A Crossref applicant recently asked when they would receive their DOI prefix and login details to start registering their content after submitting their application form. The answer is…. It depends. In this post, I’ll give a bit more information about the steps involved in a membership application, where there might be delays in the process, and what you can do to help make your application as smooth as possible.
Step one: Reviewing the application
All applicants must complete a membership application form, and the information they provide is sent to our membership team for review. We receive hundreds of applications for membership every month and we review them in the order we receive them, so it may take up to a week until we respond to your application. When we receive your application, we check a few basic things:
- That you meet our membership criteria and can commit to fulfil the member terms.
- That we are legally able to accept your organization as a member.
- That your organization hasn’t previously been a member of Crossref whose membership was revoked.
- That your organization hasn’t misrepresented themselves in the application.
- That your organization is not already a member of Crossref.
Membership of Crossref is open to organizations that produce professional and scholarly materials and content, and we treat this broadly - “come one, come all” is one of our organizational truths. But it’s important that members are able to meet the obligations of membership and work in a way which reflects our code of conduct.
As an organization that’s based in the US (and with significant activities in the UK and Europe) there are also some legal limits on us - for example, we can’t accept applications for membership from organizations based in some countries or regions due to sanctions.
We also may not be able to accept applications for membership from organizations that have previously had their membership revoked or who have misrepresented themselves in their application. (The only exception to this is organizations who were previously members but whose membership was revoked because they failed to pay their outstanding fees. Your organization may rejoin Crossref, but you will need to commit to paying the outstanding fees and any new fees going forward).
And finally, if your organization is already a member of Crossref (for example, a different department of the same university) we may explore with you the possibility of adding you to the existing membership. This allows your organization to avoid paying multiple membership fees.
If we have questions about any of this, it may take a longer to set up your account and provide the DOI prefix. It depends on how quickly you answer our query or questions. The common issues we found are that the applicant publication website doesn’t have a landing page, or we spot unregistered DOIs on your publication website. If you are applying to join through a sponsor, we will copy your sponsor into our messages so they are aware of the ongoing conversation (and they may also be able to help to answer some of the questions).
Once we have all the information that we need to proceed, we can move onto the next step.
- If you are applying to be an independent member, we will send you a prorated membership order for the remaining months of the current year (see step two).
- If you are applying to work with us through a sponsor, you won’t pay a membership fee directly to Crossref, so you will move straight to step three.
Step two: Paying for your first year of membership
If you are an independent member applicant, we will then begin setting up your account and, within 1-2 days, issue you with a Subscription Order (membership fee invoice) to pay for your first year of membership (our membership fee is prorated for the first year to cover the remaining months of the current calendar year and renews each January 1).
There are three ways to pay your Crossref membership fee:
- Credit/debit card. If you wish to pay this way, you’ll need to let us know so that our Billing team can send you access to our Payment Portal. This can take up to three working days.
- Bank/wire transfer. If you pay this way, please respond with a copy of your receipt for the quickest processing.
- Check. If you pay this way, we will need to wait until the check has physically arrived with us, plus a few extra days for our Billing team to process it.
Once our billing team has confirmed that we’ve received your payment, we’ll move onto step three.
Step three: Receiving your new DOI prefix and Crossref account credentials
At step three, we will set up your new DOI prefix and give you access to start registering your DOIs and metadata records.
Independent members - we’ll send over confirmation of your new DOI prefix to all the key contacts on your account, and we’ll send an email to your technical contact so they can create a password for a set of Crossref account credentials. Once they have created their password, you can start registering your DOIs and metadata records.
Sponsored members - we’ll send over confirmation of your new DOI prefix to your sponsor, and a link so they can create a password for a set of Crossref account credentials. Depending on how you work with your sponsor, they will either share these details with you (so you can start registering your own DOIs and metadata records), or they will get started with registering for you.
When things might be a bit different or take a bit longer
If you are already a sponsored member but you would like to change to work with a different sponsor, or perhaps change to be an independent member, the process will be different and may take longer.
Firstly, you need to complete the application form for the new Sponsor that you want to join (or the standard application form if you want to become an independent member). Please make sure you include the fact that you have an existing membership, and provide your prefix.
Once we receive your application, we will check whether the application form was completed by one of the key contacts on the existing member account. If not, we will require confirmation from one of the key contacts on the existing account before we can proceed, and this can take extra time. If possible, do make sure one of your existing account contacts completes the application form to move to the next sponsor.
We also need to confirm the move with your original Sponsoring Organization. We will complete the move as soon as we hear back from them (or after five working days if we don’t hear back from them). If the sponsor tells us that your organization has unpaid fees with them, we will wait until these fees are paid. So if you want to move to a new sponsor, make sure you tell your existing sponsor, and pay any outstanding fees.
Moving to a new sponsor
Once we have confirmation from one of the existing contacts on your existing membership, and permission for the transfer from your existing sponsor, we will move your account over to the new sponsor. We will change the password on your existing set of member account credentials, and send your new sponsor a link to create a new password. Depending on how you work with your new sponsor, they will either share these new details with you (so you can continue registering your own DOIs and metadata records), or they will get started with registering for you.
Moving to become an independent member
Once we have confirmation from one of the existing contacts on your existing membership, and permission for the move from your existing sponsor, we will temporarily suspend depositor rights under your DOI prefix while we get you set up as a direct member.
We will review and update all the information provided on the application to our system, and we will issue you with a Subscription Order (membership fee invoice) to pay for your first year of membership shortly (our membership fee is prorated for the first year to cover the remaining months. Once your payment for your subscription order has been received, we’ll send over confirmation of your new DOI prefix to all the key contacts on your account, and we’ll send an email to your technical contact so they can create a password for a set of Crossref account credentials. Once they have created their password, you can start creating your DOIs and metadata records.
How to make your Crossref membership application as smooth and fast as possible
Here are the tips that contribute to the fastest possible processing of your application:
- Make sure your organization and publication’s website is accessible worldwide.
- Make sure you have a unique landing page for each of your articles/chapters/books/etc.
- If you have an existing DOI prefix, please make sure you reference this in the ‘Anything else we should know’ section of the form.
- If you were previously working with another organization to register your DOI records, make sure that they have already registered all the DOIs that you have displayed on your website.
- If you have had a previous conversation with Crossref staff, you should add the correspondence ticket number at the ‘Anything else we should know’ section of the form.
- If we ask follow up questions after receiving your application, you can just reply to our message - you don’t need to submit a new application.
- We usually aim to reply within two working days. Please do not send multiple followup replies as unfortunately this will make your application appear “newer” to our system, which may slow down the speed of the response you’ll receive from us.
In summary, it’s hard to give an exact time for how long it takes to set up a new account. It can usually be done within 3-10 working days after we first reply to your application, but this depends on whether we have followup questions, how long it takes independent member applicants to pay their membership orders, and a few other factors. But there are ways to make this smoother by including as much information as possible in your original application.
We wish you a smooth experience when you apply for Crossref membership.
If you have any other questions or queries, or you would like to check your application status, you can contact us by email to member@crossref.org or you can message us here.