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

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

Thanks for your reply, Ken. The context that prompted my question was not a
rendering issue, but rather the conversion of JATS XML to a third-party
format, in this case Crossrefbs metadata format for depositing DOIs. It
turns out that the conversion thatbs being  applied to our XML doesnbt
properly find author affiliations when theybre associated with an author via
contrib[@rid] and aff[@id]; instead it works only with the
xref[@ref-type=baffb] approach.

I was interested in the rationale for preferring an <xref>, empty or not, to
link authors and affiliations. Itbs clearly advantageous when you have
authors sharing multiple affiliations, as is common in STEM journals. But when
therebs a single affiliation per author and no need to label them with
footnote-style references, it seems to me that linking author and affiliation
by IDs is simple and unambiguous. Ibll admit that using <xref> in the latter
case would work too; it just doesnbt seem to have an obvious advantage.

[I had some illustrative screen shots here, but the list software complained
that my message was too large.]

With regard to your question:

This begs the question for me "is the recommended empty cross reference only a
semantic link for search or association purposes without any kind of visual
rendering?"

Therefore, should I, as a vendor, assume that a cross reference that has no
clickable content and points to an item that has no identifiable title or
label simply not be rendered because it is assumed to be an internally
expressed semantic or association?

I would say yes: Ibd take an empty <xref> to be a purely semantic link. In
our own XML, at least, we prefer not to rely on downstream processing to
generate any content that will be visible to the reader. Better to have it
explicit in the XML as early as possible for copyediting and proofing.

--
Michael R. Boudreau
Electronic Publishing Technology Manager
The University of Chicago Press
1427 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
www.journals.uchicago.edu

From: G. Ken Holman g.ken.holman@xxxxxxxxx
<jats-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, December 15, 2025 at 8:07b/PM
To: jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [jats-list] Linking <contrib> to <aff>

(trying again but with a properly positioned graphic; apologies for the
bandwidth)

This very topic came up for me at
https://RealtaOnline.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://RealtaOnline.com
__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!-CKWNzgrncArAh63GcNBJMBeBDIo0hWsspWvX16Y9qrr5w_3Lt2NBLYbN
Bt_WerbZxajnU6PMi3KqUD5tT764utJmmqdaHrIBB9N5nyCxA$> last week, Michael. Thank
you for bringing this up for discussion.

Personally, I agree with you and I prefer your way and not the recommended way
found in the example at:

https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/tag-library/1.3/FullArticleSamples/pnas_s
ample.xml<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/tag
-library/1.3/FullArticleSamples/pnas_sample.xml__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!-CKWNzgrnc
ArAh63GcNBJMBeBDIo0hWsspWvX16Y9qrr5w_3Lt2NBLYbNBt_WerbZxajnU6PMi3KqUD5tT764ut
JmmqdaHrIBB-5yuOfRA$>

<contrib-group>
<contrib contrib-type="author">
<name>
<surname>Sullivan</surname>
<given-names>Amy D.</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="author-notes" rid="FN150">&#x002A;</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author">
<name>
<surname>Wigginton</surname>
<given-names>Janis</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author">
<name>
<surname>Kirschner</surname>
<given-names>Denise</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="author-notes" rid="FN151">&#x2020;</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
</contrib>
</contrib-group>
<aff id="aff-1">Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University
of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0620</aff>

Note how the three <xref> elements of ref-type="aff" are empty of content, and
the target <aff> element has no title or label to use as clickable text for
the cross reference. Currently, my XSLT/XSL-FO stylesheet generic fallback for
such a cross reference is to assume this was an authoring error and I use the
identifier as clickable text ... but when this example document came along, I
was disappointed with this visual result:

This begs the question for me "is the recommended empty cross reference only a
semantic link for search or association purposes without any kind of visual
rendering?"

Therefore, should I, as a vendor, assume that a cross reference that has no
clickable content and points to an item that has no identifiable title or
label simply not be rendered because it is assumed to be an internally
expressed semantic or association?

The problem with that assumption, though, is that the documentation doesn't
state what an associated referenced identifier semantic actually is. The
supplied example XML clarifies the semantic by saying ref-type="aff", though I
feel this could be implied by the semantic of the element pointed to by the
referenced identifier.

In your example, I would make the rendered name the clickable text to
visualize the referenced identifier of the affiliation. Would that be an
acceptable rendering to you?

If not, what would you have a vendor do with your specific markup in your
example (if you and I choose not to follow the recommendation)?

Thank you for your insights here.

. . . . . . . Ken