Standard publishing procedure 1
for Computer and Information Science

This procedure is a cautious one with respect to using the Linköping University Electronic Press. Its basic idea is that the author puts up successive versions of his or her article in his/her own WWW page structure, and uses an Article Locator Page (e.g. as provided by IDA in the proposed new IDA publication system) as a well defined way of obtaining a URL for referring to those article versions. In addition, E-Press publication may be used for specific purposes when clearly allowed by the external publisher of a journal or conference proceedings.

To use procedure 1, one proceeds in the following steps:

1. Write the article, up to the point where you have a version of the article, stored in computer, which you are ready to show to the world.

2. Put the following notice on the first page of the article:
   This work has been submitted for publication. Copyright may be transferred without further notice and the accepted version may then be posted by the publisher.

3. Obtain a URL for your Article Locator Page, and construct this page. Put in it a link to the article constructed in (2).

4. Incorporate your ALR in a well-organized preprint server, that is, a server that contains the copyright clause required by both ACM and IEEE. Make sure that your ALP contains a link to the top level of the server, so that its general copyright clause is accessible.

5. Make the article available to colleagues who may give you comments about it. Use the URL of the Article Locator Page as the reference, and tell them to do likewise.

6. Submit the article to an appropriate journal, conference, etc. If this is an IEEE forum, you have to modify the phrase that you inserted in step (2) to read
   This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may not be accessible.
   For destinations such as ACM, AAAI, or KR you do not need to change the formula from step 2. For other submissions, check the information for authors or call for papers. If it does not require anything for this point, do nothing.

7. If the article is not accepted for publication, decide on one of the following:
   • Maybe the reviewers were right, the paper was lousy, and you should forget all about it and do something else. (This is sometimes the case, but not at all always).
   • The reviewers made an obvious mistake, and you think you can get it accepted quickly in another place. Resubmit quickly; continue using the same ALP.
   • Maybe the article contains good substance but needs a big rewrite in order that people shall understand it, or maybe the reviewers just aren't mature enough or fair enough. Consider the possibility of publishing the present version of the article in the E-Press, in order to get on record, and then write another article where you present the same results in another way. Get a new ALP for the new article.

8. If the article is accepted for publication (congratulations!), then change the on-line version of the article so that it contains the ACM, IEEE, or AAAI copyright notice (see the copyrights overview page). For other publishers, add a notice saying that "This article has been accepted for publication in ...", identifying the eventual place of publication.

9. Usually, the reviewers have requested some changes to the article, or you may have thought of some yourself. When you have completed the definitive version of the article which is going to be published, then provide it with the same copyright notice as was mentioned in the previous item, and put a link to the article on your ALP. At the same time, make sure that the ALP is clear about what is the pre-review version and what is the definite version, if you keep the pre-review version at all.

   If the publisher is IEEE, you are required to replace the previous electronic version of the paper with the new one. This probably means that in that URL where the prereview version used to be stored, you now store the definite version, thereby leading everyone who has referenced the article by its a direct link to its file. If you wish to keep the prereview version on-line, then presumably you can comply with the IEEE rules by moving it to another location (URL). The ALP must of course be correctly set up so that one can see which version is which.

10. Send the finished article to the publisher. Usually, they also require you to complete a copyright release where you transfer all rights to them. Consider the following four cases:
    • You get to sign a "permission to publish" whereby you as the author retain the copyright: no problem.
    • The publisher does not require you to sign any transfer at all: no problem here either. However, in this case you should make a distinct, written note of that fact, and store it in the same place as where you would otherwise have stored your copy of the copyright release form. In this way, you can state with confidence later on that you never signed such a form.
    • The standard agreements of ACM, IEEE, and AAAI: accept them as they are.
    • Other agreements where you sign away your copyright: we recommend that you add the following phrase to the copyright agreement before you sign it:
      The author retains the right to keep a copy of the article on-line on the Internet according to the same rules as those used by the IEEE in its Provisional Copyright Rules (see http://www.computer.org/author/policy.htm). Then see what happens. They are not going to refuse publishing your paper for that; in the worst case they may write back and ask you to remove the clause. Probably they will not.

    In any case, be sure to retain two copies of the copyright agreement that you signed and sent in, (or of your own, written note that you never signed any agreement), and to give one of those copies to whoever in your department is in charge of administrating copyright agreements. Starting 1997, this has to be done on the departmental level.

11. When the article appears in published form, then do the following depending on who is the publisher:
    • ACM, if/when your article appears in their digital library: Remove your own on-line version of the definite article from the server. In the ALP, replace the link to the your own on-line copy by a link to the copy maintained by ACM.
    • ACM, before your article appears in their digital library: No need to do anything. (You may however change the phrase "will appear" to "appeared" in the appropriate places).
    • IEEE, AAAI: No action at this point, except for changing "will appear" to "appeared" in the appropriate places.
    • Publishers which leave the copyright with you, including Morgan-Kaufmann: like in the previous item.
    • Publishers where you added the clause reserving the same author rights as with IEEE, and they did not object: like for IEEE etc.
    • Publishers where you added the clause reserving the same author rights as with IEEE, and they objected: comply with them, or get legal help.
    • All other publishers and also if you have lost your copy of the publication agreement: Remove the definite version and all pre-review versions of the article from any university or departmental server. Under university rules, you are not allowed to keep them there. No exceptions are permitted to this.

12. If you decide later on the make further changes to the article, then proceed as follows according to who is the publisher:
    • ACM, IEEE, AAAI: Feel free to put the revised version on-line, but be sure to refer to them as copyright holders even in the revised article.
    • Publishers which leave the copyright with you, including Morgan-Kaufmann: feel free to put the revised article on line. As a matter of courtesy, make a clear reference to where the earlier version of the article was published.
    • Publishers where you added the clause reserving the same author rights as with IEEE, and they did not object: as for IEEE.
    • All other publishers: get the permission of the publisher as copyright holder before you consider putting the revised article on-line.
    In any case, make sure that there can be no mixup as to which version of the article is which.

E-Press publication within the standard publication procedure

The purpose of the E-Press is exactly to set up a fixed, time-stamped copy of the article in such a way that it counts as publication. It is therefore worth considering in which cases you can include E-Press publication in the sequence described above. Three cases are of interest.

E-Press publication of the pre-review version

E-Press publication of a long abstract of the pre-review version

E-Press publication of the definite article

On the other hand, if the external publisher does not make articles on-line available, and in particular if the article is in a printed periodical with fairly limited circulation, then you as the author have a very strong interest in being able to put the article on-line yourself. This may be done using the ALP and your own on-line structure, by the method described above, but electronic publication using the E-Press will provide more stability: it relieves you from the duty to keep track of where you have put your articles, and it survives if you move to somewhere else.

From the point of view of the E-Press, it is important to know that your prior publication agreement with the external publisher also allows the article to be republished by the E-Press. In this case, there is of course no problem with including the appropriate copyright notices. It also has to be verified that the permission, by the external publisher, for the author to put his or her article on-line, also allows for the case of the E-Press.

In the case of the ACM, authors are not allowed to put the definite version of the article on-line at all, so it is not possible through the E-Press either.

In the case of AAAI, such republication is definitely permitted according to the "AAAI Copyright Forms" statement.

In the case of IEEE, the Provisional IEEE Copyright Policies seem to allow such E-Press republication; a definite confirmation will be sought.

E-Press validation of the author's on-line copy