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I have submitted a research paper to IEEE.

Now my research supervisor is saying to make it public by writing a blog on Medium and giving a link to the paper. He also shared research paper on some channels without my consent.

I want to know

  • Is it legal to write a blog on Medium regarding research paper that is not published?
  • Is it affects my research paper acceptance?
  • Can anyone copy it and publish it in a journal or write it on a website with his/her name?
| improve this question | |
  • Why do you want cross-publish in an academic journal and on a weblog? Do you hope, this will increase your citation count? – Manuel Rodriguez Jun 2 '18 at 9:50
  • @ManuelRodriguez My supervisor has some connections with the organization whom security problem is addressed in the paper. He said that paper will reach out to public early as compared to journal publication is long. I personally don't want this as it may affect my publication and thesis submission. – Infinity Jun 2 '18 at 10:25
  • Is he actually copying any text from the paper, or just describing the results in his own words? – Federico Poloni Jun 2 '18 at 15:06
  • @FedericoPoloni He wants to describe methodology and results in own words. – Infinity Jun 2 '18 at 16:43
  • and also link paper. – Infinity Jun 2 '18 at 16:44
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In which concerns publishability, it depends upon the journal policies regarding pre-prints and media coverage. However, this is not a legal issue - there is nothing illegal about the situation you have described.

In the case of IEEE you can see here that they allow authors to share their work anywhere.

Prior to submission to an IEEE publication

Authors may post their article anywhere at any time, including on preprint servers such as arXiv.org. This does not count as a prior publication.

Caveat: please read the whole content of the link to be aware of the full policy. They ask you to use a disclaimer that the work was submitted to IEEE:

The following text should be included on the first page of the submitted article when it first is posted in any of the above outlets: “This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible.”

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  • So it does not depend on the journal's policies. The answer to the question is simply "yes". – user9646 Jun 2 '18 at 15:21
  • @Najib what if the journal changes their policy in the mean time and my answer becomes obsolete for someone finding this in the future? There is a clear dependency on the policies. The best answer is that: always check the journal's policy in the official website, it may change with time or be different for different journals. And if you read the full policies you will see that they demand you to remove all the content if you get the paper accepted. So, it is a yes with a big 'but', not a simple yes. – The Doctor Jun 2 '18 at 16:18
  • The question asks if it's legal. Yes, it's legal, even if it is against the journal's policies. – user9646 Jun 2 '18 at 16:39
  • @NajibIdrissi The main concern is about publishability not legality. However, I have edited my answer to clear state that there is nothing illegal about the situation described in the question. – The Doctor Jun 2 '18 at 16:44
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    @Infinity your submission to a journal is proof of ownership. Submitting to arXiv and other preprint servers is also proof of ownership. Using something from arXiv without giving due credit is clear plagiarism. – The Doctor Jun 2 '18 at 16:48

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