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<article-version> Article Current Version Status or Number

Holds version information such as a version type, version status, version statement, or version number for the current article.

Usage/Remarks

An <article-version> may contain a word or phrase from a controlled version vocabulary (“Proof” from the NISO JAV recommendation), a non-JAV version status word (“draft” or “revised proof”), a version statement (“Second revised print version”), or a publisher’s version number (“385R5” or “ver. 2.0”).
Rationale
With the recent increase in availability of early versions of journal articles, it is becoming more important to record, within the XML document, a status, version name, version number, lifecycle stage, or similar descriptor. Many publishers are making more than one “version” (ordinary English word) of a document available to the public, for example, making public a proof, then a corrected proof, and then the copy of record. This practice argues in favor of allowing version information as part of the metadata that travels with the XML document rather than treating it as production metadata that is stored externally. This <article-version> element was created to hold that version information.
Content
The <article-version> element is free form and may contain any content from a complicated version description, to a controlled vocabulary descriptor, to a simple version number. Publishers may choose to follow the guidance of the NISO versioning recommendation for journal articles (NISO-RP-8-2008: NISO Journal Article Versions Recommendation, known as JAV, uri: www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf). But JAV practice is not universally accepted; for example, Elsevier uses its own extensive version taxonomy that is unrelated to NISO JAV. There seems to be little consensus among publishers as to what constitutes a “version” of a journal article, and even less agreement concerning how to name (or number or describe) that version. As an example, the JATS Standing Committee was not even able to reach consensus concerning whether a “proof” is a version, a status, a stage in the publication life-cycle, or something else. Experience indicates that an article may record its version as “Proof”, “copy-edited”, “ITH-12609” or “0.4”. Even for NISO JAV advocates, that recommendation provides both a full (“Version of Record”) and an abbreviated (“VoR”) form of version descriptor.

NISO JAV Best Practice

The NISO JAV recommendation defines version descriptors such as “Proof” (abbreviation “P”) “Author’s Original” (abbreviation “AO”), “Version of Record” (abbreviation “VoR”), and “Corrected Version of Record” (abbreviation “CVoR”). JATS Best Practice, if using the NISO JAV terms, is to tag the NISO JAV descriptor as the content of the <article-version> element. The NISO JAV descriptor may be repeated in the @vocab-term attribute to facilitate interoperability, and should be repeated in the @vocab-term if the version concept is a NISO JAV concept, but the display is not a canonical JAV value. The @article-version-type can also be used to identify the NISO JAV abbreviation.

Attribute Best Practice

Because the <article-version> element is so loosely defined, the element should always be given either a @vocab element naming the controlled vocabulary from which the status descriptor is taken or an @article-version-type attribute naming the type or kind of status identifier given. For example:
  • Controlled Vocabulary: If the article version element content is from a taxonomy, ontology, index, or similar term source (such as the NISO JAV recommendation), the @vocab attribute should name the vocabulary, and the @vocab-identifier provide a URI or other identifier to the vocabulary. The @vocab-term attribute can provide the term source canonical version, if the element content does not, and the @vocab-term-identifier attribute may point to the term, if appropriate.
  • Version Number or Uncontrolled Vocabulary: For <article-version> content that is not based on a controlled vocabulary, the @article-version-type can be used to explain what the content means, as expressed in the Publisher’s vocabulary, for example, “status”, “web-host-version-identifier”, or “publisher-control-number”.
Recording Dates, URIs, and Notes
Typically, the <article-version> element just contains a version number, and date information for the version is preserved as one of the history <date> elements.
If a publisher wishes to record other information about the article version as part of the <article-version>, the date and URI, this can be recorded using attributes on the <article-version> element (@iso-8601-date and @xlink:href).
If even more information needs to be associated with an article version, the <article-version> element may be repeated, with additional detail recorded, inside, the <event> element, which is inside <pub-history>.
Related Elements
More Than One Version Descriptor: An article should be given only a single version identifier in any given system at one time. However, an article may be described by several version descriptors from different systems that all apply to the article at the same time, for example, an article may be described with both a NISO-RP-8-2008 JAV version phrase and a publisher or aggregator version number. The element <article-version-alternatives> is provided as a container element to hold multiple simultaneous versions. Multiple version descriptors can be very useful when moving XML between a vendor and a customer, with each side using a different internal version number. The attributes @content-type and @specific-use are both available to make distinctions between different version descriptors.
Expanded Version Description: To provide a more complete description of a version, the <event> element in <pub-history> can be used.
Attributes
article-version-type
assigning-authority
content-type
designator
hreflang
iso-8601-date
specific-use
vocab
vocab-identifier
vocab-term
vocab-term-identifier

Base Attributes

id
xml:base

Linking Attributes

xlink:actuate
xlink:href
xlink:role
xlink:show
xlink:title
xlink:type

Namespaces

xmlns:xlink
Models and Context
May be contained in
<article-meta>, <article-version-alternatives>, <event>, <event-desc>, <front-stub>
Description
Text, numbers, or special characters
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  article-version
                        (#PCDATA)                                    >
Tagged Samples
NISO JAV-based version, with display content non-JAV 
...
<article-meta>
 <article-id pub-id-type="other">jBMJ.v324.i7342.pg880</article-id>
 <article-id pub-id-type="pmid">11950738</article-id>
 <article-version vocab="JAV" 
   vocab-identifier="http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf"
   article-version-type="VoR"  
   vocab-term="Version of Record">version-of-record</article-version>
 ...
 <title-group>...</title-group>
 <pub-date-not-available/>
 ...
</article-meta>
...
...
<article-version vocab="JAV" 
  vocab-identifier="http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf"
  article-version-type="AO"  
  vocab-term="Author's Original">preprint</article-version>
...
NISO JAV-based version, with display content JAV 
...
<article-meta>
 <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">181325198</article-id>
 <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">3251</article-id>
 <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1073/pnas.181325198</article-id>
 <article-id pub-id-type="other">jPNAS.v98.i18.pg10214</article-id>
 <article-id pub-id-type="pmid">11517319</article-id>
 <article-version vocab="JAV" 
   vocab-identifier="http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf"
   vocab-term="Version of Record"
   article-version-type="VoR"  
  >Version of Record</article-version>
 ...
</article-meta>
...
Version not from controlled vocabulary 
...
<article-version 
  article-version-type="status"
 >draft</article-version>
...
Production version number 
...
<article-version 
  article-version-type="publisher-id"
 >Ver 2.a</article-version>
...
Publisher’s internal use 
...
<article-version 
  article-version-type="revised-proof"
  iso-8601-date="2016-09-24T11:01:55.779-04:00"
  content-type="production-editor-revision"/>
...