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If you have any questions about APSA Preprints that are not addressed by the FAQs or User Guide, you can contact preprints@apsanet.org .
APSA Preprints is a free-to-access prepublication platform dedicated to early research outputs in political science and related disciplines. It has been developed through a collaboration of the American Political Science Association and Cambridge University Press.
APSA Preprints will be made available in a beta version between the end of May and August 2019. It will be formally launched at the 2019 APSA Annual Meeting in Washinton, DC (August 29 - September 1). Between May and late August, the site will undergo rigorous user testing and ongoing development as the site evolves and further features are added.
Putting your prepublication work on APSA Preprints will enable you to showcase your research and get impact earlier, building an audience for your work and encouraging engagement from peers. Posting your content helps stake an early claim to research outputs by getting your name and a date associated with the output prior to formal publication. APSA Preprints also helps political scientists make connections across the discipline by showcasing emerging research trends and allowing potential collaborators to connect with one another.
APSA Preprints is open to a variety of types of prepublication content including working papers, presentations, and posters, together with related data, code, and other supplementary materials. Submissions can be made at any stage of the research process up until the point that the content is accepted for formal publication following peer review. The content must be political science, broadly defined, and must meet the following requirements:
APSA Preprints will not approve the upload of content that has already been finally accepted for publication as a journal article or book chapter, or the retrospective upload of preacceptance versions of content that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals or books in a final “Version of Record” form.
No. APSA Preprints is an early research space and so only content that has not yet been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, book, or other format can be uploaded (though content can remain on APSA Preprints after acceptance and publication have taken place). Research content uploaded to APSA Preprints can subsequently be submitted to journals for peer review. In due course, corresponding authors will be able to upload directly from APSA Preprints to selected Cambridge University Press journal titles.
Uploads to the site pass through a series of key checks for plagiarism and also for general appropriateness using the criteria detailed above.
All content should be grammatically correct and free of errors and typos. Any figures and tables should be embedded in the text in an appropriate, logical location.
The upload and moderation process does not involve copyediting or typesetting; therefore, if approved, the version that is uploaded is the exact version that will appear publicly online. Be sure to review your content to ensure that all references are accurate.
Anyone, as long as they have an APSA account , which is free to obtain, and as long as the content abides by the criteria detailed above. You do not need to become an APSA member to have an APSA account.
No, posting content to APSA Preprints is free of charge to authors. You will need an APSA account to log in, but it is free to register .
No, all content on APSA Preprints is free to read and share. There are no paywalls and no registration is required.
No, but the corresponding author is encouraged to enter a valid ORCID iD, which can be freely obtained here .
Yes, APSA Preprints has been designed to be read on a variety of different devices, from laptops and monitors to tablets and smartphones.
No. As an early research site containing non–peer-reviewed material, APSA Preprints will not qualify for an Impact Factor. Many other metrics will be included at article and site level, however, including downloads, citations, shares, and Altmetric scores.
No. You are free to post your prepublication work anywhere, though our recommendation is that you upload your research content only on APSA Preprints to have a comprehensive view of usage metrics for article views and PDF downloads, as well as Altmetric data relating to social media coverage. These metrics will be inaccurate and will underestimate actual usage in article-to-article comparisons if your content is also posted elsewhere. Some readers may be perplexed if they encounter the same prepublication content in multiple locations.
Importantly, some journals or publishers may also place restrictions on the posting of certain prepublication versions though these policies have largely changed to accept prepublication content as part of the research life cycle. We recommend that you check the policies of any publishers to which you intend to submit your research content for formal publication, in advance of uploading content to APSA Preprints.
Initially, the following content types are approved:
APSA Preprints accepts PDF files as primary items. Any file type can be uploaded as supplementary material including audio/video files, Excel/CSV, Word, or any other type.
To upload your content you will need an APSA account , which you can obtain for free if you do not have one already.
Uploading content to APSA Preprints is quick and easy. To begin the upload process, you simply need to click the “Upload Content” button, log in using your APSA username and password, and then complete the following four steps:
Step 1. Enter “Author Details” (including details for all coauthors).
Step 2. Upload “Your Content,” including a title, abstract, and keywords.
Step 3. Add “Supporting Material” and select an end-user license.
Step 4. Check, click “Agree,” then click “Submit’’.
Full details on each stage can be found here .
Yes, you can upload data, code, appendices, and other supporting materials to supplement your main content. Any file type is permitted but the maximum file size will be 500MB. Links to third-party sites containing supplementary materials (for example, data sets posted on third-party sites such as the Harvard Dataverse) can also be provided. These files and links will appear in a “Supplementary Materials” area on the content landing page.
Copyright in all content on the APSA Preprints site will be retained by the corresponding author or co-author(s). All work on the site will be nonexclusively licensed to APSA and completely free to read. All content on the site can be posted elsewhere on the Internet by the corresponding author or co-author(s) and published in formal publication venues, subject to their policies.
Corresponding authors are asked to select one of the following end-user licensing options, which determine whether and how the content can be reused by others:
Once your content has been uploaded, it will be checked by the APSA moderation team who will assess it against the criteria below to ensure that all content on the site meets a set of basic quality thresholds.
Content uploads may be rejected on any of the following grounds:
We aim to process most uploads in 3–5 US business days from upload, including the approval process and posting on the site.
Yes, the status of your content will be displayed in your personal author dashboard, which you can access by logging in and going to "My Content."
You will receive an email and the status of your content will update on your author dashboard.
Updates are handled through the posting of new versions. Previous versions will remain on the platform, clearly labeled and linked to the most recent version. Search results will return the most recent version; any readers viewing an older version will be made aware that an updated version is available. This feature will not be available at the initial launch but should be available shortly thereafter.
Individual pieces of research content posted to APSA Preprints are citable and part of the scholarly record, so they cannot be removed from the site except in extremely rare circumstances. You can, however, request that your content be marked as “retracted” if you no longer stand by your findings or your content contains fundamental errors.
All requests for retraction will be subject to approval by the APSA moderation team who will follow guidance from COPE to determine an appropriate course of action. For any queries about retractions of content on APSA Preprints, please email preprints@apsanet.org .
Yes, if the content is felt to breach the criteria above after it has been approved and posted; for example, if previously undetected plagiarism or ethical concerns around data collection come to light. If this happens, you will be notified and will have a chance to appeal the decision.
The content will stay on the platform but will be watermarked as ”Retracted” and linked to a note explaining the reason for the retraction.
APSA reserve the right to remove content should it be found to breach the terms and conditions or the screening criteria. In extremely rare circumstances, content may be removed for legal reasons. You will be notified of any removal of content and given the right to appeal.
Yes, the following metrics are available for each individual piece of research content:
Altmetric scores will be made available as the platform develops.
Aggregated data across all of your individual pieces of research content are available in your personal author dashboard, which you can access by logging in and going to ”My Content.” On your author dashboard you will see metrics for all your posted content including:
You can keep abreast of newly uploaded research content by following the APSA Preprint Twitter account (@APSA_Preprints) and Facebook page or signing up for content alerts (either for the whole of APSA Preprints or for one or more of the 14 political science subfields). The APSA website PSNow will also keep you informed of significant APSA Preprints content as well as general news about the platform.
All content on APSA Preprints is freely available and can be shared by the corresponding author or coauthor(s) without any need to request permission. The following sharing tools are available on the platform:
This depends on the license that you apply to your work during the upload process. See What are the content licensing options? for more details.
Individual pieces of prepublication content can be cited using their unique digital object identifier (DOI) as follows:
‘’Author 1, Author 2, Date, Title, DOI’’
By selecting “Cite” on the content landing page you can generate a citation for the content in a number of formats and use the copy/paste tool to copy the citation into your document or reference manager.
Yes, you can submit your content to a journal or as a book. As the system evolves, you will be able to upload directly from APSA Preprints to the online peer review systems of the APSA journals and a number of other political science publications.
Most scholarly publication venues allow for the posting of prepublication content. However, we recommend that the corresponding author check SHERPA/RoMEO to be sure of the future publication venues’ policies.
Yes, a link will be made between the published “Version of Record” and the prepublication content when your content is registered with Crossref.