The main idea for the Online First publishing (i.e. publishing an electronic version of the article in advance of the print edition) lies in considerably reducing the time it would have previously taken for research to reach the research community. Online-first papers have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this journal and posted online before final publication in a volume.
Once a proof has been corrected and finalized, an article is ready for Online First publication and can be published online. This means that readers can access peer reviewed articles well before print publication. The articles have been copy edited and author corrections have been incorporated before they are posted online. Type setting and proofreading will commence with electronic publication, and the volume, issue and page numbers will then be assigned to the final version of the article.
Online-first articles should be cited with the DOI link.