Is it okay to put up a submitted paper and a paper which is about to be submitted on Academia.edu?

Question

I'm applying to graduate school (CS MS/PhD) this year and I wanted to put up a copy of my papers online so that admission committees would be able to see them. The problem is one of the papers is currently under submission at a conference and notification for the same is only on Jan 22nd. Another one is still in preparation and I will be submitting it soon to a journal/conference. So I was just wondering if it is okay if I put up these papers in my Academia.edu page? Actually one of my friends' told me that since Academia.edu submissions are searchable on Google, the conference I have submitted to and the journal or conference I would be submitting the other paper will have a problem. Is he right? How else can I provide a way for others to view these papers?

Answer 1

For your submitted paper: Check the copyright and "prior publication" policies of the conference you've submitted to. It's very likely that they allow you to post a "preprint" of your paper on your web page. This is a very common practice in Computer Science, since it allows researchers to share their work without being delayed by the peer review process. You might also consider posting on a preprint server such as arXiv.org as this will further increase your audience (this is also usually allowed). And it would also be a good idea to include a copy of the paper with your applications, or at least a link; don't expect the admissions committee to find it by themselves.

For your not-yet-submitted paper: Again, there shouldn't be a problem with the journal/conference, but it's probably best to wait to make it public until it is completely finished and ready to submit. However, you could certainly include a copy with your applications.

Answer 2

This may not be relevant to OP's situation but it's relevant to the general question: There is one additional issue not addressed so far: Are you sure that you want everyone in the world seeing your paper now? Are you sure, even, that you want admissions committees seeing it? If a paper is accepted for a conference, that means that someone has decided it's at least good enough for that conference. You have a little bit of confirmation that you're not embarrassing yourself by posting your paper publicly. But conference papers don't necessarily have to be good in a self-contained way. It might be enough, from the point of view of the conference organizers and reviewers, if the paper is intriguing and could lead to interesting discussion and feedback.

The safest thing to do is to restrict circulation of your papers to people you know until the paper has been published. I'm putting aside issues about copyright, prior publication, etc. My point is that having had a paper reviewed, having gotten feedback, and having revised to the extent that reviewers think the paper is worth publishing provides good reason to think that you are not embarrassing yourself by making the paper publicly available. (Alternatively, just get lots of feedback from people who are qualified to give it.)

That's the safest thing to do. I'm not saying it's the best thing to do. There are tradeoffs. By putting the paper out on the web early, you promote your ideas, advertise what you're about, and promote discussion.

I'm not sure that any of this applies to CS, and I'm not sure that any of it applies to your situation. It's more relevant to people who are going on the academic job market after graduate school. I think that what people are probably looking for in graduate applicants is that applicants have a lot of promise. If there is good raw material, but also rough edges, that's OK: Helping you grow past the rough edges is the job of the graduate program.