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<ali:free_to_read> Free to Read (NISO Access and License Indicators)

A flag indicating that the document content can be read or viewed at its current location by any user without payment or authentication.

Usage/Remarks

This element is defined in NISO RP-22-2021, Access & License Indicators (2021 Revision) Recommended Practice. It is a simple indication of the status of the document that does not make any statements about additional reuse rights or restrictions. Absence of this element in a document does not indicate its negation; it merely indicates that a user would need to look to other information to ascertain the status of the document.

Date Attributes

Date Attributes — Start and end dates can be placed on the free-to-read status using the attributes @start_date and @end_date. Start and end dates can be used to record delayed access, special offers, etc. where the content is free to read for a period of time or after a particular date. The absence of both start (not best practice) and end dates indicates a permanent free-to-read status.
Always Use @start_date on Free to Read (NISO Access and License Indicators) — In ALI XSD Schema 1.0.1, the attribute @start_date is required on the element Free to Read (NISO Access and License Indicators). Therefore JATS best practice is to always use this attribute on Free to Read (NISO Access and License Indicators), to match the latest ALI intentions.
Unfortunately, in the earlier version of the ALI XSD schema that was incorporated into the JATS modules, this attribute was optional rather than required. JATS cannot now make @start_date required on Free to Read (NISO Access and License Indicators), because this would be a non-backwards-compatible JATS change.
Related Elements
Use of this element is independent of both the NISO ALI <ali:license_ref> and the <license> elements.
JATS has several elements that deal with the usage, permissions, and licensing. Some of these elements are taken from the NISO Access License and Indicators (ALI) 2015 Recommended Practice specification. The <license> element is JATS-specific and predates the NISO recommendation:
  • <ali:free_to_read> — This NISO ALI element is a simple flag whose presence indicates that the document is free-to-read, without making statements about any additional reuse rights or restrictions. Date attributes can specify when the document is free to be read.
  • <ali:license_ref> — This NISO ALI element points to a public license or waiver. By “public”, NISO means that the offer is generally and not privately offered. Such a license may be either human or machine-readable text that explains the terms of use or reuse for the content.
  • <license> — A JATS-specific element whose content describes a set of conditions under which the content may be used, accessed, and distributed. This element was provided to hold the license text within the <license-p> within it. The 2015 NISO ALI recommendation rather than the full license text. For users who adopt the NISO ALI recommendation, the <license> element could be used to hold a short representation of the license, a sentence or two to be used for display. Alternatively, a publisher could choose not to implement NISO ALI and to put the text of the license in <license>.
    The <license> element takes the @xlink:href attribute to point to the text of the license. However, the new NISO ALI element <ali:license_ref> performs the same pointing function. JATS best practice is to omit the @xlink:href attribute from <license> if a NISO ALI <ali:license_ref> is used.
Attributes
content-type
end_date
specific-use
start_date

Base Attributes

id
xml:base

Namespaces

xmlns:ali (fixed value = http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/)
Models and Context
May be contained in
<permissions>
Description
This is an EMPTY element
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  ali:free_to_read 
                        %free-to-read-model;                         >
Expanded Content Model

EMPTY

Tagged Samples
Free-to-read flag with no dates
Document is free to read at any time.
...
<permissions>
 <ali:free_to_read xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/"/>
</permissions>
...
Free-to-read flag with start date
Document is free to read anytime after the start date.
...
<permissions>
 <ali:free_to_read xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" 
   start_date="2014-01-01"/>
</permissions>
...
Free-to-read flag with both start and end dates
Free to read after start date. After end date, document will no longer be free to read. 
...
<permissions>
 <ali:free_to_read xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" 
   start_date="2014-01-01" end_date="2014-12-31"/>
</permissions>
...