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 decided upon per journal. 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.
Example
<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
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:
