Conferences in Citations

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Cited conference papers and conference proceedings are not tagged as uniformly in the industry as are cited journals and books. At present, there is no industry-wide agreement on how to tag citations to papers presented at conferences, papers published in a conference proceedings, complete conference proceedings, or papers written for but not presented at a conference. Writers of citations and citation style guides, JATS users, publishers, archives, and vendors may disagree concerning:

What does @publication-type="conference" mean, and when can it be used? (For example, does a conference proceedings document use publication-type="conference", publication-type="book", publication-type="conf-proc" or something else?)
Is the title of a paper in a conference proceedings an <article-title> or a <part-title>?
What is the content of <source> in a cited conference article?
How much of the information concerning the conference (name, dates, location) should one explicitly identify inside a citation?

Ultimately each organization needs to tag based on their business requirements for how they intend to use the XML, so this documentation has no Best Practice recommendations. Some of the more contentious issues are discussed below, with examples.

Type of Citations

A conference paper is an article-like document that may have been delivered at a conference, may have been published in a conference proceedings document, and/or may have been written to deliver at a conference but neither presented nor published in a proceedings.

Therefore citations to conference material may be references to:

Papers presented at a meeting
Papers intended for presentation at a meeting (but never given)
Papers published in a conference proceedings
Papers for which full information for the conference as well as the proceedings document is provided
Citation to a complete proceedings document

Some JATS users consider all these as @publication-type="conference". Other JATS users consider the first two to be @publication-type="conference" and the last three types to be @publication-type="book".

An Example of a Conference-related Citation

van Pelt, J, ..., editors. Development, dynamics, and pathology 
of neuronal networks: from molecules to functional circuits. Proceedings 
of the 23rd International Summer School of Brain Research; 2003 Aug 25-29; 
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2005. 385 p.
(Progress in brain research; vol. 147).

For the JATS user, the question is how to identify this material. Some JATS users would tag this as a @publication-type="conference", since it contains the word “Proceedings”, a conference date, and a conference location. Some JATS users would tag this as a @publication-type="book", since the item has a publisher, a publisher location, and the number of pages. Is this a reference to a conference proceedings (@publication-type="conf-proc")? Since “Progress in brain research” is a series and has an ISSN (research will tell us), is this a reference to a serial?

Papers Published in a Conference Proceedings Document

Type Conference — For some JATS users, @publication-type="conference" is used for both papers published in a proceedings and papers presented at meetings. Thus all conference-related material is cited as @publication-type="conference", and different components are tagged depending on which of the above types of citation the reference is considered to be.

Here is a citation to the above reference illustrating this style:

<mixed-citation publication-type="conference">
<person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name><surname>van Pelt</surname>, 
<given-names>J</given-names></string-name>, <etal>...</etal>,
<role>editors</role></person-group>. <source>Development, dynamics, 
and pathology of neuronal networks: from molecules to functional circuits</source>. Proceedings of the <conf-name>23rd 
 International Summer School of Brain 
 Research</conf-name>; <conf-date>2003 Aug 25-29</conf-date>; 
<conf-sponsor>Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences</conf-sponsor>, 
<conf-loc>Amsterdam, the Netherlands</conf-loc>. 
<publisher-loc>Amsterdam</publisher-loc>: 
<publisher-name>Elsevier</publisher-name>; 
<year>2005</year>. <size units="page">385</size> p. 
(<series>Progress in brain research</series>; <volume>vol. 147</volume>).
</mixed-citation>

with a possible variant of:

<mixed-citation publication-type="conference">
<person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name><surname>van Pelt</surname>, 
<given-names>J</given-names></string-name>, <etal>...</etal>, 
<role>editors</role></person-group>. <source>Development, dynamics,
and pathology of neuronal networks: from molecules to functional circuits</source>. Proceedings of the <conf-name>23rd 
 International Summer School of Brain 
 Research</conf-name>; <conf-date>2003 Aug 25-29</conf-date>; <conf-loc>Royal 
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands</conf-loc>. 
<publisher-loc>Amsterdam</publisher-loc>: 
<publisher-name>Elsevier</publisher-name>;
<year>2005</year>. <size units="page">385</size> p. 
(<series>Progress in brain research</series>; <volume>vol. 147</volume>).
</mixed-citation>

To these JATS users, the words “Development, dynamics, and pathology of neuronal networks: from molecules to functional circuits” are part of the proceedings title. If the individual paper were titled separately (which it is not in this citation), that would be tagged as an <article-title>.

Typed as a Book — Some JATS users consider a published conference proceedings to be a “book” in the broad sense of anything that looks or behaves like a book, may take an ISBN, and that provides publisher information.

Here is a citation to the same conference paper for the @publication-type="book":

<mixed-citation publication-type="book"><person-group person-group-type="editor">
<string-name><surname>van Pelt</surname>, 
<given-names> J.</given-names></string-name>,
<etal>et al.</etal></person-group> (<role>Eds.</role>). 
(<year>2005</year>). <source>Development, dynamics, and pathology of neuronal 
 networks: From molecules to functional circuits:  Proceedings of the 23rd International 
 Summer School of Brain Research, 2003 Aug 25-29, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and 
 Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands</source>. 
 <publisher-loc>Amsterdam</publisher-loc>:  
 <publisher-name>Elsevier</publisher-name>. 
 <comment>385 p. </comment> 
 (<comment>Progress in brain science; vol. 147</comment>)</mixed-citation>

To these JATS users, a conference proceedings is not a document type:

“This is a book. Elsevier considers it a book (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00796123/147/supp/C). It has an ISBN, editors, a preface, and lots of other book parts. It is sold on Amazon and textbook sites as a book. The metadata at Crossref has it typed as a book. This should be cited as a single volume in a book series.”

When tagged as a book, the title of the paper published in a proceedings becomes a <part-title>, treated as a chapter title.

Typed as Conference Proceedings — This same example could be tagged as a conference proceedings (with @publication-type="conf-proc") to distinguish between a paper presented at a conference or published in a proceedings and a full proceedings document.

<element-citation publication-type="conf-proc">
 <person-group person-group-type="editor">
  <name><surname>van Pelt</surname>
   <given-names>J</given-names></name>
 ...</person-group>
 <source>Development, dynamics, and pathology
  of neuronal networks: from molecules to functional circuits</source>
 <conf-name>Proceedings of the 23rd International Summer School of 
  Brain Research</conf-name>
 <conf-date iso-8601-date="2003-08-25">2003 Aug 25-29</conf-date>
 <conf-sponsor>Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, 
  the Netherlands</conf-sponsor>
 <publisher-loc>Amsterdam</publisher-loc>
 <publisher-name>Elsevier</publisher-name>
 <year iso-8601-date="2005">2005</year><size units="pages">385 p</size>
 <comment>(Progress in brain research; vol. 147)</comment>
</element-citation>

Papers Presented at a Conference

JATS users also have different ways of treating a paper that was presented at a conference but not published in a proceedings document. As an example, consider this citation:

De, A., & Saha, A. (2015). A comparative study on different 
approaches of real time human emotion recognition based on facial expression 
detection. Paper presented at the 2015 International Conference on Advances 
in Computer Engineering and Applications (ICACEA), 19–20 March 2015.

Most JATS users consider any paper that was presented at a meeting to be typed @publication-type="conference". For some JATS users, a conference paper must be presented at the meeting to be typed @publication-type="conference", and a paper merely published in the proceedings would not be of type “conference”. In the following tagging, the citation is typed as a conference and the title of the paper that was presented is captured as an <article-title>:

<mixed-citation publication-type="conference">
<person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>De</surname>, 
 <given-names>A.</given-names></string-name>, &amp;  
 <string-name><surname>Saha</surname>, 
 <given-names>A.</given-names></string-name></person-group> 
 (<year>2015</year>). <article-title>A comparative study on different 
 approaches of real time human emotion recognition based on facial expression 
 detection</article-title>. Paper presented at the <conf-name>2015 
 International Conference on Advances in Computer Engineering and Applications 
 (ICACEA)</conf-name>, <conf-date>19-20 March 2015</conf-date>.
</mixed-citation>

However, some JATS users consider a paper presented at a conference but not published in a proceedings to be “unpublished”. Such unpublished conference papers (not part of a proceedings) are treated as standalone documents, and while tagged as @publication-type="conference", capture the title of the paper as a <source>.

<mixed-citation publication-type="conference">
<person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>De</surname>, 
 <given-names>A.</given-names></string-name>, &amp;  
 <string-name><surname>Saha</surname>, 
 <given-names>A.</given-names></string-name></person-group> 
 (<year>2015</year>). <source>A comparative study on different 
 approaches of real time human emotion recognition based on facial 
 expression detection</source>. <comment>Paper presented at the 
 2015 International Conference on Advances in Computer Engineering and 
 Applications (ICACEA), 19–20 March 2015</comment>.</mixed-citation>

How Much of the Conference Information Should Be Tagged

Should conference metadata within a citation be tagged at all? Should it be tagged as fully as possible? Somewhere in between? This is a business and processing as well as a technical decision.

Many citations are deposited with Crossref or other authority. The Crossref Conference Metadata Model is divided into two main elements:

event_metadata
proceedings_metadata

There are sufficient conference-related semantic elements in JATS citations to allow extraction of both kinds of conference metadata from a JATS citation, including:

<conf-acronym> Conference Acronym
<conf-date> Conference Date
<conf-loc> Conference Location
<conf-name> Conference Name
<conf-sponsor> Conference Sponsor
<isbn>ISBN
<issn> ISSN
<publisher-loc> Publisher’s Location
<publisher-name> Publisher’s Name

Some JATS users choose to tag as much of this conference metadata as is practical, for Crossref deposit as well as their own metadata processing:

<mixed-citation publication-type="conference">
<person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name><surname>van Pelt</surname>, 
 <given-names>J</given-names></string-name>, <etal>...</etal>, 
 <role>editors</role></person-group>. <source>Development, dynamics, 
 and pathology of neuronal networks: from molecules to functional circuits</source>. Proceedings of the <conf-name>23rd 
 International Summer School of Brain 
 Research</conf-name>;  <conf-date>2003 Aug 25-29</conf-date>; <conf-loc>Royal 
 Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands</conf-loc>. 
 <publisher-loc>Amsterdam</publisher-loc>: <publisher-name>Elsevier</publisher-name>; 
 <year>2005</year>. <size units="page">385</size> p. (<series>Progress in 
 brain research</series>; <volume>vol. 147</volume>).</mixed-citation>

On the other hand, at least one JATS user has expressed the opinion that:

“The reference in the JATS documentation is derived from a library catalog record. Catalog records historically were created as finding aids for people poking through card catalogs. Their goal was to point someone to a physical book sitting on a shelf, surrounded by books on the same or closely related topics. Catalogers usually didn’t make a clean or obvious distinction between core metadata and additional, descriptive metadata. In this case, the conference information is not part of the core metadata for the book; it was added by the cataloger.”

And they would prefer to tag that citation as:

<mixed-citation publication-type="book">
<person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name><surname>van Pelt</surname>, 
 <given-names> J.</given-names></string-name>, <etal>et al.</etal></person-group> 
 (<role>Eds.</role>). (<year>2005</year>). <source>Development, dynamics, and 
 pathology of neuronal networks: From molecules to functional circuits:  Proceedings of the 
 23rd International Summer School of Brain Research, 2003 Aug 25-29, Royal Netherlands 
 Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands</source>. 
 <publisher-loc>Amsterdam</publisher-loc>: 
 <publisher-name>Elsevier</publisher-name>. 
 <comment>385 p. </comment> (<comment>Progress in brain 
 science; vol. 147</comment>)</mixed-citation>

Conference Dates

Conference dates in citations (if they are tagged at all) are traditionally tagged in one of two forms:

as a single date (“May 2011”), or
as the first day and last day of the conference.

Either form could be stored in the <conf-date> element. For Best Practice, the dates that come initially from separate first and last elements should be combined; for example, the separate dates:

  <conf-start>August 4, 2010</conf-start>
  <conf-end>August 9, 2010</conf-end>

should be merged into a single conference date to become:

<conf-date iso-8601-date="2010-08-04">August 4, 2010 - August 9, 2010</conf-date>

Thus a tagged conference citation might look like this, tagged as an element citation:

<element-citation publication-type="paper">
 <name><surname>Thabet</surname><given-names>A</given-names></name>
 <article-title>Clinical value of two serial pulmonary embolism-protocol 
  CT studies performed within ten days</article-title>
 <conf-name>Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course of 
  the American Society of Emergency Radiology</conf-name>
 <conf-date iso-8601-date="2006-09-27">2006 Sep 27&ndash;30</conf-date>
 <conf-loc>Washington, DC</conf-loc>
</element-citation>

And like this tagged as a mixed citation:

<mixed-citation publication-type="paper">
 <string-name><surname>Thabet</surname>, <given-names>A</given-names>
 </string-name>. <article-title>Clinical value of two serial pulmonary 
 embolism-protocol CT studies performed within ten days</article-title>. 
 <conf-name>Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course of 
 the American Society of Emergency Radiology</conf-name>; 
 <conf-date iso-8601-date="2006-09-27">2006 Sep 27&ndash;30</conf-date>; 
 <conf-loc>Washington, DC</conf-loc>.</mixed-citation>

How much <source>: An Example of Our Differences

The JATS Standing Committee does not feel there is one correct way to understand, let alone tag, conference paper citations. To show the extent of the controversy, the following citation was presented to three JATS users:

Structural Carbohydrates in the Liver: Proceedings of the 
34th Falk Symposium, Held During Basel Liver Week, Basel, 
October 12-18, 1982 Cited from: https://books.google.com/books/about/Structural_Carbohydrates_in_the_Liver.html?id=87NqAAAAMAAJ.

So how to tag this? One JATS user suggested:

“It is common practice to include the entire conference name, date, and location in a proceedings title, so perhaps the location and date given in the example above are all part of the <source>.”

One user saw “Structural carbohydrates in the liver” as the article title and tagged the @publication-type as “conference”:

...<article-title>Structural carbohydrates in the liver</article-title>: 
 <source>proceedings of the 34th Falk Symposium</source>; 
 <conf-date>1982 Oct 12-18</conf-date>; <conf-loc>Basil, 
 Switzerland</conf-loc>. <publisher-loc>Boston</publisher-loc>: 
 <publisher-name>MTB Press</publisher-name>; <year>1983</year>. 
 <size units="page">701 p.</size>

Another user saw “Structural carbohydrates in the liver” as the first part of the book title rather than the title of an individual paper, so they would tag the citation as follows, with the @publication-type as “book”). (Note: This matches the record that comes up when you click on the WorldCat link from the Google Book page.)

...
<source>Structural Carbohydrates in the Liver: Proceedings of the
 34th Falk Symposium, Held During Basel Liver Week, Basel, 
 October 12-18, 1982</source>. <publisher-loc>Basel</publisher-loc>, 
 <year>1982</year>

And still another user agreed that initial phrase was part of the proceedings title, but tagged the <source> rather differently, with @publication-type tagged as “conf-proc”:

...
<source>Structural Carbohydrates in the Liver: Proceedings of the
 34th Falk Symposium</source>, Held During Basel Liver Week, 
 <publisher-loc>Basel</publisher-loc>, 
 <string-date iso-8601-date="10-12-1982"><month>October</month>, 
 <day>12</day>–<day>18</day>,  
 <year iso-8601-date="10-12-1982">1982</year></string-date>

Best Practice

JATS as a standard cannot recommend any Best Practices when the JATS users are so divided.