Add support for early and continuous access to version of record (continuous publication)

[asmecher]

Describe the bug

As an Editor, I would like to be able to publish the work of authors as early as possible rather than waiting for a complete issue to be ready for simultaneous publication.

• I may want to schedule an article for an issue, but still have it available in advance of the issue’s formal publication. (I may want to use issue scheduling as organizational method for when I have a lot of articles awaiting posting.)
• I may or may not want to designate an issue at all, for example my journal may organize content through thematic areas (categories) and have no use at all for issues.
• I may decide to publish e.g. quarterly issues based on some of the content that has been posted early; this may mean going through already-posted content and publishing a formal issue based on things that have already been made available online. (For articles, this will mean that previously issueless content will have an issue.)
• I would like major functions e.g. DOIs to function in a predictable way regardless of the mix of the above.

To be determined:

• Implications for integrations – see sprint log (Hanover 2023)
• Upgrade path
• Publication dates may be a problem.

Of interest but out of scope for this issue:

• Open reviews
• Making non-final versions of articles available early
• Reconciling preprint functionality in OJS with OPS

[radjr2]

We are interested in this and decided that OJS could support this as long as continuous page numbering was not used. eg page numbers restart at 1 for each issue. That way, we can assign articles to a defined issue with real page numbers and point the active issue to the current calendar issue while the published future issues are still available. What would make this really possible is if the future calendar issues could be hidden in some way or displayed some where else. We like this model as the page numbers are set as soon as they are added to the issue. That all said, a more defined process that allows continuous numbering would be great.

[pmangahis]

Flagging this as an issue that would need to be solved - #8998 in order to support the continuous publication model.

[asmecher]

(See also NISO JAV revision for terminology around versions: https://www.niso.org/press-releases/nisos-draft-revision-journal-article-version-jav-recommended-practice-now-open)

[radjr2]

Thanks Alec. What PKP's plans to support multiple revisions and preprints? Cheers! Richard A. DeVito, Jr Publisher