Advance Online Publication, Digital Object Identifiers, etc.
As of 10/24/01, the following has come to my attention. It appears to be an early example of a practice which may soon become widespread. The colored text below is derived by chopping pieces out of http://www.nature.com/neuro/aop/
The Nature Research Journals plan to introduce Advance Online Publication (AOP) on their websites. Papers that have been accepted for publication will be copy-edited and formatted, and then published online as soon as they are ready.
Each [AOP] paper carries a digital object identifier (DOI), which serves as a unique electronic identification tag for that paper. As soon as the monthly issue is printed, papers will be removed from the AOP table of contents, assigned a page number and transferred to that issue's table of contents on the web site. The DOI remains attached to the paper to provide a persistent identifier.
How do I cite a paper that is an AOP but is not in print?
One advantage of the DOI system is that papers can be cited using a DOI only, before final pagination and print publication. The DOI is a persistent identifier, which remains with the article even after it is published in print. We recommend citing DOIs as follows: At the end of the reference citation, type DOI: ng571 (for example, DOI: 10.1038/ng571).
Links for more information:
- Nature Neuroscience Advance Online Publication Table of Contents
- CrossRef The Central Source for Reference Linking
- The Digital Object Identifier