Article dates in XML and PDF

Introduction

Different dates can be assigned to an article, referring to the process of submission and review and to the final publication of an article online and/or in a printed issue. This page provides more information about the meaning and use of these dates in XML and PDF documents.

Online publication date

With the introduction of Advance - the option to publish an article online before (in Advance of) including it in a regular journal issue - an article can have two publication dates for publication online: as a separate article and as publication in an online and printed issue. For this reason, two <pub-date> elements can be included in the XML, using the date-type- attribute to distinguish between the Advance online publication date and the incorporation in an issue:

A <pub-date publication-format="online" date-type="article">-element is required:
- The date, month and year information in the element corresponds with the date of first-delivery of an XML-package that contains the article. This could either be the date of publication in Advance or a first online-publication date as part of an issue.
- Once set, a publication date with date-type="article" is never changed.
- For those journals that mention the online publication date also in the PDF, the same date is used.
A <pub-date publication-format="online" date-type="issue">-element is required, as soon as the article is included in an issue:
- The date, month and year information in the element corresponds with the date of delivery of the issue XML-package.

The XML for an Advance article contains only the first <pub-date publication-format="online">-element. Each article in an issue package will have both online publication dates. The date information in the element with date-type="article" is either identical to/copied from the Advance version or - in case the article has not been published online in Advance - to the issue publication date.

Article history information

XML-packages received from Editorial Manager provide information about the "history" of the article. When was it received? When was it reviewed, accepted and published? Such information should be included in the XML-package, using the history-element. Including in the PDF is strongly recommended in light of A&I services' requirements. Within the history element, multiple dates can be specified, using the attribute date-type to specify the meaning of the date-element. The following options for date-type are accepted (most frequently used are marked with a colored background):

value date-type	meaning
received	Date that article was received
initial decision	Date that initial decision was taken on article
rev-request	The date revisions were requested. There may be more than one @date-type with this value
rev-recd	Date that a revised version of the article was received. There may be more than one @date-type with this value
accepted	Date that article was accepted in journal
pub	The publication date (online or print)
preprint	Preprint dissemination date (online or print)
version-of-record	Date that the version of record of the article was published (online or print)
retracted	The date an article was retracted
corrected	The date an article was corrected

For articles that are not submitted through Editorial Manager, this information is in general not available. If provided in another way, the information can be included as well in the XML and - if applicable - PDF. The journal compositor shall first check whether these dates (i.e., Received and Accepted) have been submitted as part of the metadata with the article. If not there, they are kindly asked to place a so-called author query (AQ) in the styled author proof.

Example

Article history

<article-meta>
	...
	<history>
		<date date-type="received">
			<day>20</day>
			<month>11</month>
			<year>2018</year>
		</date>
		<date date-type="initial-decision">
			<day>25</day>
			<month>02</month>
			<year>2019</year>
		</date>
		<date date-type="rev-recd">
			<day>19</day>
			<month>03</month>
			<year>2019</year>
		</date>
		<date date-type="accepted">
			<day>25</day>
			<month>04</month>
			<year>2019</year>
		</date>
		<date date-type="pub">
			<day>20</day>
			<month>05</month>
			<year>2019</year>
		</date>
	</history>
	...
</article-meta>

Display online and in PDF (general)

As mentioned, showing the article history in the PDF is decided upon for each journal separately. The above example is copied from an article in Behaviour. In the PDF this information is included as:

Date fields with specific date-type-attributes are also mentioned at the metadata page of the article at brill.com:

Display in PDF (journals observing Brill Typographic Style, BTS 2.2)

Received 3 February 2023 | Accepted 5 March 2023 | Published online 15 May 2023

or, perhaps:

Received 3 February 2023 | Accepted 5 March 2023 | Revised 9 April | Published online 15 May 2023

See BTS 2.2 p. 81 (18.2B)

Note the vertical slash. Note that the American data format as in the above example no longer applies. It should be edited as Received 30 September 2021 ... as of now.

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