DOI reference
to alive publication

Crossref is the main DOI registrar for scientific publications. If an alive publication receives DOI via Crossref, then it can be served in different ways.

Generally speaking, you can use the Crossref service Crossmark. Crossmark assumes that all newly appearing versions of a live publication coexist with their predecessors, and each of them receives its own DOI. In any of these versions, a "Check for updates" icon serving the alive publication is placed prominently:

A permalink to the latest version of an alive publication cannot be included in a bibliographic record in this way. Instead, the bibliographic record here includes a reference to the current version, which becomes obsolete over time. However, a reader who has somehow wandered into a possibly outdated version by clicking on the Crossmark can find out if and where a more recent version of the material exists, and also whether this material has been retracted by the editors.

This scheme proposed by Crossref for servicing live publication appears to be unsuccessful. Accessing a fresh version through an outdated version is unnatural. In addition, the reader may simply not pay attention to the Crossmark icon and thereby not guess the existence of a more recent version of the publication. Finally, even if it were possible to find out the date of the latest edition of the latest version, it would be incorrect to include this date in the bibliographic reference to the obsolete version, and without the date, the link to the live publication is not informative enough.

It is more productive and more comfortable for the reader to arrange things in such a way that the external link, in this case the DOI link, always leads directly to the latest, most recent version of the material. In other words, let the next versions of the live publication change each arc under the same DOI, and for a lover of antiquity, on the page of the live publication, you can provide a button with a link to the protocol of changes in the live publication. With such a service arrangement, a bibliographic list entry referencing a living publication can and should be supplemented with an updated date of its last revision, as described in the Reference section. The DOI in the bibliographic record should not be in the form 10.xxxx/xxxxx of the obsolete shortened form DOI here, but in the form of a full link https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx, for example

If the author plans to re-index each new version of a alive publication (of course, under the same DOI) in Crossref, then he may not prepare the alive publication file according to the rules presented in the Declaration section. When the date in the file is not declared, then the bibliographic record will be inserted the date of the last indexing of the publication in Crossref.

At the same time, if the changes made have affected only the main text, i.e. neither the location of the file, nor the bibliography, nor the abstract, nor other meta-attributes have changed, then, generally speaking, you can save some effort - place the next version, but not re-index it in Crossref. In this case, the file will require an explicit declaration of the date of the last revision according to the rules of the Declaration section.

Горбунов-Посадов М.М. Интернет-активность как обязанность ученого. — М.: ИПМ им.М.В.Келдыша, 2008.
Last updated

https://keldysh.ru/gorbunov/duty.htm

Горбунов-Посадов М.М. Живая публикация // Открытые системы. — 2011, № 4. — С. 48–49.
Last updated

https://keldysh.ru/gorbunov/live.htm
English version

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.1076

Горбунов-Посадов М.М. ВАК в интернете // Информационные технологии и вычислительные системы. — 2011. — № 4. — С. 74-78.
Last updated

https://keldysh.ru/gorbunov/free.htm

Горбунов-Посадов М.М. Персональная веб-страница ученого. — М.: ИПМ им.М.В.Келдыша, 2011.
Last updated

https://keldysh.ru/gorbunov/person.htm

Горбунов-Посадов М.М. Препринты ИПМ им.М.В.Келдыша. — М.: ИПМ им.М.В.Келдыша, 2011.
Last updated

https://keldysh.ru/gorbunov/preprints.htm