Content registration allows Crossref members to register and update metadata via machine or human interfaces.
Academic and professional research travels further if it’s linked to the millions of other published papers. Crossref members register content with us to let the world know it exists. They send information called metadata to us. Metadata includes fields like dates, titles, authors, affiliations, funders, and online location. It also includes digital object identifiers (DOIs) that stay with the work even if it moves websites. Richer metadata makes content useful and easier to find.
Please post your general questions and comments about content registration here. If you have a query about a specific registration method (via XML, the web deposit form, Metadata Manager, OJS) then please post this under the relevant heading.
Thanks for your message and welcome to the community forum. How are you attempting to register your content with us? What is your Crossref username and/or prefix?
How did you attempt to register DOI 10.20508/ijrer.v11i4.12240?
It looks like the other DOIs registered by username ijrer were all successful in January 2022. Those other January 2022 registrations were made using our web deposit form.
Unfortunately, the DOI has not yet been registered and it looks like the submission including that DOI never made it to our system. Because of this, and since OJS is not our system, we’re limited in how much we can help you in its use.
You can learn more at PKP’s Crossref OJS Manual, plus there’s a very active PKP Community Forum which has more information on how to modify your OJS instance to submit metadata and register DOIs with Crossref.
You can register a journal-title level DOI using our web deposit form. Note that a journal-title-level DOI is entirely optional if you are submitting ISSNs with your journal.
Broadly speaking, assuming you have recently published a new issue of your journal and you want to register DOIs for the journal and all articles in the issue, the steps to take to use the web deposit form are:
Select the Journal data type
Enter the Journal and Issue level metadata on the first page of the form. At minimum this includes: Journal title, abbreviated journal title, ISSN(s), and at least one publication year (print or online). If applicable, also enter issue number, volume number, and full publication dates.
[Journal DOI and Issue DOI are optional. If you don’t wish to deposit Journal-level and Issue-level DOIs, simply leave these fields as well as Journal URL and Issue URL empty. Keep in mind that, if you do deposit a Journal DOI, it refers to the journal as a whole, and therefore cannot change in future deposits]
Select ‘Add Articles’ (if you are also registering articles)
On the second page of the form, enter the metadata for your first article (article title, authors, page numbers if available), the article DOI, and article URL
Click ‘Add Another Article’
Continue to enter article metadata, DOIs, and URLs until you’ve entered all articles for the given issue.
We would like to seek your advice regarding DOI registration during a journal title transition.
Our journal has officially changed its title starting from the first issue of 2026, under a new publishing license. However, the new ISSN is currently under application and has not yet been assigned. Therefore, for continuity, we are temporarily continuing to register DOIs using the existing (old) ISSN.
At present, for articles assigned to Issue 1 (2026):
Some articles were published online earlier (in 2025) and were initially registered with DOIs under the old journal title and old ISSN.
The journal now uses a new title, and all articles in Issue 1/2026 are displayed under the new journal title.
We have added a Publisher’s Note on the issue landing page explaining the title transition.
We have also included a note on the first page of each article PDF indicating that the articles are published during the transition period and that the new ISSN is pending.
We would like to ask:
Is it acceptable to continue registering DOIs using the existing (old) ISSN while applying the new journal title in the metadata, during the period when the new ISSN is still pending?
Could this situation (earlier DOI metadata using the old title and ISSN vs. current display using the new title) cause the journal to be interpreted as two separate journals?
Once the new ISSN is assigned, what are the recommended steps to update the metadata for previously registered DOIs (e.g., for Issue 1/2026)?
Is it sufficient to redeposit updated metadata with the new journal title and ISSN, or are there additional steps we should take to ensure consistency across indexing systems?
We appreciate your guidance on best practices to ensure metadata consistency and avoid any confusion in indexing and citation tracking.
