About Advance Online Publication
About Advance Online Publication
All monthly Nature Reviews clinical journals (Nature Reviews Cardiology, Nature Reviews Endocrinology, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Nature Reviews Nephrology, Nature Reviews Neurology, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Nature Reviews Rheumatology and Nature Reviews Urology) offer Advance Online Publication (AOP) on their websites.
Each journal's website includes an AOP table of contents, in which papers are listed in order of AOP publication date (beginning with the most recent). Each paper carries a digital object identifier (DOI), which serves as its unique electronic identification tag. As soon as an article is published in a print issue, it will be removed from the AOP table of contents, assigned a page number and transferred to that issue's table of contents on the website. The DOI remains attached to the paper to provide a persistent identifier.
We believe that rapid online publication is a valuable service to both readers and contributors, and we encourage you to visit our sites often.
Frequently asked questions
- What articles are published AOP?
- When are new articles published AOP?
- Can the AOP version of the article be considered definitive?
- Where does the DOI appear and how do I recognize the AOP version of an article?
- How can I use a DOI to find a paper?
- How do I use the DOI to cite an article?
- What is the 'official' publication date?
- Must I subscribe to the journal in order to read AOP articles?
- What articles are published AOP?
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Only Reviews articles are published AOP.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - When are new articles published AOP?
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New articles are uploaded to the AOP section of our website throughout the month.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - Can the AOP version of the article be considered definitive?
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Yes. Different publishers have different policies, and some journals choose to publish unedited versions of articles on their websites. Our policy, however, is to publish only the final, edited version of the paper. The paper is thus complete and identical to what will appear in print in every respect regarding content and presentation, except that instead of having a volume/issue/page number, only the DOI is used as an identifier in the HTML and PDF versions. In addition, a footer within the PDF file states "Advance Online Publication". For convenience, the PDF version of every AOP article is given a temporary pagination, beginning with page 1. This is unrelated to the final pagination of the printed article.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - Where does the DOI appear and how do I recognize the AOP version of an article?
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In the print journals, and in the online article PDFs, the date the Review was published online and the DOI appear beneath the article Abstract. In the HTML online version of the article, the date the article was published online and the DOI appear as part of the article citation at the top of the page.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - How can I use a DOI to find a paper?
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There are two ways to use a DOI to find a paper:
- DOIs from other articles can be embedded into the linking coding of an article's reference section. In Nature journals these appear as "|Article|" in the reference sections. When |Article| is clicked it opens another browser window and takes you to the entrance page (often the abstract) for another article. Depending on the source of the article, this page can be on the Nature Publishing Group site or a site of another publisher. This service is enabled by CrossRef.
- If you know a DOI, you can insert it directly into your web browser's address bar as follows: for the DOI 10.1038/nrendo.2009.17, you would type: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2009.17. This will bring you directly to the entrance page of the desired article.
Access to an article entrance page is free to everyone, and might contain bibliographic data or an abstract. A link to the full text of an article, if you have the rights to view it (e.g. a subscription), is also generally available. For users without such rights, many publishers offer pay-per-view document delivery.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - How do I use the DOI to cite an article?
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One advantage of the DOI system is that papers can be cited using a DOI only, before final pagination and print publication. Even after publication in print the DOI persists as an identifier. We recommend citing DOIs as follows: At the end of the reference citation, type the complete DOI (for example, Nature Reviews Endocrinology 5, 204–210 (2009); doi:10.1038/nrendo.2009.17.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - What is the 'official' publication date?
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Many journals, and most abstracting and indexing services (including Medline and Institute for Scientific Information) still cite the print date as the publication date. This is an evolving standard, however, and the trend now is for publishers to state both the 'Online Publication Date' and the 'Print Publication Date'. Nature Publishing Group currently publishes both dates for its own papers, and we hope that the scientific communities and abstracting and indexing services will recognize these dates.
For the time being, the reference lists in our papers will continue to follow the standard convention of citing by print publication details if they are available. We expect, however, to review this policy regularly as community standards evolve.
For legal purposes (e.g. establishing intellectual property rights), it is our assumption that online publication will constitute public disclosure. This status is, however, for the courts to decide; our role as a publisher is to provide clear documentation of the publication history, online and in print.
Return to list of Questions Top of page - Must I subscribe to the journal in order to read AOP articles?
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Yes. While abstracts are freely available to anyone on our website, access to the full-text article requires a paid subscription or a site license.
Return to list of Questions
