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My paper has been accepted for a conference, I have chosen the ACM "License to Publish" and the publishers are happy with the camera-ready copy. According to the ACM license I may

"Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author’s home page, (2) the Owner’s institutional repository, or (3) any repository legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work is based."

It doesn't say anything about the timing. My question is: may I put it online on my own website before the conference? And if yes, is that considered bad style?

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    To be sure, I think you should ask the organizers of the conference. Conferences and journals can have legitimate reasons for wanting papers to be "unpublished".
    – fileunderwater
    Commented May 26, 2015 at 12:48

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Whether or not it's technically legally acceptable, I would find it extremely gauche to post a publication online before it has been made available by the venue where it is scheduled for appear. Thus, for conferences I wait until the date of the conference, and for journals I wait until the "online early" copy appears.

Now, if your publication is also compatible with an alternate means of publication, like arXiv or a tech report at your institution, I would find it completely reasonable to post a version up that way, citing that, and then later update the links and citation information when the "official" version comes out.

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    Really? I often google with success for conference papers prior to the date of the conference. Many well-known institutions seem to put up the camera-ready version of their papers as soon as they uploaded it, and I am not sure why that would be a faux-pas.
    – xLeitix
    Commented May 26, 2015 at 14:54
  • @xLeitix That may certainly be the case: I still find it rather unseemly. I don't have a strong argument for my case, though, so the rest of the world is free to disagree with me.
    – jakebeal
    Commented May 26, 2015 at 15:15
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    I agree. Also, asking the organizers in advance is as easy as posting a question here at AcademiaSE, so why not ask?
    – fileunderwater
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 11:14
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    @fileunderwater Touché :)
    – cxxl
    Commented May 28, 2015 at 12:42
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It doesn't say anything about the timing. My question is: may I put it online on my own website before the conference? And if yes, is that considered bad style?

As long as it does not say otherwise I would assume timing to not be an issue. That is, you are free to put the paper online before the conference, and indeed (at least in computer science) this is commonly done.

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