Policy on Dual or Prior Publication
First adopted by Council 20 April 1969 [Most recently revised 25 April 2009]
AGU publishes journals and books for the purpose of disseminating reports of original investigations to its membership in the geosciences as broadly defined by AGU's various sections and focus groups, as well as to the scientific community and the public at large. AGU also publishes reviews and other information of interest to geoscientists.
AGU does not knowingly publish reports, letters, and articles that have been previously published and it expects authors at time of submission to state any previous public distribution of their work in electronic and printed formats. For the purposes of this policy statement, prior publication is defined as distribution of research in any form that constitutes public distribution, e. g., scientific journals, books, serials issued by a commercial publishing company, unclassified government documents, etc., that can be accessed in print and/or by electronic access. Specifically, any document that is accessible to a library user, who does not have special access or privileges, directly or indirectly by interlibrary loan, scanning and delivery by fax, email or other electronic means is considered published, except as noted below. Electronic posting of preprints to services that provide or purport to provide archiving with citation protocols and public retrieval capabilities also constitutes publication. But if the preprint were removed from the archive, it would no longer be considered published. Reports distributed to very limited, defined distribution lists do not constitute publication. Preprints of papers and conference abstracts, such as those prepared for symposia and distributed to only registered participants of the symposium, are not regarded as published. But extended conference abstracts which would be normally listed in a scientist's curriculum vita as a publication are considered prior publications by the AGU. A thesis is not regarded as published if the degree-granting institution requires theses to be deposited in the institution's electronic repository. AGU will accept original submissions based on theses so long as publication does not violate the institution's policies.