1. Journal Article Versions:
NISO/ALPSP Work Group
SSP Annual Conference,
7 June 2007
John Ober, University of California
(with thanks to Cliff Morgan and Peter McCracken for assistance)

2. Pandora’s box (or panacea?) CUP Preprint
Cambridge Univ. Press article
Univ. of Calif. Postprint
A Columbia Professor’s BLOG
BLOG entry about the “unpublished paper”
Google Scholar points to 8 versions

3. Background: NISO-ALPSP Partnership
(late 2005)
 “Multiple versions of journal articles are
often available online”
 “Currently there are no standards in
markings, nomenclature, or metadata
that could be used by authors,
publishers, search systems, or end
users to identify the different versions of
the same journal article.”
standards…conventions….best-practices…guidelines?

4. Background: Concerns represented
 Publisher: how distinguish/identify their
definitive value-added version
 Library: ensure access to an appropriate
version; fill repositories with sanctioned, well-
identified content
 (Projected) reader/author: am I
getting/providing the [“real” | latest | “official” |
author’s-intended] material?

5. Technical WG
 Beverley Acreman, Taylor and Francis
 Claire Bird, Oxford University Press Journals
 Catherine Jones, CCLRC
 Peter McCracken, Serials Solutions
 Cliff Morgan (Chair), John Wiley & Sons
 John Ober, California Digital Library (CDL)
 Evan Owens, Portico
 T. Scott Plutchak, University of Alabama at
Birmingham
 Bernie Rous, ACM (and CrossRef)
 Andrew Wray, The Institute of Physics

6. Review Group
 Helen Atkins, HighWire
 Lindi Belfield, Elsevier (ScienceDirect)
 Emily Dill, Indiana University
 Richard Fidczuk, Sage
 Fred Friend, University College London
 David Goodman, Long Island University (now
Princeton)
 Toby Green, OECD Publishing
 Janet Halsall, CABI Publishing
 Ted Koppel, Ex Libris, USA
 Barbara Meredith, Association of American Publishers
 Cliff Morgan (Chair), John Wiley & Sons
 Sally Morris, ALPSP
 Erik Oltmans, Koninklijke Bibliotheek

7. and
 Norman Paskin, International DOI Foundation
 Jan Peterson, Infotrieve
 Heather Reid, Copyright Clearance Center
 Nathan Robertson, U. of Maryland, Thurgood Marshall
Law Library
 Bruce Rosenblum, Inera
 Rebecca Simon, University of California Press
 Kate Sloss (replaced by Sarah Rosenblum), London
School of Economics Library
 Gavin Swanson, Cambridge University Press
 Peter Suber, Earlham College
 Anthony Watkinson, Consultant
 Candy Zemon, Polaris Library Systems
 Rachel Bruce (Alternate), Joint Information Systems
Committee

8. Work group tasks
 Create & analyze use cases
 Suggest nomenclature for lifecycle stages
 Identify metadata needed to
disambiguate/relate versions
 Consider “practical systems” for “ensuring that
metadata is applied”
 [Investigate, leverage similar work in other
quarters]
 [iterative consultation/review by Review
Group]

9. Focus
 Limited to Journal Articles
 Other scholarly document types:
if the cap fits …
 Level of phylum rather than species
 Value-added “state changes” from
origination to publication and updates
 Concentrate on what’s important from
the user’s point of view

10. The recommended terms
 “Author’s Original”
 “Accepted Manuscript”
 “Proof”
 “Version of Record”
 “Corrected Version of Record”
 “Enhanced Version of Record”

11. Version “families” diagram

12. “Author’s Original” (AO)
 May have iterative versions
 Possibly disseminated by 2nd party
 But only author takes responsibility
 Everything before acceptance
 Synonymous (maybe) with:
“Personal version”, “Draft”, “Preprint”

13. “Accepted Manuscript” (AM)
 Accepted for publication in a journal
 Explain review process by link?
 Fixed stage - not iterative
 AO becomes AM upon acceptance
 Acceptance confers value
 Non-author takes responsibility
 Same as “postprint” …
 But “postprint” is counterintuitive

14. “Proof”
 Part of the publication process
 Copy-edited ms, galley proofs, page
proofs, revised proofs
 Each stage more value-add
 May be iterative within stages
 Not designed to be public, but …
 Doesn’t apply to mere format
conversions of AM (image scan, PDF)

15. “Version of Record” (VoR)
 Fixed stage – not iterative
 Published version: formally and
exclusively declared “fit for publication”
 Also known as definitive, authorised,
formal, official, authentic, archival,
reference copy …

16. Version of Record cont.
 Includes “early release” articles
that are identified as being published
 … whether paginated or not
 may exist in more than
one location (publisher’s website,
aggregator site, one or more repositories)

17. “Corrected Version of Record” (CVoR)
 Previous recommendation was
“Updated VoR”, but criticised
 Version of VoR in which errors
in VoR have been corrected
 Errors may be author’s or publisher’s
 May be iterative – datestamped
 Formal CVoR published by entity
responsible for VoR
 Equivalent to “erratum slip”

18. “Enhanced Version of Record” (EVoR)
 Version of VoR that has been
updated or supplemented
 VoR is correct at time of publication,
but amended or added to in light of
new information or insight
 If supplementary material linked to
VoR, changes to this material are not an EVoR
 If link itself changes, this is EVoR
 Both CVoR and EVoR should link to VoR

19. Some comments from Review group
 Use completely new terminology, or a
numbering system à la software?
 No – accept that terms are loaded but
better than a) current usage; b) inventing
new ones; or c) using numbers that
need explaining
for context.

20.  Be more fine-grained?
 No: focus is on key stages. If these
terms are adopted, can then go down
to “Classes and Orders” levels

21.  Watch out for pseudo-synonyms
 Yes: we warn that other terms may
not be exact synonyms, but still
useful to map across where possible

22.  Should different formats be
considered as different versions?
 No: introduces an extra level of
granularity, and versioning of
formats

23.  What if someone makes other
versions outside the formal process?
 Our conceptual framework is based
on the formal journal article publishing
process.
We hope that: other sources (a blog entry that turns
into an article) will move into value-adding process
(and point forward) .
We acknowledge that: some non-formal processes
(rogue, bastardized, defective, corrupt, lossy
fraudulent or spoof versions) will exist but we can’t
police/prevent that.

24.  Can you have multiple copies of
VoRs?
 Yes: copies of VoRs will proliferate
online, just as in print. OK as long as
each copy is the VoR.

25. Other work in this area
 RIVER (Repositories – Identification of VERsions) -
Scoping study for JISC; RightsCom, LSE,
Oxford
 VERSIONS (Versions of Eprints – a user Requirements Study
and Investigation Of the Need for Standards) - User
requirement study also for JISC also with LSE
 CrossRef IR Committee (also see very useful
glossary - semantic analysis)

26. Pandora’s box (or panacea?) CUP Preprint - AM
Cambridge Univ. Press VoR
Univ. of Calif. Postprint - VoR
A Columbia Professor’s BLOG - VoR
BLOG entry about the “unpublished paper” – link to VoR
Google Scholar points to 8 instances of VoR

27. Conclusions
 Everybody agrees that it would be good if there
were standard terms, but how to agree on…
 what/whose problem(s) are being addressed
 what terms (for humans? technical interop?)
 who vets & codifies
 how promulgate
“we have to agree on something before we can successfully
disagree”
 NISO/ALPSP JAV WG:
 Reader/user problems first
 high-level, intuitive terms rooted in journal article lifecycle

28. Conclusion cont.
 Next step: report to Review Group; add some
thoughts on metadata
 For more info go to NISO website:
http://www.niso.org/committees/
Journal_versioning/JournalVer_comm.html