Pending publication (Crossref)

A Crossref record type that lets a publisher (a Crossref member) register a DOI and a minimal metadata record -- at minimum the member name, journal title, and the manuscript's accepted date -- for a manuscript that has already cleared peer review and received a formal editorial acceptance decision, but has not yet been published online. Until the work is formally published, the DOI resolves to a Crossref-hosted landing page carrying an acceptance notice and the deposited metadata, not to the article itself. The publisher must later update that same DOI's metadata record to a full journal-article registration once the work is published; only then does the DOI resolve directly to the published content. A record qualifies as a pending publication only if it was deposited by the eventual publisher for an already-accepted manuscript -- an unrefereed preprint, or a manuscript still under review, does not qualify.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 16 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A journal registers a DOI the day after its editor issues a formal acceptance decision, depositing only the required minimum (member name, journal title, accepted date, article title, and authors) so the work has a stable, citable DOI weeks or months before it appears online. When the article is later published, the journal updates the same DOI's record with the full journal-article metadata (volume, issue, page range, publication date); the DOI then resolves directly to the published article instead of Crossref's acceptance landing page.
Is an instance
A researcher needs to cite a forthcoming paper in a grant report or another manuscript before it is publicly available. Because the paper already has a pending-publication DOI assigned at acceptance, they can cite a stable, resolvable identifier during the acceptance-to-publication gap instead of writing 'manuscript in preparation' or citing a non-resolvable placeholder.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A preprint posted to a preprint server before peer review, registered under Crossref's separate 'posted content' record type, is not a pending publication -- it has not been accepted by a journal, is not deposited by the eventual publisher, and keeps a permanently distinct DOI from whatever pending-publication or version-of-record DOI the journal later assigns. The two DOIs are connected through a Crossref relation type, not merged into a single record.
Not an instance
A standard journal-article DOI registered at the point of online publication, carrying full bibliographic metadata (volume, issue, pagination) from the outset, is not a pending publication -- pending publication specifically describes the earlier, minimal-metadata registration made before that full publication record exists.

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Pending publication (Crossref)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pending-publication-crossref" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pending-publication-crossref",
  "name": "Pending publication (Crossref)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pending-publication-crossref",
  "description": "A Crossref record type that lets a publisher (a Crossref member) register a DOI and a minimal metadata record -- at minimum the member name, journal title, and the manuscript's accepted date -- for a manuscript that has already cleared peer review and received a formal editorial acceptance decision, but has not yet been published online. Until the work is formally published, the DOI resolves to a Crossref-hosted landing page carrying an acceptance notice and the deposited metadata, not to the article itself. The publisher must later update that same DOI's metadata record to a full journal-article registration once the work is published; only then does the DOI resolve directly to the published content. A record qualifies as a pending publication only if it was deposited by the eventual publisher for an already-accepted manuscript -- an unrefereed preprint, or a manuscript still under review, does not qualify.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pending-publication-crossref",
  "sameAs": [],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-16T07:41:01",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}