Prior Publication Policy

A significant number of working papers, early drafts, and similar work in progress are openly shared online between members of the scientific community. It has become common to announce one’s own research on a personal website or a blog to gather comments and suggestions from other researchers. Such works and online postings are, indeed, published in the sense that they are made publicly available. However, this does not mean that if submitted for publication by IntechOpen they are not original works. We differentiate between reviewed and non-reviewed works when determining whether a work is original and has been published in a scholarly sense or not.

The significance of Peer Review cannot be overstated when it comes to defining, in our terms, what constitutes a published scientific work. Peer Review is widely considered to be the cornerstone of modern publishing processes and the key value-adding contribution to a scholarly manuscript that a publisher can make.

Other than the issue of originality, research misconduct is another major issue that all publishers have to address. IntechOpen’s Retraction & Correction Policy and various publication ethics guidelines identify both redundant publication and (self)plagiarism to fall within the definition of research misconduct, thus constituting grounds for rejection or the issue of a Retraction if the work has already been published.

In order to facilitate the tracking of a manuscript’s publishing history and its development from its earliest draft to the manuscript submitted, we encourage Authors to disclose any instances of a manuscript’s prior publication, whether it be through a conference presentation, a newspaper article, a working paper publicly available in a repository or a blog post.

A note to the Academic Editor containing detailed information about a submitted manuscript’s previous public availability is the preferred means of reporting prior publication. This helps us determine if there are any earlier versions of a manuscript that should be disclosed to our readers or if any of those earlier versions should be cited and listed in a manuscript’s references.

Some basic information about the editorial treatment of different varieties of prior publication is laid out below:

1. PREPRINTS

Authors are strongly encouraged to place their work on a preprint server and state this within their submitted manuscript. Submission to a preprint server will not be considered as a republishing and manuscript with a preprint will be considered for publication.

2. CONFERENCE PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Given that conference papers and presentations generally pass through some sort of peer or editorial review, we consider them to be published in the accepted scholarly sense, particularly if they are published as a part of conference proceedings.

All submitted manuscripts originating from a previously published conference paper must contain at least 50% of new original content to be accepted for review and considered for publication.

Authors are required to report any links their manuscript might have with their earlier conference papers and presentations in a note to the Academic Editor, as well as in the manuscript itself. Additionally, Authors should obtain any necessary permissions from the publisher of their conference paper if copyright transfer occurred during the publishing process. Failure to do so may prevent Us from publishing an otherwise worthy work.

3. NEWSPAPER & MAGAZINE ARTICLES

Newspaper and magazine articles usually do not pass through any extensive peer or editorial review and we do not consider them to be published in the scholarly sense. Articles appearing in newspapers and magazines rarely possess the depth and structure characteristic of scholarly articles.

Submitted manuscripts stemming from a previous newspaper or magazine article will be accepted for review and considered for publication. However, Authors are strongly advised to report any such publication in an accompanying note to the External Editor.

As with the conference papers and presentations, Authors should obtain any necessary permissions from the newspaper or magazine that published the work, and indicate that they have done so in a note to the External Editor.

4. GREY LITERATURE

White papers, working papers, technical reports and all other forms of papers which fall within the scope of the ‘Luxembourg definition’ of grey literature do not pass through any extensive peer or editorial review and we do not consider them to be published in the scholarly sense.

Although such papers are regularly made publicly available via personal websites and institutional repositories, their general purpose is to gather comments and feedback from Authors’ colleagues in order to further improve a manuscript intended for future publication.

When submitting their work, Authors are required to disclose the existence of any publicly available earlier drafts in a note to the Academic Editor. In cases where earlier drafts of the submitted version of the manuscript are publicly available, any overlap between the versions will generally not be considered an instance of self-plagiarism.

5. SOCIAL MEDIA, BLOG & MESSAGE BOARD POSTINGS

We feel that social media, blogs and message boards are generally used with the same intention as grey literature, to formulate ideas for a manuscript and gather early feedback from like-minded researchers in order to improve a particular piece of work before submitting it for publication. Therefore, we do not consider such internet postings to be publication in the scholarly sense.

Nevertheless, Authors are encouraged to disclose the existence of any internet postings in which they outline and describe their research or posted passages of their manuscripts in a note to the Academic Editor. Please note that we will not strictly enforce this request in the same way that we would instructions we consider to be part of our conditions of acceptance for publication. We understand that it may be difficult to keep track of all one’s internet postings in which the researcher´s current work might be mentioned.

In cases where there is any overlap between the Author´s submitted manuscript and related internet postings, we will generally not consider it to be an instance of self-plagiarism. This also holds true for any co-Author as well.

For more information on this policy please contact permissions@intechopen.com.

Policy last updated: 07July 2023