The same DOI for both the preprint and the final article?

[pedrohenriquenacross]

Hello! I hope you’re doing well. I was reading the FAQ on SciELO Preprints and came across a few points that left me curious. Since they mention Crossref, I’d like to clarify these doubts with the community. Here’s what I found:

In question 14, it states that journals within the SciELO Network can submit manuscripts that have already been approved and are in the final stages of evaluation, editing, or publication to SciELO Preprints. This means that if a journal is indexed in the SciELO Network, it can upload manuscripts that have been approved and are nearly ready for publication. These manuscripts are automatically uploaded to the SciELO Preprints server and will retain the same DOI as the final published article in the journal.
If the journal is not part of the SciELO Network, authors might need to submit their manuscripts directly to SciELO Preprints, provided the journal allows or authorizes this.

In question 17, it mentions: “Preprints always have a DOI registered with Crossref. When submitted by authors, the DOI for the preprint is assigned by SciELO Preprints with the prefix 10.1590 followed by a sequential number. When submitted by a SciELO journal, the preprint is automatically uploaded with the DOI assigned by the journal. If the preprint is accepted for publication in a journal, the journal may choose to use the same DOI as the preprint or assign a different DOI.” This implies that when a preprint is accepted by a journal and published as a final article, the journal can choose to reuse the DOI from the preprint or assign a new one. Is it correct to reuse DOIs? This decision depends on the journal’s policy.

In question 18, it says: If the same DOI from the preprint is used for the article published in the journal, any citation that uses this DOI will be attributed to the published article, not the preprint. This happens because, in Crossref, the DOI metadata is updated to reflect the current version of the article, which is the journal’s version. Therefore, the citation is directed to the final published version of the article.

Is this really possible? And is this process handled by Crossref? Can a preprint DOI be reused for its corresponding article? And can a DOI from an article be reused for its corresponding preprint?
When a single DOI is used for both the preprint and the article, how are citations managed? Will the citations count for both the journal (in terms of h-index, impact factor, etc.) and the preprint server?

Are there guidelines on this matter? Where can I find them?

Thank you in advance for your insights!

web. archive. org/web/20240822190113/ htt ps: // preprints. scielo. org /index.php/scielo/faq

[Shayn]

Hi Pedro,

Thanks for your questions.

In question 14, it states that journals within the SciELO Network can submit manuscripts that have already been approved and are in the final stages of evaluation, editing, or publication to SciELO Preprints.

We would not consider this to be a preprint. If a manuscript has been accepted for publication in a journal, it should only be registered with a single DOI, indicating that it’s a journal article (even if it’s still in ‘accepted manuscript’ status). That same DOI should continue to be used when it’s fully published.

In question 17, it mentions: “Preprints always have a DOI registered with Crossref. When submitted by authors, the DOI for the preprint is assigned by SciELO Preprints with the prefix 10.1590 followed by a sequential number. When submitted by a SciELO journal, the preprint is automatically uploaded with the DOI assigned by the journal. If the preprint is accepted for publication in a journal, the journal may choose to use the same DOI as the preprint or assign a different DOI." This implies that when a preprint is accepted by a journal and published as a final article, the journal can choose to reuse the DOI from the preprint or assign a new one. Is it correct to reuse DOIs? This decision depends on the journal’s policy.

This is also not in keeping with best practice. It may be their policy to put accepted manuscripts up on a preprint server (again, that’s a difference in their use of the term “preprint” and our use of that same term), but in that case they shouldn’t be registering them as preprints with Crossref.

If the preprint and the journal article are truly distinct, then they should have distinct DOIs. If they’re not distinct (and they are not, in this case), then they shouldn’t be registered as preprints. A preprint DOI should never be converted to a journal article DOI.

In question 18, it says: If the same DOI from the preprint is used for the article published in the journal, any citation that uses this DOI will be attributed to the published article, not the preprint. This happens because, in Crossref, the DOI metadata is updated to reflect the current version of the article, which is the journal’s version. Therefore, the citation is directed to the final published version of the article.

Is this really possible? And is this process handled by Crossref? Can a preprint DOI be reused for its corresponding article? And can a DOI from an article be reused for its corresponding preprint?

It is technically possible, because a DOI registrant (like SciELO) can update the metadata for any of their DOIs, in part or in its entirety, at any point in time. That’s how corrections and additions to metadata records are handled. So, there’s nothing to stop them from changing its content type from preprint to journal article. But, it’s not appropriate to use a single DOI to refer to two different citable objects, so they shouldn’t be doing that.

When a single DOI is used for both the preprint and the article, how are citations managed? Will the citations count for both the journal (in terms of h-index, impact factor, etc.) and the preprint server?

Since the final status of that DOI would be as the journal article, any record of the preprint would cease to exist in Crossref. All citations, of either the preprint or the journal article would be reflected in the citation count asserted for the journal article.

I can’t speak to how that might be used by third parties to construct metrics like h-index, impact factor, or other analytics.

Are there guidelines on this matter? Where can I find them?

We don’t have guidance that speaks to this specific situation exactly, but you may find these metadata recommendations from our preprint advisory group helpful.

It’s also arguable that, by removing the preprints, and replacing them with the related journal article, they’re failing in their obligation to persistently maintain the preprints’ metadata, which is required by our membership terms. However, since most of their “preprints” were already accepted for publication, they were never preprints in the first place and shouldn’t have been registered as such. They should just be registered as journal articles from the very start.

I’ll reach out to our contacts at SciELO and try to clarify this situation with them.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

-Shayn