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All About "Ahead of Print"
Last Updated: March 17, 2006
Overview
Publishers who are authorized to submit XML data to the National Library of Medicine for inclusion in PubMed/MEDLINE have the option of submitting citations prior to their publication in print format. This option is used for those publications in which the date of an article's electronic publishing predates publication in the print journal. When the articles are first made available on a Web site (publisher's or other), the publisher or provider sends the same bibliographic data made available to the public for inclusion in PubMed.
Often these types of citations contain partial bibliographic information--for example, they might contain an article title and full abstract, but not contain a volume, issue, or page number. This information is expected to be filled in with a future update of the citation by the publisher when the completed issue is compiled and published in print. These incomplete bibliographic records hold an [Epub ahead of print] status until updated data is sent to PubMed.
IMPORTANT: The Ahead of Print (AOP) mechanism must not be used for an article if its eventual publication is uncertain. In the rare case where an AOP citation is retracted, the citation information should remain on the publisher Web site. See our Ahead of Print Withdrawn policy
Here's an example of an AOP citation in PubMed:
Lorenz R.
Planetary science. The
glitter of distant seas.
Science. 2003 Oct 17 [Epub
ahead of print]
PMID: 14526089 [PubMed
- as supplied by publisher]
The notation [Epub ahead of print] in the Summary format denotes this citation as incomplete. Note it does not display a volume number or issue number or page numbers, only a publication date.
Here's the same citation after being updated with a Replacement File:
Lorenz R.
Planetary science. The
glitter of distant seas.
Science. 2003 Oct 17; 302(5644):403-4. Epub 2003 Oct 02.
PMID: 14526089 [PubMed
- indexed for MEDLINE]
Steps for creating an Ahead of Print file
- Construct an XML file according to the PubMed DTD, including as much bibliographic content as is available.
- If Volume, Issue, FirstPage and LastPage are not known, these tags should be blank.
- Add the electronic
publication date to the <PubDate> tag,
along with the PubStatus="aheadofprint" attribute. The electronic
publication date must be an exact date, one that includes completed
tags for Year, Month and Day. Articles using the "aheadofprint"
PubStatus attribute that do not contain exact
publication dates will be rejected from loading to PubMed.
NOTE: The electronic publication date can not be greater than 18 months prior to the month of uploading to PubMed. For example: if the Ahead of Print file is uploaded in the month of June 2005 then the electronic publication date within the file can not be prior to December 2003.
- Be sure to include an ArticleId in the file along with the appropriate ArticleId IdType attribute ("pii" or "doi"). This is REQUIRED of all AOP submissions. See our Journal Submission FAQs for more information about Article Identifiers.
- Check your file for errors and preview the PubMed display using our XML File Validator.
- FTP the AOP file to your private ftp account, placing it at the top of the directory.
- Await a Loader Report confirming the loading of the AOP file. If the file loaded successfully, PMID numbers will appear for each citation submitted.
- Save the Loader Report until you are ready to update the citations; you may need the PMID numbers for inclusion in the Replacement File.
Points to Remember
- Please notify the publisher team at publisher@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov if you intend to begin using the Ahead of Print function. Once you begin sending AOP files, it is not necessary to notify us before each new delivery.
- You can check your original AOP citations in PubMed using the citation status subset "pubstatusaheadofprint". For example, the search string Arch Microbiol[jour] AND 1999:2002[dp] AND pubstatusaheadofprint will retrieve all AOP citations with the journal title and dates indicated.
- Citations in AOP status can be updated/revised as many times as necessary prior to the submission of the Replacement file. Simply follow the steps above, but add a <Replaces> tag with original PMID number(s) and keep the PubStatus attribute as "aheadofprint".
For Additional Reference
See our Ahead of Print File Example and the Replacement File that updates it.
When you are ready to update your AOP citations, follow our Instructions
for Replacement Files.