Presentation at ISSI2015 Haustein, S., Bowman, T.D. & Costas, R. (2015). When is an article actually published? An analysis of online availability, publication, and indexation dates Abstract. With the acceleration of scholarly communication in the digital era, the publication year is no longer a sufficient level of time aggregation for bibliometric and social media indicators. Papers are increasingly cited before they have been officially published in a journal issue and mentioned on Twitter within days of online availability. In order to find a suitable proxy for the day of online publication allowing for the computation of more accurate benchmarks and fine-grained citation and social media event windows, various dates are compared for a set of 58,896 papers published by Nature Publishing Group, PLOS, Springer and Wiley-Blackwell in 2012. Dates include the online date provided by the publishers, the month of the journal issue, the Web of Science indexing date, the date of the first tweet mentioning the paper as well as the Altmetric.com publication and first-seen dates. Comparing these dates, the analysis reveals that large differences exist between publishers, leading to the conclusion that more transparency and standardization is needed in the reporting of publication dates. The date on which the fixed journal article (Version of Record) is first made available on the publisher's website is proposed as a consistent definition of the online date.

1. When is an article
actually published?
An analysis of online availability,
publication, and indexation dates
Stefanie Haustein, Timothy D. Bowman & Rodrigo Costas
@stefhaustein @timothydbowman @RodrigoCostas1

2. Introduction
Motivation and Questions
Methods
Results
Discussion and Conclusion
Outlook
Outline
?

3. submission acceptance publication
journal issue
Introduction

4. submission acceptance publication
journal issue
Introduction
preprint

5. submission acceptance publication
journal issue
online
publication
Introduction
preprint

6. Introduction
JASIST: 270 “Early View” articles

7. Introduction
JASIST: lag between online publication and journal issue

8. Introduction
JASIST: lag between online publication and journal issue

9. Introduction
submission acceptance publication
journal issue
online
publication
preprint
publication
year
citations citations
• Bibliometric indicators are based on publication
year of journal issue
• Lag between online and issue date creates
citation advantage

10. • Publication year insufficient for bibliometric indicators
• January vs. December papers
• Acceleration of read-cite-read cycle
• Online publication before journal issue
• Lags between online and issue date
 Online dates would allow for more accurate metrics
Motivation and Questions
?

11. • Publication year insufficient for bibliometric indicators
• January vs. December papers
• Acceleration of read-cite-read cycle
• Online publication before journal issue
• Lags between online and issue date
 Online dates would allow for more accurate metrics
1. Which publishers specify what kind of dates?
2. How reliable are these dates?
3. What existing dates can be used as alternatives?
Motivation and Questions
?

12. 1. Which publishers specify what kind of dates?
 Determining dates provided by publishers
2. How reliable are these dates?
 Validating online dates with date of first tweet
3. What existing dates can be used as alternatives?
 Analyzing other dates
• WoS indexing date
• Altmetric.com publication date
• Altmetric.com first seen date
• CrossRef dates
Methods

13. Dataset
• WoS papers published in 2012 with ≥ 1 tweet
captured by Altmetric.com
• Matching of 313,301 WoS papers to Altmetric via DOI
• Excluding Altmetric records with preprints
(arXiv ID or ADS ID)
• Tweets to papers based on publisher’s website, DOI, PMID
• Identification of top 10 publishers
Methods
• Elsevier
• Wiley-Blackwell
• Lippincott
• Springer
• PLOS
• BMC
• NPG
• ACS
• Oxford
• Sage

14. Determining available dates
Methods
a = provided via API
m = in the metadata of the article webpage
w = on the article webpage only
d = as dynamic content on the webpage only

15. Dataset
• Limited to 71,175 papers from Wiley-Blackwell, Springer,
PLOS and NPG due to technical feasibility and relevance
• Retrieving online date information via API and parsing
specific HTML tags
Wiley-Blackwell “Early View”
Springer “Online First”
NPG “Advance Online Publication”
PLOS identical to publication date
• Additional dates from WoS, Altmetric.com and CrossRef
Methods

16. Journal issue date (WoS)
Methods

17. WoS indexing date
Methods

18. Altmetric.com publication date
Altmetric.com first seen date
Date of first tweet (Altmetric.com)
+ most detailed date information
‒ only for 21% of papers
‒ not always on day of publication
Methods

19. • Comparison of 58,896 papers with all 6 dates
• Comparing online date to:
• Date of first tweet
• Journal issue month (first of month)
• WoS indexing date
• Altmetric.com publication date
• Altmetric.com first seen date
• CrossRef deposit, first resolution
& update
Methods
validation
potential
alternatives
• Wiley-Blackwell: 27,432
• Springer: 14,473
• PLOS: 9,600
• NPG: 7,391

20. Results: Validation of Online Dates
3.5%
34.4%
62.2%
65
7
0.0%
37.2%
62.8%
15
1
0.1%
1.1%
98.9%
92
6
14.5%
15.2%
70.3%
97
68
n=7,391
n=9,600
n=14,473
n=27,432
Difference(days)betweenfirsttweetandonlinedate
Before:
Equal:
After:
Mean:
Median:

21. Results: Other Dates
Springer
online date
Journal issue
(first of issue month)
WoS indexing date
Altmetric.com publication date
Mean: 146
Std dev: 111
Min: -269
Max: 1850
Median: 120
Before: 3.5%
Equal: 0.1%
After: 96.4%
Mean: 163
Std dev: 113
Min: -252
Max: 1866
Median: 138
Before: 0.1%
Equal: 0.0%
After: 99.9%
Mean: 9
Std dev: 48
Min: -519
Max: 1850
Median: 1
Before: 43.4%
Equal: 34.1%
After: 22.5%

22. CrossRef dates as more reliable alternatives?
Results (preliminary)
submission acceptance publication
journal issue
online
publication
DOI deposit first resolution update

23. Results (preliminary): CrossRef
Springer
deposit
update
first resolution
online date
+ 1 year + 2 years + 3 years + 4 years + 5 years + 6 years
78.8% -1 day to online date
96.4% -3 to 3 days to online date
collaboration with Joe Wass

24. • Effect of online-issue lag on:
• Bibliometric indicators
• OA embargoes
“[T]he manuscript will not be posted [on PMC] until 12 months
after the official date of publication. […] The official publication
date may thus be considered the online publication date for some
journals and the print publication date for others.“
Wiley
“[The embargo period] begins from the publication date of the
issue the article appears in. Our embargo periods typically range
from 12 – 24 months […].”
Elsevier
Discussion and Conclusion

25. • Publishers should provide publication dates using
same terminology
• Inclusion of dates in metadata:
• Submission
• Acceptance
• Publication of preprint
• Publication of Version of Record (VoR)
• Publication of (print) issue
• Via CrossRef?
 Implementation of date standards
• Via NISO?
Discussion and Conclusion

26. Thank you
for your attention!
Stefanie Haustein, Timothy D. Bowman & Rodrigo Costas
@stefhaustein @timothydbowman @RodrigoCostas1