Applied Soil Ecology 51 (2011) iv
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Applied Soil Ecology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apsoil
doi:10.1016/S0929-1393(11)00249-6
Until now academic articles have been published in journals,
on an issue by issue basis. While this ensured organised citation
information, it created boundaries for the timing of each published
article. Now online publishing is changing all of that, making it
possible to publish citable articles with volume, issue and page
numbers as and when they’re ready – before an entire issue of the
journal is finished.
Furthermore readership styles and how information is gathered have
changed quite considerably, now that most people access articles online.
Searching online for relevant articles is mostly done by key words,
instead of browsing through journals’ table of contents listings.
To reflect these changes, we are now introducing article-based
publishing for Applied Soil Ecology making final and citable articles
available online faster, and improving their findability. From now on
articles will be published as soon as possible without waiting for an
issue to be completed; they will appear in an “Issue in Progress”
Benefits of article-based publishing
– Final articles available online sooner
– Faster citations: researchers can use the complete citations
earlier
– Article format moves from p(rint)-articles to e-article leading
What is article-based publishing?
Article-based publishing is publishing an article into an “issue
in progress” as soon as it is finalised and not having to wait for the
entire issue to appear. Until now, articles had to wait until a journal
issue was fully complete to be assigned page numbers; articles could
therefore be moved around inside a journal issue, and page numbers
could be reassigned before publication. Now, every time an individual
article is finished, it receives a page range and is published online
inside an Issue in Progress. Each finished article follows the previous
one, until the Issue in Progress is filled with fully citable articles.
Volume and issue numbering system will remain - as this is the
industry standard, and it also provides context to when the article
was published – acting as an indicator of the year.
Kind regards,
Ursula Culligan
Publisher – Applied Soil Ecology
Publisher’s Note