Advantages of DOI registration

The availability and referencing of digital scholarly resources (e.g. research data, journal articles, software, videos and gray literature) are an essential feature of current scholarly practice. In order to meet the demands of citation in a scholarly context, the referenced content must be discoverable in the digital world over the long term. The reference to a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is not optimal for this purpose, as the access location of cited content can change and the corresponding URL can thus become invalid.

The DOI system counteracts this problem by having the DOI identify an object (analogue or digital). This means that, regardless of where the resource is stored, descriptive information about the object and its digital access location remain available.

A DOI is therefore a permanent and unique identifier of a scientific resource, which is directly linked to the object and associated with so-called metadata. It is an important building block for ensuring sustainable access to research data, publications, videos and other scientific resources.

The DOI system is an ISO standard (26324:2012) and is widely used in the scientific publication process. 

 

Advantages of DOI registration for researchers

  • Increases the visibility and discoverability of scientific contributions.
  • Enables a systematic/combined search for scientific resources based on the deposited metadata.
  • Increases credibility through the traceability and reproducibility of research results through the publication of research data.
  • Enables the citability of scientific contributions such as research data, journal articles, software, videos and grey literature and corresponding citation metrics.
  • Enables the use of a globally established standard that is recommended or mandatory by science policy and publishers.

 

Benefits of TIB DOI Consortium Membership

  • Administration of the contracts centrally by TIB.
  • TIB represents the interests of the TIB DOI Consortium within the DataCite community.
  • German-speaking support services:      
    • Quick help (doitibeu)   
    • Advice on best practices and international standards
    • Introductions to the user interface Fabrica
    • Extensive manuals for example “DataCite Fabrica Handbuch”
    • Informational events
    • Metadata advice
    • Facilitation of information exchange within the consortium
    • Helpful information via the mailing list tib-doi-service@listserv.dfn.de

 

Information on the TIB DOI Consortium can be found on the pages: Become a member and FAQs.