we’re looking to update to 3.2.X and are currently doing test runs on our demo server. One problem we’ve come across is that assigning an article to an issue that is already published (a back issue), the article is published as soon as the assignment has taken place, with no way to edit metadata etc in between the assignment and the publication - unless we unpublish the article, which unassigns the issue.
This is mainly a problem because it makes DOI assignment really hard. I’ve seen this topic which suggests that removing all issue data (such as volume number) from the DOI scheme solves this problem, but several of our journals have such data in their DOIs and use the method of publishing to back issues, and we’d hate to ask them all to change their DOIs.
The only workaround I’ve been able to come up with is to give the articles a future publication date, then assign the issue, then set up the DOI, then change the publication date to today, then unassign/reassign the issue. It works, but it’s pretty annoying.
So I’m asking if there’s already a way to solve this problem, and we just haven’t been able to find it, or, if there isn’t, to please make assigning an issue and publishing an article two separate steps (hence the Feature Request tag)!
You can assign an article to an issue without publishing it by following these steps:
Open the submission’s Publication tab.
Go to Issue.
Click “Assign to Issue”.
Select the back issue and click “Save”.
When the Publish panel pops up, click the “X” at the top right of the panel to not publish the submission.
That should get the issue assignment set without scheduling it for publication. You can then generate the DOI, save the change, and click Schedule for Publication.
(We are currently working on improvements to DOI management and deposit to Crossref which should make it easier to set and deposit DOIs after publication.)
I’ve tried this (and I just tried again to doublecheck), but it doesn’t work. When I hit Save, I do get the green pop-up box saying “The publication’s issue details have been updated.”, but when I hit the X at the top, there is still no issue assigned and I’m back at square one.
Trying a few more times, refreshing the page or logging out and back in doesn’t change this either.
It is nice to know that DOI management is being improved upon though!
That sounds like a familiar bug. I ran my test in the latest stable version of 3.2, so 3.2.1-4. I’d recommend upgrading to that version to see if it solves it.
(You should be planning an upgrade to 3.3.x as soon as possible. We’re no longer putting out updates to 3.2.x for minor bug fixes.)