Members and applicants sometimes ask how they can log into Crossref. The short answer is that there is not a single unified location or set of credentials that you’ll use to access Crossref’s tools and services. In today’s Membership Ticket of the Month, we’ll take a look at every part of Crossref where members and applicants might log in, and which credentials you will need to access each of these spaces.
DOI record deposit tools
Crossref offers a variety of tools through which members can deposit DOI records, depending on their specific needs.
All of these tools can be accessed using your Crossref account credentials. There are two different types of Crossref account credentials: user credentials and role credentials.
User credentials are individual and consist of an email address and a unique password. Most independent (non-sponsored) members who joined after April 2021 use user credentials. Some older members have also transitioned to using them too.
Role credentials are one set of credentials that are shared by everyone at a member’s organization and consist of a username and password. Instead of being associated with an email address, the username is (typically) a short alphanumeric string such as xxxx or b2a9d. Most sponsored Crossref members use role credentials.
If you aren’t sure whether your organization relies on user credentials or role credentials, you can contact our Membership support team. If your organization relies on user credentials but you don’t yet have credentials yourself, you can request to receive your own user credentials. You can make the request yourself if you are already a registered account contact on your member account, or ask a registered contact to request them on your behalf. If you have your own user credentials and need to reset your password, you can do this yourself via this page. If your organization is an independent member and you are using role credentials, a registered contact needs to request a password reset from our Membership support team. If your organization is a sponsored member and you are using role credentials, please contact your sponsor to arrange a password reset.
Now that you know the difference between role and user credentials, let’s look at the different DOI record deposit tools that you can use your credentials to log into.
Metadata Manager
Metadata Manager is our newest deposit helper tool for DOIs for articles, books, theses, reports, grants, and more! You can access it here and log into it via your Crossref account credentials.
OJS plugins
Open Journal Systems (OJS) is a free, open-source journal editorial management and hosting system developed by the Public Knowledge Project. While OJS is not a Crossref product, many of our members rely on it to host their journals and register their DOI records.
Each OJS instance will have its own administrators and its own login credentials separate from your Crossref account credentials. If you are unsure how to log into your OJS platform, please contact your site administrator.
Once you have logged into OJS, you can use plugins to register your metadata records with Crossref, and you will need to enter your Crossref account credentials into these plugins in a specific format. Please choose the appropriate instructions based on the OJS version you are using: 3.3, 3.4, or 3.5. Follow the instructions in those guides. Note that the step about entering your “username” is often where people make the most mistakes:
- If your organization uses Crossref user credentials, your “username” will be [user credential email address]/[role]. This might look like
me@myjournal.com/b2a9d - If your organization uses role credentials, you will enter just your role:
b2a9d
In the “password” field, please enter your user credential password or your role credential password (the same password you use to log in here).
Administration console
Our administration console (doi.crossref.org), also called our “admin tool”, is a useful portal if you wish to:
- Deposit DOI records via preformatted XML files
- View past successful and failed deposits
- View and resolve conflicts
To log in, you will need to enter your Crossref account credentials. If you’d like to learn more about this tool, you can check out this post.
Simple Text Query
Our Simple Text Query is a simple tool that lets you match a list of references to those articles’ DOIs for Reference Linking. You do not need to login to use this part of this service. You can additionally use Simple Text Query to add those references to an existing metadata record, and to do that, you will need to use your Crossref account credentials.
We recommend including your references in your metadata records. This process is what allows Crossref’s system to know which materials cite which other materials. Most of our record registration tools already allow you to include references in your metadata record when you first register your records, but Simple Text Query is an easy way to add references to existing records that don’t yet have references.
You can access the Simple Text Query here, and see a tutorial for using the tool here. After you have entered your list of references and clicked Submit, you can then choose to Deposit them. Four fields will appear when you select this option:
The “Email Address” field should be your own email address - this is used to send you a submission log after your reference deposit has been processed. The “Parent DOI” is the DOI of the article/chapter/book/etc. whose references you are submitting. The “Username” will follow the same format as described above for OJS: either user credential email address/role for user credentials or role for role credentials.
Web Deposit Form
Our Web Deposit Form is an older helper tool. In most cases we recommend using our new Metadata Manager tool instead of the Web Deposit Form. But if you do need to use the Web Deposit Form, you can access it here. The form will prompt you to log in with your Crossref account credentials after you have entered your metadata.
Test system
Crossref has a test/sandbox version of its administration console. If you’re a service provider and would like to test your integrations, you may POST submissions to our test system using https://test.crossref.org/servlet/deposit. You’ll need to email us at support@crossref.org so we can configure an account within the test system before you test your integration.
Payment portal
If you wish to view your Crossref invoices and pay them via credit/debit card, you will need to log into our payment portal. There are a separate set of credentials for our payment portal - you don’t use your standard Crossref account credentials.
Payment portal access is generally assigned to a member’s Billing contact, but can additionally be assigned to any other registered contact. If you are already a registered account contact, message our Billing team to be granted payment portal credentials of your own. If you are not yet a registered contact on your membership, please ask a registered contact to message our Membership team to add you as one.
Community Forum
If you’ve found this post, that means you’ve reached our Community Forum - hello! If you would like to log into the Community Forum to ask questions of Crossref staff and your fellow members and/or metadata lovers, you will need a unique set of Forum credentials for this. These credentials will be different from your standard Crossref account credentials. You can sign up for the Forum here.
Zendesk/Crossref support
Zendesk is Crossref’s customer service support software. If you have emailed with our Membership, Billing, or Support teams, chances are that this was facilitated by Zendesk.
In general, you don’t need to log into Zendesk. Rather, our email replies sent via Zendesk should arrive in your email inbox and you may email in reply to respond.
However, should you wish to log into Zendesk to access your communications with Crossref staff, you may sign up for that here. This will be a new set of credentials distinct from your other credentials described above.
Similarity Check
Some Crossref members subscribe to the optional, paid-for Similarity Check service. This service is powered by the iThenticate tool from Turnitin, and you login to this tool with a different set of credentials from your standard Crossref account credentials. If your organization subscribes to this service, your iThenticate administrator can grant or remove access to the tool. Please contact them for help accessing and logging into Similarity Check.
Sponsor portals/tools
Many organizations are members of Crossref through a sponsoring organization who provides language, technical, and/or financial support. Some (though not all) sponsors may provide proprietary member portals for their sponsored members to pay fees, deposit DOI records, access assistance, and more. Please contact your sponsoring organization directly if you have questions about where and how to access your sponsored member portal.
We hope you have a lovely time logging in! If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to ask.