Wiley's Early View constitutes valid publication for date‐sensitive nomenclature

Abstract

The editors of Systematic Entomology (at that time Peter S. Cranston and Frank-Thorsten Krell) in consultation with Debbie Wright (then Journal Publishing Manager with Wiley-Blackwell) were very engaged in the discussions leading up to the ICZN amendments. On 3rd October 2012 Systematic Entomology published in Early View the first paper that conformed fully to the electronic publications amendment to the Code (Robertson et al., 2012). This paper subsequently was allocated to a printed journal issue (2013: 38.1) and paginated (pp. 209–232) but otherwise was identical to the Version of Record in Early View including the immutable DOI 10.1111/j.1365-3113.2012.00655.x. The article, which is available freely from the journal website, contains within the work the statement “[Version of Record, published online 3 October 2012]” and in the downloadable pdf this identical information is located at the end of the article as “First published online 3 October 2012”. The publication and new names are registered in ZooBank. A URL is provided from the text (although a critical hyphen in the midst of the overlong URL is missing). The ZooBank entry for the journal article includes the statement that the date of publication is 3 October 2012, and the on-line archive used is CLOCKSS, as for all Wiley journals. Since that first paper, Systematic Entomology has published many manuscripts with nomenclatural content in Early View prior to journal and page allocation and paper publication. Given the option to do so, very few authors have chosen not to allow their paper to appear in Early View. Some authors chose to state that their Early View manuscript was not the basis for date-sensitive nomenclatural matters. Although editors have sought to allocate e-papers to a journal issue in the same calendar year as the Early View year, as with the Robertson et al. paper above, this has occasionally failed. Article 9. What does not constitute published work. …none of the following constitutes published work within the meaning of the Code:Article 9.9. preliminary versions of works accessible electronically in advance of publication (see Article 21.8.3); Article 21.8. Advance distribution of separates and preprints. 21.8.3. Some works are accessible online in preliminary versions before the publication date of the final version. Such advance electronic access does not advance the date of publication of a work, as preliminary versions are not published (Article 9.9). Evidently were Early View papers to be considered to be preliminary “pre-publications”, nomenclatural acts therein would be unavailable. But this is not the case as we explain below. Wiley does not change the content of any Early View publications in systematic journals: they are immutable, include the date of e-publication and have a permanent DOI. The only difference between an Early View paper and the same paper integrated into a journal issue is the bibliographical details: the integrated paper is assigned a journal and issue number, and differently paginated. Does this make those two stages of the same article different versions, with the Early View stage to be considered preliminary? No. Version of Record Definition: A fixed version of a journal article that has been made available by any organization that acts as a publisher by formally and exclusively declaring the article “published”. This includes any “early release” article that is formally identified as being published even before the compilation of a volume issue and assignment of associated metadata, as long as it is citable via some permanent identifier(s). This does not include any “early release” article that has not yet been “fixed” by processes that are still to be applied, such as copy-editing, proof corrections, layout, and typesetting. Notes: Wiley adheres to these Recommendations, which form the ‘Code’ of the publishing industry. Any changes to content of the Version of Record are dealt with by erratum or corrigendum as they would in a print/online journal issue. Early View is neither a form of ‘pre-publication’ nor a preliminary version, but rather makes publicly available the Version of Record (fixed content) ahead of inclusion in a journal issue, as a service to authors and readers. It presents exactly the same content in a slightly different context. An alternative (or additional) concern regarding electronic publications involves accessibility and authentication of a Version of Record. All Wiley publications are archived in CLOCKKS (http://www.clockss.org) fulfilling the Code request (#6 above) that the archive preserves content and layout. The archive location is specified with each ZooBank entry. Note that CLOCKSS is an archiving service not a journal content search engine, and accessing the Version of Record is available easily via the Publisher's webpage, via the DOI, and sources such as CrossRef. Of major importance for our taxonomic works is that this archiving provides comprehensive reassurance that content will be preserved permanently including orphaned and abandoned electronic scholarly content. In addition, archiving makes open access content that is no longer available from the publisher, available again for free. In conclusion arguments made against Wiley's Early View being a valid means of publication for nomenclatural actions are spurious: such electronic publications are indeed ‘code compliant’. Whether this applies to journals of other publishers is for their authors, editors and management to determine for themselves. The opinion expressed here has been reviewed and endorsed by the following systematists and editors: John Allen, Editor Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Southampton, UK; Andrew Austin, Editor Invertebrate Systematics, Adelaide, Australia; Jim Carpenter, Editorial Board/Advisory Council/Administrative Editor Systematic Entomology, Entomological Science, Zoologica Scripta, Cladistics, New York, USA; Stephen Cameron, Editor/Editorial Board Systematic Entomology, Austral Entomology, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution; Penelope Gullan, insect systematist, Canberra, Australia; Peter J. Hayward, Editor, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, London, UK; Demian Takumasa Kondo, Subject Editor/Editor/Editorial Board Neotropical Entomology, Journal of Insect Science, International Journal of Insect Science, Revista Colombiana de Entomología, Palmira, Colombia; Rudolph Meier, Editorial board Systematic Entomology & Invertebrate Systematics, NUS, Singapore; Kelly Miller, author of Systematic Entomology EV paper, New Mexico, USA; Andrew Polaszek, former Executive Secretary, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and Keeper of Entomology, Natural History Museum, London, UK; Thomas Simonsen, Editor Systematic Entomology, Natural History Museum, London, UK; James Robertson, author of Systematic Entomology EV paper, Arizona, USA; Adam Ślipiński, author of Systematic Entomology EV paper, Canberra, Australia; Lars Vilhelmsen, Editor Systematic Entomology, Copenhagen, Denmark; Christiane Weirauch, Editor Systematic Entomology, California, USA; Michael Whiting, Editorial Board, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Utah, USA; Shaun Winterton, Editor Systematic Entomology, California, USA and Deborah Wright, former Journals Publishing Manager, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford, UK.

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