Journal Article Versions:

An Update On Developments, Progress, and Embracing Sisyphus

Mike Nason | NISO JAV Co-chair
Open Scholarship & Publishing Librarian | UNB Libraries
Open Scholarly Infrastructure Advisor | PKP

Context / Mandate

Evolving Publication Landscape 

Since the 2008 JAV, preprints and flexible, iterative publishing models have grown in number and complexity, making it critical to update how versions of research articles are defined, identified, and cited.

DOI Inconsistencies

These issues, additionally, have implications for consistent DOI use throughout scholarly publishing.

Standardization Need*

A new framework will provide clear guidelines for version terminology and DOI assignment, improving clarity for publishers, researchers, and libraries.

JAV is not a standard.

It is a recommendation.

*

Makeup / Membership

Just as it was with the 2008 working group, this JAV revision working group is made up of a diverse cross-section of stakeholders with responsibilites and expertise across/throughout the research life-cycle.

It has been an international effort including publishers, platforms, libraries, service providers, and maintainers of open infrastructure.

American Chemical Society (ACS)
arXiv
Atypon
Clarivate Analytics
Cornell University
Crossref
F1000 Research
IOP Publishing
National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Rutgers University Libraries
Taylor & Francis Group
Silverchair
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Springer Nature
SSRN
University of Florida Libraries
University of New Brunswick Libraries

Ideally, this collaborative breadth ensures the practicality, acceptance, and broad adoption of these recommendations across the wide range of the scholarly publishing community.

What's New / Changes

Consumer View Recommendations 

Establishing a way to easily relay version information (and what that means) to consumers of research (media, the public, researchers, students... etc.)

Semantic Versioning

Uniquely identify and communicate the significance of changes between different versions of an article. 

Improvement of Publishing Stages

Deprecating lesser-used terms:

• Corrected and Enhanced Version of Record (CVoR and EVoR) are made redundant by applying semantic versioning.

Patching ambiguity:

• Changing “Proof” to “PF”.

What's New / Changes

There were some spicy opinions regarding our public draft release from November, 2024.

In an effort to address a multitude of expressed concerns, we're introducing a new term to better articulate the emerging workflows and processes of open peer review and publish, review, curate (PRC) models .

Published Manuscript Under Review

A published article that has entered a process either by the author or by an external entity for formal review managed by a recognized publishing entity whose publication workflow uses open peer review, "Publish Review Curate", or other such open publication models and platforms. In these workflows, articles are submitted to a publishing entity (or entities), run through a predefined vetting process, and then published online for open, publishing entity-led and/or community peer review. In this state, these articles are functionally undergoing the peer review process. The entity responsible for this workflow recognizes its responsibility to facilitate peer review and feedback to the author. If the work passes a positive review threshold and revisions are accounted for, the work will shift stages to Accepted Manuscript (AM) or directly to Version of Record (VoR) depending on the publisher policies.

consumer view label

jav term/stage

semantic version

major.minor.patch

What's New / Changes

Additional changes/supplements for the sake of clarity include...

• DOI recommendations and related improvements to language clarity
• metadata representation
• applying JAV to the "preprint"
• backwards compatibility
• guidance around retractions
• updated/modernized use cases

Current Status / Timeline

Working Group Appointment:
November 2020

Draft Public Comments Period:
Open from May 23 to July 7, 2024

Current Status:
Working group responding to feedback (79 total comments), modifying recommendations, and approaching final draft.

Target Release
Fall/Early Winter 2025

This will be our fifth anniversary which is, traditionally, the wood anniversary. Please start planning your gift-giving accordingly.  

Moving Forward / Release Prep

Policy Development

Publishers and publications platforms should be thinking about developing policies around semantic versioning. Chiefly, what constitutes major/minor/patch level changes.

Accommodating Consumer View

Publishers and publications platforms should be considering adoption of consumer view labels with clear indications of article history.

Metadata Matters

This language has implications for service providers, repositories, publishers, and platforms. PID registration agencies may want to accomodate JAV and version elements/attributes. Controlled vocabulary in organizations like COAR will also need updating to ensure accuracy.  

Citation styles/formats should consider reflecting article versions. 

Thanks / Questions?

Co-chairs

Mike Nason
Clay Burgett
Patrick Hargitt

We have been at this for 5 whole, grueling years. I just want to acknowledge the labour, attention, and care of the working group members who remain and also those who have since moved on to other jobs/projects/less contentious interests.  Thanks also to those at NISO who have been very patient in their cat wrangling.