Mike, can you clarify? (RE: National Online: Nature and Others... (like SCIENCE))

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> Here is what the Science Website has to say about it (you quoted only
> part of it):

I quoted the entirety of what I found on a page explaining the
ScienceExpress service (at
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.shtml).  The different page
you quoted says essentially the same thing, except without noting that
editorial changes may occur between the posting of the ScienceExpress
version and the publication of the print version.  As I said, whether that
fact makes a difference to the appropriateness of citation is an
individual decision for each writer to make.

> David is correct when he says institutional Nature
> subscribers  are getting delayed content; your cake analogy doesn't help
> the faculty member who needs an article that is already getting cited.

I guess the definition of "delay" is what this all boils down to, and I
guess that's a matter of personal interpretation as well.  To me, what
matters is that we get the version of record as soon as it's published,
and that's what makes the difference between what Science is doing and
what Nature was doing significant.

It's probably worth bearing in mind, by the way, that when Science refers
to these preliminary versions as "published" and "citable," it's selling a
product.  You referred earlier to the potential for "cosmetic" changes
between a SciExpress version and the print version, but it looks to me
like Science uses the word "editorial" rather than "cosmetic."  That's
what might give me pause as a SciExpress user.  Mike, I'm sure you're out
there -- can you clarify?  Would a researcher ever need to worry about a
change in the substance of an article between its SciExpress and print
version, or can Science say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the
only changes would be cosmetic?

-------------
Rick Anderson
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University of Nevada, Reno
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rickand@unr.edu