<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.

Remarks

Usage: 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 as Content: 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, and 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 Type of the Article Version Statement
assigning-authority Authority Responsible for an Identifier
content-type Type of Content
designator Designator
id Document Internal Identifier
iso-8601-date ISO-8601 Formatted Date
specific-use Specific Use
vocab Vocabulary/Taxonomy Name
vocab-identifier Vocabulary/Taxonomy Identifier
vocab-term Vocabulary/Taxonomy Term
vocab-term-identifier Vocabulary/Taxonomy Term Identifier
xlink:actuate Actuating the Link
xlink:href Href (Linking Mechanism)
xlink:role Role of the Link
xlink:show Showing the Link
xlink:title Title of the Link
xlink:type Type of Link
xml:base Base
xmlns:xlink XLink Namespace Declaration

Content Model

<!ELEMENT  article-version
                        (#PCDATA)                                    >

Description

Text, numbers, or special characters

This element may be contained in:

<article-meta>, <article-version-alternatives>, <event>, <event-desc>, <front-stub>

Example 1

Articles in which the version descriptor is NISO JAV-based, but the display version is 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>
...

Example 2

Version descriptor is NISO JAV-based, using the JAV display term:
...
<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>
...

Example 3

Version descriptor is not from a controlled vocabulary:
...
<article-version 
   article-version-type="status"
   >draft</article-version>...

Example 4

Version descriptor is a production version number:
...
<article-version 
    article-version-type="publisher-id"
    >Ver 2.a</article-version>...

Example 5

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"/>
...

Journal Publishing Tag Library NISO JATS Version 1.3d1 (ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2019)

Version of October 2019

Back to Top