Describe the problem you would like to solve
Some journals have a predefined editorial plan and publication schedule with given dates, or have continuous publishing with a periodical schedule, e.g. weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
Currently all submissions (or the associated issue) must be published manually. This means the time of publication is always likely to change and depends on the presence of a journal admin or editor. Therefore it would be good if the publishing can be automated and scheduled so that it can be set up to go at a set time. This would improve the consistency and if publications are always at the same time improve the initial response to articles.
Describe the solution you’d like
A field in the issue data (or in the article data) that can be used to set the date and time when the issue or the articles should go online.
A scheduled task that reads the date/time and publishes the issue/articles. It also provides a success/failure report.
This will allow the frequency of submissions to be more controlled. In a similar manner as can be carried out with emails where they can be scheduled to be sent at certain times then the same could be done for the publish articles to go live.
This allows editors or journal administrators to prepare issues/articles in advance. Also, they don’t have to be present physicall (e.g. in early morning hours) in order to just press the button “Publish issue” if a journal requires the articles to be online at the scheduled date.
Who is asking for this feature?
Journal Administrators. Journal Editors