Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)

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Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)
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DOI What is it? 1

• Unique alphanumeric string assigned to identify a
  piece of intellectual property online.
• Two components, a prefix and a suffix, separated
  by a forward slash.
• For example, 10.1006/jmbi.1995.0238
• The prefix is assigned to the publisher by
  Crossref.
• The suffix is assigned by the publisher for the
  particular document or entity.

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DOI What is it? 2

• The DOI identifies a particular piece of
  intellectual property unlike a URL, it will
  remain unchanged.
• Examples, showing the variation in format
  American Institute of Physics10.1063/1.125173Am
  erican Chemical Society 10.1021/cm960127gAmerican
  Mathematical Society 10.1090/S0002-9939-00-05422-
  8American Physical Society10.1103/PhysRevLett.88
  .088302Blackwell Publishers 10.1046/j.1432-1327.2
  001.02263.x

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How do DOIs link with the RAE?

• Including a DOI is compulsory for journal
  articles. It can also be included, if available,
  for other outputs such as books, chapters and
  conference contributions.
• The RAE software can be used to look up and
  validate DOIs for single journal articles and for
  all journal articles in a single submission. The
  software uses the Crossref database. Crossref
  can be searched independently from the software
  at http//www.crossref.org/guestquery/ (form) or
  http//www.crossref.org/freeTextQuery/ (free
  text).
• You should not include either the resolver (for
  example, http//dx.doi.org) or the DOI prefix in
  the RAE software.

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DOI How can I find it if it isnt on Crossref?

• You can link to the journal title from our
  Voyager catalogue http//library.cf.ac.uk/
• You can look it up on Google Scholar
  http//scholar.google.com/
• You can search a database directly, for example,
  Science Direct or Ingenta Connect.
• always check the DOI using the DOI resolver at
  www.crossref.org or putting http//dx.doi.org/ at
  the start.

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What if I still cant find a DOI?

• You could contact the publisher to double check
  whether a DOI is available.
• Some items will not have a DOI and so an
  electronic copy will need to be submitted.

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Finally

• The subject librarians are very happy to help
  with trying to find DOIs and other information
  queries (for example, finding ISSNs and ISBNs).
  Contact them in person, by phone or by email.