Publication Embargoes

Some journal content is subject to a publication embargo which requires that the content be published online at a specific date and time. The date and time might align with certain external events, such as an announcement or press release.

TFO has functionality to support publication embargoes. Using this functionality involves including a “make-live” date and time as part of the XML metadata, and loading journal content files to TFO in advance of the specified date and time. After the files have been delivered, TFO will ingest the files and then, if no errors occur during the loading process, TFO will make the content live at the specified date and time.

When journal articles and issues are produced using CATS there is an option for Taylor & Francis Production Editors to specify the date and time for the publication embargo by setting the “Desired Post Online Date” field in CATS when approving online files.

The data and time for a publication embargo can be tagged in the JATS article XML or issue XML as a “make-live” publication date. This tagging option supports publication embargoes for journal articles and issues that are published on TFO via DARTS without using CATS.

If loading an individual article, the make-live <pub-date> should be tagged in the article XML within the <article-meta> element at location /article/front/article-meta/pub-date.

If loading an issue, the make-live <pub-date> should be tagged in the issue XML within the <issue-meta> element at location /issue-xml/issue-meta/pub-date.

The <pub-date> element for the publication embargo should include:

  • date-type attribute with value “make-live”
  • publication-format attribute with value “electronic”
  • iso-8601-date attribute whose value is the desired date and time for when the content should automatically be made live on TFO. The date and time should be expressed as follows:
    • The date and time should be provided in the UTC time zone.
    • The date and time should be formatted as YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ
      • 4 digits for the year
      • separator -
      • 2 digits for the month
      • separator -
      • 2 digits for the day
      • separator T
      • 2 digits for the hour using the 24 hour clock
      • separator :
      • 2 digits for the minute
      • separator :
      • 2 digits for the seconds
      • Z or +00:00 for the UTC time zone
  • <day> element with a numeric value that matches the day value in the iso-8601-date
  • <month> element with a numeric value that matches the month value in the iso-8601-date
  • <year> element with a numeric value that matches the year value in the iso-8601-date

For example, the publication embargo for an article or issue that should be made live on 20 May 2022 at 6:35 PM UTC should be tagged as:

<pub-date date-type="make-live" iso-8601-date="2022-05-20T18:35:00Z" publication-format="electronic">
    <day>20</day>
    <month>5</month>
    <year>2022</year>
</pub-date>