[jats-list] Linking <contrib> to <aff>

["Michael Boudreau mboudreau@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <jats-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I've been discussing with our platform vendor a feature that doesn't support
our practice of linking article authors and their affiliations via
contrib/@rid and aff/@id, e.g.,

<contrib-group>
    <contrib contrib-type="author" rid="af1">
        <string-name name-style="western">
            <given-names>Sam</given-names>
            <surname>Masur</surname>
        </string-name>
    </contrib>
    <contrib contrib-type="author" rid="af2">
        <string-name name-style="western">
            <given-names>Sadie</given-names>
            <surname>Green</surname>
        </string-name>
    </contrib>
    <aff id="af1">Harvard University</aff>
    <aff id="af2">Massachusetts Institute of Technology</aff>
</contrib-group>

The vendor points out that the preferred way of linking <contrib> and <aff> is
with a contrib/xref[@ref-type="aff"], which the JATS documentation indeed
labels a "best practice":
https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/archiving/tag-library/1.2/element/contrib.html

I'm wondering if someone can elaborate on the rationale for recommending
<xref> and whether there's anything inherently problematic with the markup
illustrated above. It strikes me as, at least, simple and unambiguous, well
suited for articles whose authors have a single affiliation, as is extremely
common in the humanities and social sciences.


--

Michael R. Boudreau

Electronic Publishing Technology Manager

The University of Chicago Press

1427 E. 60th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

www.journals.uchicago.edu<http://www.journals.uchicago.edu>