Scientists are placing more and more scientific articles on the web, so today the topic of assigning DOI is becoming increasingly relevant in the research world. What is the Digital Object Identifier and why it was created – see in the new video.
DOI is the designation of a paper, page, material, which remains unchanged, in contrast to the site of the journal, which can be deleted. It specifies the path to the document in the web space, helps to search for the necessary information and exchange data. This is the standard adopted by the English-speaking community, used by publishers around the world, and generated by large companies and servers (CrossRef, DataCite, etc.). It aims to improve communication between the scientific community, improve the process of finding research content, citations, and connections between countries.
What does a DOI comprise?
It has two parts: a unique prefix and a suffix.
The prefix is immutable and consists of 4 characters. The first two characters belong to the company that issues the prefix and stores all the information on the server (Crossref, DataCite). The second part of the prefix is also unique and unchanging. It belongs to the organisation that has entered into the contract with the service provider and identifies the company.
After that, the organisation (partner or sponsor) can assign its own additional number – a suffix in which the name of the journal, volume, issue number, or page can be encrypted. Thus, this identification code helps to determine the main features of the material.
The suffix scheme may have no characters or dots, short dashes, or parentheses. In print, the DOI is on the first page of each article, and on the site it looks like a hyperlink that leads to the page of the document or the main site of the DOI. It is better to avoid repeating suffixes.
What are the benefits of Digital Object Identifier?
- There is a large number of journals, including scientific ones, that do not have a DOI. But if the publication wants to keep up with trends, meet modern requirements, it is necessary to have this identifier. Without a DOI, a paper can disappear entirely from the Internet, which will affect its indexing.
- With the assigned number, the journal has a better chance of being read, and its pages are quoted in the papers of researchers.
- The DOI makes it impossible to lose the document.
- It can take up to 3 years from the review process to the publication of the journal in print, so the journal can be published faster on the website. But to quote an article correctly, it must contain the original data (title, journal number, volume number, issue, page). DOI allows to cite papers which are not distributed in a particular issue, but are already online with their personal identification code. The Scopus and Web of Science databases include such citation. This specification of actions can have different names: "Articles in Press", "Online first", "Accepted Articles".
- We must always keep in mind the human factor, which is that the author or editor can get confused in numbers, enter incorrect information that confuses the search engine. But if the DOI is specified correctly, then the citation will be attached and it will be easy to find in any case.
- Protects the authorship of the researcher, etc.
Our company "Scientific publications – Publ.Science" became the official sponsorship of the agency "Crossref" and received the status of "Sponsoring Organisations". From now on, we can assign DOIs to publishers, research institutions, higher education institutions, libraries, journals, issues, and specific articles in them. If you have additional questions on this topic, please contact our specialist, using any form of communication on the company's website.
Contacts
Specialist of the research and training centre of the company "Scientific publications – Publ.Science" Yelyzaveta Bataieva l.batayeva@publ.science.
Central office: +380 (44) 333 78 91
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We remind you that recently we have released a material about the beginning of a cycle of webinars on scientometrics.