Add support for version notes or a summary of changes

Describe the problem you would like to solve
When publishing a new version of a journal article, preprint or monograph, there is no way to identify what has changed in this version or why the changes were made.

Describe the solution you’d like
Allow the editors to add a note for each subsequent version that describes the changes that were made. In OPS, allow authors to describe the changes for each new version of their preprint.

Who is asking for this feature?
For OJS, we have requests from editors and publishers. For OPS, we have requests from preprint server operators.

Additional information
Various aspects of this request have been discussed in the past. This proposal focuses specifically on providing human-readable public notes. Originally described in #7280.

See this example of a preprint server. Look under “Version Notes”.

Specifications:

  • Version notes should be available on all versions except the first version.
  • They should be editable at any time, not just when publishing.
  • A preprint server should be able to make them mandatory if they want.

Jxiv (J-STAGE) collects reason for creating new versions, but that doesn’t become public (only visible to admins).

See pages 39 and 40 of their guide: https://jxiv.jst.go.jp/jxiv_docs/en/Jxiv_manual_submission_en.pdf

They also use OPS.

1 Like

Hi everyone,

any news or plans concerning the version notes?

Regards,

Nils