JATS Compatibility

The NISO STS Working Group tried (to the extent possible) to make NISO STS a JATS-Compatible tag suite, as described in the The JATS Compatibility Meta-Model (“JATS Compatibility Model Description Draft” published for comment by NISO at https://groups.niso.org/apps/group_public/download.php/21033/JATS-Compatibility-Model-v0-10.pdf). The Meta-Model document provides guidance on how to create JATS-based tag sets that will interoperate in expected ways with other JATS-based documents in databases, display systems, and similar applications.
This compatibility for NISO STS is only “to the extent possible” because ISO STS was developed before the Meta-Model guidelines were written, and there are places where ISO STS violates the guidelines. After significant discussion, the Technical Committee decided that backward compatibility with ISO STS was more important than JATS compatibility whenever a conflict was identified.
Organizations with mixed NISO STS/JATS databases will need to be aware of these differences.
Elements where the ISO STS interpretation prevailed in designing NISO STS, and that are therefore unlike JATS, include: