Publication History: A Double-DOI-Based Method for Storing and/or Monitoring Information about Published and Corrected Academic Literature

Abstract

The status of published literature can change at any time in its history following publication, although existing structures in academic publishing for recording these changes, despite the existence of a number of robust tools—such as the digital object identifier (DOI)—appear to be insufficiently robust, or used too inconsistently or inefficiently, to deal with multiple corrections. In this article, an information storage method and corrective measure or tool is proposed—the ‘publication history’—that considers the full history and background of an article’s publication. The ‘publication history’ is adjusted to record changes to an article over time, and is thus a ‘live’ document, always open to modification and updating. The ‘publication history’ has the potential to accommodate, in a single document (in both PDF and HTML format), information about pre-publication (e.g., preprints) and post-publication events, including submission, resubmission, acceptance date, handling editors, peer-review format, corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions. The ‘publication history’ employs two DOIs, one for the article and one for any and all edits, to document these changes. Our proposal offers one possible solution for fortifying the integrity of peer review and the publication process pre- and post–peer review. The double-DOI-based ‘publication history’ can be applied to any document.