CrossRef, a US-based not-for-profit membership association of publishers, has launched the CrossMark update identification service. The CrossMark system will alert researchers to important changes that may occur to published scholarly content and will highlight important publication record information. The service has been piloted by several CrossRef member publishers for the past year.
Clicking on the CrossMark logo launches a pop-up box that provides status information, for example, that the document is up to date, or that it has a correction, update, retraction, or other change that could affect the interpretation or crediting of the work. It also provides a permanent link, via the CrossRef Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to both the publisher-maintained version of the content and the update. Another tab in the box can include optional publication record information, which is non-bibliographic data that is useful for the reader. It may include information on peer review, publication history, funding disclosures, links to associated datasets, or rights.
The cost of the CrossMark system will be borne by the CrossRef participating publishers, with the result that the status and publication record information will be openly available to readers, libraries and any organisation that might find the data useful. Almost 20,000 documents from 21 journals have live CrossMark logos on their web sites, and working logos will be added to these journals' PDF files shortly. Of those documents, 290 have noted updates.
The publishers who have implemented CrossMark to date include small international open access publishers, large commercial publishers, established society publishers, and university presses.
