What is I-O?

Effective June 1, 2001, the Publication and Communications Board of the APA issued an official update regarding the policy for posting articles on the Internet which may or may not have been previously published in APA journals. 

Unpublished Paper Guidelines

According to the new policy, unpublished papers may be distributed on the Internet or posted on a Web site. However, the paper must be labeled with the date and a statement indicating that the paper has not yet been published. For example (as offered on the APA Web site): Draft version 1.3, 1/5/99. This paper has not been peer reviewed. Please do not copy or cite without authors permission. 

Papers Submitted for Publication

Authors are obligated to inform editors that a paper has been or is currently posted on the Web when submitting the paper for publication. The policy cautions that some editors may consider a Web posting a prior publication and choose not to review the paper. 

Previously Published APA Journal Paper Guidelines

Based upon the following conditions, authors may post their previously published APA journal papers on the Web. The policy specifically states that authors may post a copy of the final manuscript, as a word processing, PDF, or other type file, on their Web site or their employers server after it has been accepted for publication. The conditions are as follows:

• The posted article must carry an APA copyright notice and include a link to the APA journal home page.
• APA does not permit archiving with any other non-APA repositories.
• APA does not provide electronic copies of the APA-published version for this purpose, and authors are not permitted to scan in the APA-published version.

The detailed policy along with previous versions of APAs official Web posting policy can be found at http://www.apa.org/journals/posting.html.