Elsevier are launching a new system of publication they are calling ‘article-based publishing’. Details here.

I’m sure most people have seen ‘online-first’, forthcoming papers, or similar systems. Society and Space has a page of just such papers here.

But the Elsevier system is somewhat different. They are not simply making an earlier version of the paper available, with temporary page numbers starting at 1. They are building the issue up as they go – assigning volume and issue number, and run-on pagination. The advantage of this is that they can get things up online early, as before, but with reference details that remain static for citation purposes.

But there are disadvantages. The key one is for the journal editor – any discretion over lineup of issues seems to be removed. The papers are ordered as they come off the production line, and so working out an effective running order for an issue is much more difficult, if not impossible. For a theme issue, the last thing finalised is often the introduction or guest editorial. But that’s the first thing that appears in the issue. Working on that sometimes suggests a different running order than originally planned. And even non-themed issues are often ordered in particular ways that are not simply first in, first out. Commentaries or editorials, sometimes on a very timely topic, come out quicker and appear first in an issue. Papers don’t always come out as the number of pages first expected, which might mean that the overall pagination of the issue is exceeded or light, and other things need to be juggled; some papers take longer through proof stage and have to slip down an issue, meaning something else needs to be moved up, but that may not work best as the last item, etc. Review essays and reviews are often used to make issues work to length, but this system would seem to make them more likely to be used in that way, rather than allowing flexibility.

It is clear that most people no longer read a journal as a print copy in a library or by subscription, but access papers online. They increasingly do this not through the journal contents page but through links, google scholar, etc. For this reason each piece in the journal needs to work as a standalone item, even if some pieces gain extra value and context when seen alongside others. Things like feeds, contents alerting, forthcoming sections, etc. all help with the visibility of individual pieces. But equally it still seems worthwhile to work on the overall shape of a single issue, and that requires much more flexibility than this new system would seem to allow. I spend a lot of time with a planning spreadsheet for future issues, and am continually moving things around and working with the publishers to try to make things work as well as possible.

In other words, don’t expect Society and Space to move to this model. But do keep checking the forthcoming page, or better yet subscribe to rss or email updates.