start_date Start Date (ALI Attribute)

Date on which the document starts being free-to-read or begins the given license, as defined in NISO RP-22-2021, NISO RP-22-2021, Access & License Indicators (2021 Revision).

Usage/Remarks

Best Practice

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.
Preferred Date Format — NISO RP-22-2021 recommends that the start date be given in the ISO-8601 format “YYYY-MM-DD”, without inclusion of a time or a time zone.
OPTIONAL on elements: <ali:free_to_read>, <ali:license_ref>
Value Meaning
Text, numbers, or special characters The ISO 8601 date on which the document starts being free-to-read or begins the given license.
Restriction @start_date is an optional attribute; there is no default.
Tagged Samples
Free-to-read flag with both start and end dates. After the end date, the 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>
...
example of licensing and usage rights changing over time. The content is under a proprietary license from psychoceramics.org at first (February 3, 2014; initial publication) and then under a CC BY license a year later.
...
<permissions>
 <license>
  <ali:license_ref xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" start_date="2014-02-03">
   http://www.psychoceramics.org/license_v1.html</ali:license_ref>
  <ali:license_ref xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" start_date="2015-02-03">
   http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/</ali:license_ref>
 </license>
</permissions>
...