitation, but create from crash a Technical Report instead.