In this forum post, we outline a stepwise guide for our new Crossref members on how they can construct DOIs, register them, and eventually check the respective registration status.
Step 1 - Construct your DOI(s)
When you join Crossref as a member you are issued a DOI prefix (for example 10.5555). It is this prefix that you combine with a suffix of your choice to create a DOI (10.5555/YRFU1371). DOIs must be unique and persistent, and should be opaque.
The DOI and its DOI link below becomes active once registered with Crossref.
We also provide a suffix generator tool to help you create suffix strings which comply with best practices (suffixes should be opaque, unique, and short). Download the suffix generator (macro-enabled .xlsm file). When you open it, choose Read-only , and Enable macros .
Step 2 - Register your DOI (content registration)
Once you have constructed your DOI fully, it is now time to have it registered via metadata deposit. Metadata, including your DOIs, is registered and stored in our system in XML.
Content registration is crucial in order to enable sharing of your metadata with the scholarly ecosystem, as described in this other forum post titled ‘Who uses your metadata?’. We have various content registration tools that one can choose from to register metadata. Some members send us XML files directly, but if you’re not familiar with writing XML files, you can use other helper tools that are part of our content registration tool methods. These available helper tools are online forms with different fields for you to complete, and this information is converted to XML and deposited with Crossref for you. Overall, these content registration methods include the Crossref XML plugin for OJS, web deposit form, Grant registration form, XML upload via our admin tool, or XML deposit using HTTPS POST.
A big decision to make as a new member is which of our content registration methods to use. Please refer to the below chart for a quick guide to choosing your content registration method that works best for you:
Please refer to our Content Registration guide for further information on how to construct your metadata deposits.
Step 3 - check if the registration was successful
The quickest way to test whether your DOI and its associated metadata have been registered successfully (and your DOI is now active) is to enter your DOI link (DOI displayed as a link, such as https://doi.org/10.5555/YRFU1371) into a browser window, and check if it resolves correctly. In most cases if your DOI does not resolve successfully after several hours of registration, then the deposit you made failed, and you will see the below ‘DOI NOT FOUND’ error message…
Secondly, when your deposit has been processed, we will always email you a submission log containing the final status of your submission. You should ensure that you review these submission logs to make sure your content was registered or updated successfully.
We also have various other ways to verify your registration as documented here Verify your registration - Crossref
Step 4 - Display your registered DOI
Once you have determined that your registered DOIs have been successfully registered, the last step is to ensure that they are displayed as the full URL link wherever the bibliographic information about the content is displayed.
An obligation of membership is that Crossref DOIs must be displayed on members’ landing pages. We recommend that Crossref DOIs also be displayed or distributed in the following contexts:
- Tables of contents
- Abstracts
- Full-text HTML and PDF articles, and other scholarly documents
- Citation downloads to reference management systems
- Metadata feeds to third parties
- “How to Cite This” instructions on content pages
- Social network links
- Anywhere users are directed to a permanent, stable, or persistent link to the content.
Crossref members should not use proprietary, internal, or other non-DOI URLs in citation downloads, metadata feeds to third parties, nor in instructions to researchers on how to cite a document.
Please refer to our detailed DOI display guidelines here DOI display guidelines - Crossref