The Office of Digital Scholarship has introduced a new feature for the open access journals published by the University Libraries. Articles can now be published as soon as they are ready before the entire journal is complete.
By adopting the “online first” feature, journal editors can publish articles while still compiling full journal issues. Articles published in this manner have been through the complete peer-review and editorial processes and will have permanent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) assigned. When the final issue is published, articles published in advance will be reassigned to that issue. URLs and DOIs for individual articles will not change so the articles will be accessible via the online first links.
When articles are assigned to full issues, the only change to the citation information will be the volume/issue and page number information. When developing the process for publishing articles in advance of issues, Libraries staff researched best practices for publishers and researchers. Citation information associated with the article will follow guidelines from the major style guides commonly used in academic writing.
The University Libraries provides support and guidance for editors and authors for the entire publishing lifecycle, from article submission to publication and beyond. Please visit https://openjournals.bsu.edu to view the open access journals published by the University Libraries. Contact Katie Bohnert, Open Access Publishing and Web Hosting Specialist, or the Office of Digital Scholarship at ODSLIB@bsu.edu for more information.