Community on Crossref

Building, refining, and connecting: summary of our May 2026 community update

Rosa Morais Clark — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Our 2026 Community Update took place on 13 May. Two calls, one for the eastern and one for the western time zone, highlighted how our global community is growing, how we’re refining the metadata that supports trust in the scholarly record, and connecting records more effectively through our latest tools.

Operations, governance, and a growing membership

Our Chief Operating Officer, Lucy Ofiesh and Executive Director, Ed Pentz, opened each session with an update on operations and governance, starting with the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI). We adopted POSI in 2020. Recently, the Principles were updated by a group of adopters, following a community consultation, and four new principles were added: periodic review of purpose and community value; transparent operations as a distinct principle; refined guidance on financial reserves; and attention to volunteer labour and transition planning. Recordings and slides are also available.

Infrastructure organisations can use POSI to assess themselves and demonstrate to the community how they’re adhering to the principles, which support forkability, long-term sustainability, open assets, and transparent, community-led governance. We published a biannual report on how we measure up against them, so we’ll publish our next self-audit against the new set at the end of 2026.

Financially, we’re in good shape. With so many new members joining every month, our revenue grew 8% last year, while expenses came in 3% under budget, and Content Registration was up 13% year-on-year at the end of March, well above our long-term average of around 7%. We’ve used our operating surplus to build up and maintain a reserve fund of 12-months of operating expenses, which matters for long-term sustainability. We use additional surplus funds beyond our reserves to reinvest in our mission and community.

We had our call for board nominiations in May. Seven seats are up this year, one large and six small, and any member can stand. Voting runs for around five weeks, one vote per member, regardless of size. Last year, just 6% of members voted, and we’d like to see that increase. The call for expressions of interest is now closed for 2026, and candidates will be announced by our Nominating Committee in the coming months in advance of the election and annual meeting, which will be held on 22nd October 2026.

Robbykha Rosalien and Maryna Kovalyova from our membership team then took us through the membership picture. We’re now 25,000 organisational members from 167 countries, with around 51% based in Asia. The majority of our new members are universities, scholar-led publishers, societies, small journal publishers, and government agencies. We have help from 140 sponsoring organisations and 42 ambassadors, and we’re grateful for all the support they offer our members.

The metadata corpus and its use have grown alongside the community

Turning to new members, over 3,000 have joined from 142 countries since the last community update. 54% are from Asia, with Indonesia accounting for 17.5% of the total and India next at 9.5%. We continue to have members joining from the US and the UK, and we also have over 100 new members from Türkiye, with strong growth in Brazil and Pakistan as well.

January 2026 brought a major change with the introduction of a new fee tier for members with annual revenue or expenses (whichever is higher) of under USD 1,000. Since then, 40% of the new members joined under this new tier. 40% of our new members identify themselves as publishers and 40% as universities or scholarly organisations, with plenty of societies (13%), governmental agencies or NGOs (4%), and others, such as hospitals. The most popular publishing platform choice among the new members remains Open Journal Systems by PKP at 55%, with 30% saying they have no platform, and WordPress (4%) and Scholastica (2%) following. Notably, we’re working with PKP this year to help members transition to OJS 3.5, which supports richer metadata.

We also extended our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program at the start of the year to include 18 additional countries. GEM offers Crossref membership and Content Registration without any fees. Since the last community update, we’ve gained our first members in Haiti, South Sudan, and Niger, and 20% of all independent members who have joined since then are GEM-eligible.

Introducing the Member Practices Working Group

Our Membership Director, Amanda Bartell, introduced our new Member Practices Working Group with a reminder of Crossref’s role in preserving the Integrity of the Scholarly Record (ISR). We’ve always aimed to keep barriers to membership as low as possible, because the best way to support a healthy scholarly ecosystem is to make metadata about published content as open and transparent as possible. That openness lets members demonstrate their practices through metadata, signalling trustworthiness to the scientific community as a whole, and when practices fall short, the metadata itself can surface those issues. Our member terms already make the importance of accurate metadata clear: if the community identifies inaccurate metadata, we can suspend or revoke membership. That is a last resort, and our first approach is always to contact the member, explain the problem, and work with them to get the metadata record corrected.

But what if the reports we receive from the community don’t relate to metadata, and instead to the member’s broader practices? This is an increasing issue, and it has been unclear how and when we should respond.

In consultation with our board, we updated our member terms last year and added an obligation for members to comply with a set of published member practices. The role of the working group is to draft this set of practices and provide clear guidelines on what we expect of Crossref members. In rare situations where issues can’t be resolved, the Member Practices will provide the basis for acting decisively, including suspending or revoking membership.

The Crossref Member Practices Working Group brings together differently sized members from different regions, metadata users, bibliometricians, and scholarly sleuths. Once drafted, we’ll take the Member Practices out for community consultation, with a board vote expected at their November meeting. It’s particularly important to us that the practices are achievable for all types of members, and we don’t want to create any extra barriers to entry or to continue membership for less experienced or less well-resourced members.

To seek feedback from the community on emerging themes, Amanda ran two live polls during the call. One of her questions was: for the records you register with Crossref, are you the journal owner, the nominated publisher, or a bit of both? 45% of respondents said a bit of both, with the journal owner as the next most popular response, and the nominated publisher after that. The second poll asked whether the phrase “nominated publisher” accurately describes what those of you in that role do. The result suggested it is broadly acceptable, though we’d still like to hear how you’d phrase it if not.

Metadata schema

Patricia Feeney and Helena Cousijn from our programs and services team walked us through a year of schema work and what’s coming next. Schema 5.4 was released in March 2025 with three key features: typed citations, version numbers, and preprint status.

Typed citations give members the chance to indicate in the metadata what type of citation it is, so when an article cites a dataset, it’s now possible to explicitly say so. So far 23 DOI prefixes are using typed citations, so adoption is starting, and we’d really like to see it grow. If this is something you think is useful for you, please take a look, or reach out, and we’ll help you get started.

Version numbers, which 25 DOI prefixes now use and mostly for preprints, let you indicate different versions. We’re not yet seeing much use for articles or other record types, which we’d like to encourage. Notably, when you’re registering new versions of the same record, there’s no separate content registration fee, as long as you include the relationship in the metadata.

Preprint status lets you indicate that a preprint has been retracted or withdrawn, for example.

Earlier this year, we added the ability to include grant DOIs in funding metadata. When you register metadata for any research output, you can now include the persistent identifier to indicate which grant funded the work. The number of grants registered as part of the Grant Linking System by our funder members grows (with now over 200,000 grant DOIs in existence). This dedicated new field provides an opportunity for members registering works to unambiguously identify the grants that funded the work. The grant DOI links to a full grant record, including funding type, project information, investigator details, funder and program/schema details, and institutional relationships.

We’re working on Schema 5.5. The main thing we know many of you have been waiting for is support for the CRediT taxonomy and its 14 contributor roles. We’re also enabling multiple roles for a single contributor, and within the Crossref vocabulary, which we still support, it will be possible to specify the corresponding author.

After 5.5 comes the update to our dedicated grant schema. Grant Schema 0.3.0 adds the ability to indicate that a grant was awarded to an institution (via a ROR affiliation ID), reflects that roles can change over time, and adds support for a persistent project identifiers, RAiD – a service that functions as a project identifier to indicate how a grant relates to one or more projects.

We’re also deprecating older schema versions. We’re supporting over 27 at the moment, which is too many and not helpful to members. The fundamental structures need updating, and we also need to tighten some of our requirements to obtain better and more complete metadata. We started the project at the end of last year, and we’ll be saying goodbye to a set of versions at the end of this year. Everyone using those versions has already been contacted, so if this concerns you, you should have heard from us. The project continues over the coming years, and we’ll work on deprecating other Schema 4 versions, so that by the end, we’ll only be supporting the different Schema 5 versions and the upcoming Schema 6. We’ll notify everyone impacted and let you know how to transition.

Once 5.5 and the grant schema are out, we’ll start working on remodelling contributor names, which is a really big project. A proposed model was circulated for feedback in May. The same update will also work on statements, currently for funding, acknowledgments, ethics, accessibility, AI use, data availability, copyright, and conflict of interest.

Tools and demos

Funder matching, rebuilt around ROR

Dominika Tkaczyk and Jason Portenoy from our technology and data science team gave an update on the Metadata Matching work, framed around the vision of the Research Nexus: a rich and open network of relationships connecting organisations, people, outputs, and activities within the scholarly record. First up for the project is funder matching, and Dominika and Jason took us through the new methodology and progress on implementing the work.

Funding metadata involves three main entities: funders, grants, and research outputs. Organisations are identified by Open Funder Registry (OFR) IDs or ROR IDs, and research grants and outputs have DOIs. These entities should be linked in order for provenance and attribution to be determined, which is important for evidence but also for things like research assessment and compliance.

The three entities: Funding and academic organisations→recipients are awarded grants→ repositories and publishers support outputs.

In practice, many of those relationships are missing when metadata is deposited. The new Crossref funder matching identifies the funding organisation from the name in the metadata and, when successful, inserts the correct organisation identifier, disambiguating the relation between the research output and its funder. Applying matching over the years has added around 2.8 million funder identifiers to records, shrinking the gap.

So why rebuild what we already have? Two reasons. We’re committed to supporting ROR more deeply across our services, and as part of that, we want to switch to ROR IDs as the main identifier for funders. Second, our current funder matching is part of our legacy system, which lacks transparency, thorough evaluation, or flexibility.

The new strategy is part of our metadata matching project. The core architecture is built, and the new strategy has been tested; we’re now adding features such as sending redeposits, with more testing later this quarter and a release aimed for around the middle of the year. After that, we’ll move on to a grant-matching workflow to link outputs to grant records where that link is missing.

They closed with a live demo covering four cases. Starting with a simple example of Wellcome, which matched cleanly because the input name matched the official organisation name exactly, they then moved on to more complex examples, showing increasing discrepancies between the input and the name variant in ROR, yet the strategy still resolved it. However, some names are not possible to match in this way, such as the “Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,” which is a very generic name that many organisations might use as part of their structure. That matters too: the strategy recognises when no match should be returned, limiting the level of incorrect information that might be introduced into the metadata.

Data citations API endpoint

Martyn Rittman who heads up our Research Nexus development, and Panos Pandis from our technology team introduced the new data citations API endpoint. It exposes data citations from deposited metadata, with over 700,000 included so far. Among all the reference information we hold, individual data citations are difficult to pick out, and there’s a specific community interest in them, so we’ve put them together and made them available through a dedicated API.

Data citations can be included in two parts of a metadata record: references and relationships. We look for links to datasets registered with a Crossref DOI or a DataCite DOI. Documentation can be found here.

Through March 2026, we typically collected 400 to 600 data citations per day, with some variation, especially on weekends. The new endpoint is still in beta, and we invite feedback: is it useful, what would make it more useful, and what should we do next? Let us know on the forum.

Metadata Manager: new content types coming

Lena Stoll, who heads up our community trends program and Patrick Vale from technology took us through Metadata Manager. We retired the legacy interface at the end of last year and replaced it with a more modern and flexible helper tool for record registration. It’s already in use by an increasing number of members for grants and journal article records.

A recent addition is a search field, where you can enter the DOI of any supported record (currently a journal article or a grant) and edit it directly, if you have permissions. We’ve also added fields to the journal article registration form to include relationship metadata, which is key to building the Research Nexus.

Plenty more is coming. The new Metadata Manager will expand to support books and chapters, conference proceedings, reports, dissertations, and post-publication updates over the next few months. The interfaces follow a similar workflow: a page or two of work-level metadata, optionally chapter, or paper, or series metadata if applicable, a review step, and submission. We want to keep them as simple and usable as possible.

We hope that the post-publication update form will be welcomed by our members, as it will enable registration of retractions, corrections, and expressions of concern without any knowledge of XML. Lena and Patrick walked through a live demo of a retraction notice end-to-end. The system checks that the DOI being retracted exists, and any errors surface right away rather than later by email. We’re collecting feedback on the new tools on the forum.

The team also shared an update for institutions that use DSpace – its next version (version 10), will include a Crossref integration that lets you register Crossref metadata and DOIs automatically for content such as dissertations hosted in your DSpace repository.

Looking ahead

A new Service Providers Program

Madhura Amdekar shared our plans to launch a new version of the Crossref Service Providers Program later this year. Service providers are hosting platforms, manuscript submission systems, XML or metadata providers, and general publisher service organisations that work with our members to create, register, or display metadata on their behalf. They’re key partners in promoting metadata best practices, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with these organisations more closely. The program will not charge any fees; it will offer certification in two tiers, depending on the depth of integration with Crossref services.

We’d really like to hear from you: which service providers in this space would you like to see as part of the new program? Drop suggestions on the forum or get in touch with us directly.

Thanks to our speakers and to everyone who joined, asked questions, and voted in the polls. Recordings and slides are available, and the conversation continues on our community forum.

See you at the next one.

From commitment to connection: 200,000 grants in the scholarly record

Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Funding is one of the key enablers of the research lifecycle, but has been one of the hardest parts of the scholarly record to identify, describe and connect. This is slowly changing as we have recently reached a very exciting milestone for Crossref’s Grant Linking System (GLS). What makes it remarkable is not only the numbers reached, but where the data comes from. Research funders, who joined Crossref as members, have actively contributed more than 200,000 grants to the Research Nexus (Figure 1).

Crossref’s GLS was first introduced in 2019, following extensive community consultation with research funders, as a solution to a problem: how to place research funding in the scholarly record as a research entity in its own right, that can be connected with other outputs. Crossref grant DOIs were the first PID that specifically allows for the permanent and unambiguous identification of the support that research funders provide to their grant recipients. It places research funding where it belongs, as a research entity worthy of its own metadata record that can be linked, interpreted, and updated as time goes on. With a funder-designed metadata schema, it facilitates the linking of funding to outputs through relationship metadata, building the Research Nexus, and supporting evidence-driven evaluation.

The active role of funders as owners and stewards of their grants’ description in the metadata, ensuring the records reflect reality, is what makes the resulting links between funding and outputs trustworthy enough to support evidence-driven evaluation, one verifiable data point at a time, as initiatives such as DORA and CoARA are calling on the research community to do.

Reaching 200,000 registered grants with Crossref’s GLS is a milestone that belongs to the entire community. It reflects a strong commitment to open, sustainable and interoperable infrastructure from funders around the world, and a shared conviction that connected metadata makes research more transparent, more accountable and more useful for everyone.

It’s an opportunity to share perspectives from some of our community members helping make this possible.

Fonds de Recherche du Québec

When Fonds de Recherche du Québec first began registering funding metadata and assigning Crossref grant DOIs to its funding through Crossref’s Grant Linking System, our primary driver was straightforward: traceability. We needed a reliable way to link research outputs back to the funding that made them possible. Crossref grant DOIs provided the missing data point in an interconnected identifier and metadata ecosystem, which includes ROR and ORCID. We hope that Crossref grant DOIs will genuinely improve the researcher experience through interoperability.

The journey hasn’t been without complexity. Establishing metadata governance required careful collaboration with our legal team to determine what information belongs on landing pages, how to handle updates when grant titles change, and how to protect the integrity of evaluated application data.

Our strategy moving forward centres on two pillars: connecting and tracing. Aligned with our Open Science commitments and guided by frameworks like CoARA and DORA, we want to trace not just publications, but the full spectrum of funded outputs, such as artistic works, exhibitions, patents. We’re not fully there yet, and cultural and technical readiness across the community remains a real challenge.

Reaching 200,000 registered grants signals that the infrastructure is maturing. For Fonds de Recherche du Québec, it’s a motivation to keep contributing to the Research Nexus.

– Antoine Drouin, Analyste en gestion stratégique-Fonds de Recherche du Québec

European Commission

Connecting funding to results at scale is essential for transparent, efficient research. When we began depositing European Commission research grant DOIs with Crossref, we were tackling a practical problem: grant identifiers were used inconsistently across publishers, repositories and reporting tools, making it difficult to trace outputs back to specific EU grants. A persistent, interoperable identifier helps turn fragmented references into durable links.

Grant metadata is central to our open science and open access strategy. Open, machine-readable funding information improves transparency about who funds what, and supports automated monitoring of policy requirements by connecting grants to publications and other outputs across the scholarly ecosystem.

Registering grant DOIs via the Publications Office of the European Union and depositing them with Crossref is now fully integrated into our internal workflows. We have learned that the DOI is just the starting point: long-term value comes from maintaining high-quality, consistent metadata throughout a grant’s lifecycle and updating it as information evolves.

The benefits are clear: improved discoverability of grants, stronger links between funding and outputs, and more robust reporting and analytics. Reaching 200 000 registered grants is a community milestone showing grant identifiers can work at scale and strengthen connections between funding and research results.

– Baya Remaoun, Head of Sector - CORDIS web & data at Publications Office of the European Union

Wellcome

Our motivation to join Crossref’s GLS was to be able to disaggregate research outputs between funders. Funders’ grant identifiers come in a range of formats, funders might change them over time, and there are also similarities between funders’ names, which is a challenge. Permanent identifiers, in this case, Crossref Grant IDs, are an opportunity to avoid some of the confusion if we are able to implement them throughout the research ecosystem.

Open Research information is a core part of our open science strategy, it is critical to both our ability to operate as a funder and to the translation of the research we fund into health impacts. That’s why Wellcome is a signatory of the Barcelona Declaration of Open Research Information. Grant metadata is core part of our work, as well as helping us to understand the outputs from the work we’ve funded, it is critical in enabling funders like Wellcome to position our portfolio effectively within the global landscape and enable equitable funding partnerships. In addition to linking grants through Crossref, our recent investment in OpenAlex to openly index grants is aiming to rapidly bolster the global visibility of grant metadata.

Internally at Wellcome we’re discussing how we can integrate grant DOIs into other workflows now that we have greater flexibility within our grants management system.

Externally we’ve struggled to see adoption of grant DOIs within the wider ecosystem, probably coming from challenges to surface the Crossref grant DOIs to our researchers but also uneven adoption across the ecosystem. Reaching the 200,000 grants registered with Crossref means that there are still huge opportunities to grow and evolve.

– Hannah Hope, Open Research Lead-Wellcome

As the Barcelona Declaration Call to Action on funding metadata makes clear, a rich and interoperable funding metadata landscape is a shared community endeavor. As grant records in Crossref grow, other members of the scholarly community need to ensure that they are included and reported back on their own record, closing the loop on funding reporting and contributing to a richer, more connected Research Nexus.

New Crossref Service Providers program ready for applications

Madhura Amdekar — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the re-launch of the Crossref Service Providers program. From today, we are accepting applications from organisations providing tools for metadata registration to Crossref members. Participation in this program is free and the application involves an accreditation process to determine eligibility and the appropriate participation tier.

As a membership organisation, Crossref supports its members to provide rich and complete metadata which facilitates integrity judgements, increases discoverability, linking among scholarly objects and activities, and improves transparency. Service providers are key collaborators in this work because they enable our members to adopt better metadata practices.

We ran an earlier version of this program which was paused in 2022 for review. We are now pleased to reintroduce the program as a new structure for our collaboration with service providers. If you are an organisation that provides tools that enable record registration for Crossref members, we invite you to apply for the program via this application form.

Scope and goals of the program

Crossref service providers have historically included organisations such as hosting platforms, manuscript submission systems, grant management systems, XML and metadata providers, and other general publishing services organisations that work with Crossref members to create, register, and/or display metadata on their behalf. As we re-launch the program, the initial focus will be purely on service providers that enable content registration for Crossref members. In the future, and based on community feedback, the program may expand to include additional types of service providers.

The primary goal of the program is to enable registration and maintenance of high-quality and rich metadata by Crossref members, contributing to a more complete research nexus. We aim to achieve this through a closer collaboration between Crossref and service providers. Participants of the Service Providers program will make reasonable efforts to accommodate any changes made to the Crossref schema, promote best metadata practices as per Crossref Participation Reports, and share information about the services that they are able to integrate and provide to their clients.

Participants of the Service Providers program will commit to:

Staying up to date with Crossref services and policies, including participation in ongoing meetings and communications.
Providing feedback to Crossref on our services.
Giving Crossref information about their client service offerings and workflows, including metadata delivery options and test accounts.
Promoting metadata best practices as represented in Crossref Participation Reports.
Making reasonable efforts to accommodate changes to the Crossref schema and services.
Ensuring that their clients’ content and landing pages are kept up to date (including ensuring that clients’ DOIs resolve to active landing pages at all times).

Participants of the Service Providers program will benefit from learning about changes and new services ahead of time coupled with regular updates about our services and policies. We will also list all accredited service providers on our website, and all participants will receive a digital Crossref badge to display on their website. We look forward to providing participants with credentials to access our test system for testing integrations, and providing training where necessary.

Service Providers program tiers

Better metadata support helps improve discoverability, transparency, and the integrity of the scholarly record. We developed two Service Providers program tiers in order to signal to the community the richness of metadata and support these organisations offer to Crossref members. At the Basic Tier, participants are able to provide members with the core metadata support, while the Advanced Tier includes additional features that enable richer metadata support for Crossref members – the details are laid out below.

Application and accreditation process

Applications to join the program are being accepted via this form. The application form asks for basic organisational information including your contact details and the services you provide to Crossref members. You will then be asked about your organisation’s technical capabilities and workflows, including your ability to support metadata registration, manage multiple client prefixes, and comply with the display guidelines for Crossref DOIs. The form also includes questions about metadata support, such as whether your platform can facilitate the deposit and update of recommended and optional metadata elements, which schema versions you are able to support, and the provision of alternative metadata delivery options.

We recommend reviewing the questions to ensure that the appropriate technical and operational requirements can be met before beginning the application. If you require clarification on any of these questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Basic Tier requirements and questions

Enable Crossref members to register content and deposit required metadata, as per Crossref’s required, recommended and optional metadata.
Ability to support and display multiple client prefixes.
Ensure continuous resolution of clients’ DOIs following platform migrations.
Provide platform support to members.
Comply with the display guidelines for Crossref DOIs.
Maintain communication channels with Crossref and/or participate in trainings.
Notify Crossref when large-scale metadata updates are planned (i.e. when you are aware of daily updates exceeding 500,000 DOIs updated by a single client (Crossref member)).
Use Crossref members’ credentials to register content on their behalf.
Follow industry best practices for credentials security and account protection.

Advanced Tier requirements and questions

In addition to meeting all the Basic Tier requirements, applicants must confirm whether they:

Provide alternative metadata delivery options.
Support recommended and optional metadata elements.
Support latest schema versions (5.3.1 and above).

Following a review of application forms, we will schedule accreditation calls from August 2026 onward that will involve demonstrations of the required functionality and an assessment of the applicant’s ability to meet the requirements of the program. This process will help determine the appropriate tier.

We ask that participants on the Service Providers program renew their accreditation at the beginning of each calendar year, starting in 2028. This will entail the submission of a re-accreditation form which may contain new requirements such as support for newer schema versions.

We look forward to working more closely with service providers to support richer metadata and seamless infrastructure workflows.

Co-access deprecation is coming: are you ready?

Sara Bowman — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Last September, we announced we’d be deprecating co-access and encouraging its ~100 users to use our multiple resolution service. We announced that no new DOIs will be placed in co-access from 1st of July 2026 and that the ensuing 6 months should be spent cleaning up records already in co-access and moving them over to multiple resolution.

We’re here with a reminder: co-access is being deprecated…and with an update: To help with the transition to multiple resolution, we offer a tool that simplifies the process and documentation about how to set up multiple resolution.

We’re sure you have questions and we have answers:

What will happen if I need to update metadata about an existing book in co-access after 1 July 2026?

Metadata records about books already in co-access can still be updated, until co-access is fully deprecated in January 2027.

What is multiple resolution and why should I use it instead of co-access?

Multiple resolution allows for more than one resolution URL to be registered to a single DOI. A user resolving the DOI is presented with an interim page, allowing them to choose from the various content sources registered with this DOI. Unlike co-access, multiple resolution allows for the creation of a single DOI for each item, regardless of where it might be hosted, which results in more accurate citation counts and usage statistics.

How can I migrate existing content from co-access to multiple resolution?

You and the other entities involved in the co-access relationship need to establish (or, agree on) the DOI of record to be used for that book going forward (i.e., the definitive DOI that should be shared, cited, and used on your landing pages). We propose that the DOI associated with the publisher be used as the definitive DOI for the book and its chapters. All other DOIs should be aliased to that definitive DOI (we also call definitive DOIs primary DOIs in the primary/alias relationship of duplicate DOIs).

Members with co-access DOIs can email a tab-separated list of definitive DOIs and their aliases to us for aliasing to support@crossref.org. From there, members can use our new multiple resolution tool to unlock DOIs for multiple resolution and register secondary URLs for the definitive DOIs in question. Our new tool helps with both. [You will need your Crossref credentials to login to the tool.]

Example tab-separated list of definitive DOIs and aliases

H:email=youremail@address.com;op=force_alias;delim=tab
10.5555/primarybook1 10.9876/alias1book1
10.5555/primarybook1 10.50505/alias2book1
10.5555/primarybook2 10.9876/alias1book2

What will happen if I try to register a duplicate DOI for a book that has been previously registered (i.e., the process that would have previously triggered co-access) after 1 July 2026?

Your deposit will return an error, letting you know co-access has been deprecated. The initial registration of a book will be processed free of errors (thus, the publisher with the rights to publish the book really should be the Crossref member determining and registering the book’s DOI of record). Any registration of a duplicate DOI for that same book will result in a failed submission with an error highlighting the previously registered DOI.

Have more questions that weren’t answered? We’re happy to help. Head over to our community forum to continue the conversation.

Express your interest in joining our Board of Directors

Lucy Ofiesh — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Crossref Nominating Committee is inviting expressions of interest to join the Board of Directors of Crossref for the term starting in January 2027. The committee will gather responses from those interested and create the slate of candidates that our membership will vote on in an election in September.

Expressions of interest will be due Monday, June 22, 2026

This is an exciting time to join the board, as we have a number of active projects underway. Our focus is on how our community and metadata can contribute to ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. We are redesigning our content system to better serve the changing needs of our community. We’re broadening our metadata record to capture richer funding and institutional affiliations. We envision a future where the scholarly record prioritizes relationships between research outputs to build a holistic research nexus. The board helps guide this work.

About our board elections

The board is elected through the “one member, one vote” policy wherein every member organization of Crossref has a single vote to elect representatives to the Crossref board. Board terms are for three years, and this year, there are seven seats open for election.

The board maintains a balance of seats, with eight seats for smaller members and eight seats for larger members (based on total revenue to Crossref). This is an effort to ensure that the scholarly community’s diversity of experiences and perspectives is represented in decisions made at Crossref.

This year, we will elect one large seat (membership tiers $600 and above) and six small member seats (membership tiers $550 and below). You don’t need to specify which seat you are applying for; we will provide that information to the Nominating Committee.

The board election takes place online and will open in September, with results announced at the annual meeting on October 22nd. New members will begin their term in January 2027.

About the Nominating Committee

The Nominating Committee reviews the expressions of interest and selects a slate of candidates for election. This year’s committee includes:

Nick Lindsay*, MIT Press, chair
Oscar Donde*, Pan Africa Science Journal
Shaharima Parvin, East West University
Nicolas Mejia Torres, Universidad de la Sabana
Amanda Ward*, Taylor & Francis

Staff liaison: Lucy Ofiesh, Crossref

(*) indicates Crossref board member

Board roles and responsibilities

Crossref’s services provide a central infrastructure for scholarly communications. Crossref’s board helps shape the future of our services and by extension, impacts the broader scholarly ecosystem. We are looking for board members to contribute their experience and perspective.

The role of the board at Crossref is to provide strategic and financial oversight of the organization, as well as guidance to the Executive Director and the executive team, with the key responsibilities being:

Setting the strategic direction for the organization;
Providing financial oversight; and
Approving new policies and services.

The board is representative of our membership base and guides the staff leadership team on trends affecting scholarly communications.

The work of the board takes place in board meetings and board committees. Board members attend four meetings each year that typically take place in January, March, July, and November. January, March, and November board meetings are held virtually, and all committee meetings take place virtually. The July meeting is in-person and takes place in a variety of international locations; travel support is provided when needed. Each board member sits on at least one Crossref committee. Care is taken to accommodate the wide range of time zones in which our board members live.

While the expressions of interest are specific to an individual, the seat that is elected to the board belongs to the member organization. The primary board member also names an alternate who may attend meetings in the event that the primary board member is unable to. There is no personal financial obligation to sit on the board. The member organization must remain in good standing.

Board members are expected to be comfortable assuming the responsibilities listed above and to prepare and participate in board meeting discussions.

Who can apply to join the board?

Any active member of Crossref can apply to join the board. Crossref membership is open to organizations that produce content, such as academic presses, commercial publishers, standards organizations, and research funders. If you’re considering submitting an expression of interest to serve on our Board of Directors, attend our drop-in session on 17 June at 12:00 UTC.

What does the committee look for?

The committee looks for skills and experience that will complement the rest of the board. Candidates from countries and regions not currently reflected on the board are strongly encouraged to apply. Successful candidates often have some or all of these characteristics:

Demonstrate a commitment to or understanding of our strategic agenda or the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure;
Have expertise that may be underrepresented on the board currently;
Hold decision-making positions in their organizations;
Have experience with governance and/or community involvement;
Represent member organizations that are active in the scholarly communications ecosystem;
Demonstrate metadata best practices as shown in the member’s participation report

The committee aims to build a slate that represents a range of professional backgrounds, global diversity, and organizational sizes and types

What does the application evaluation process look like?

Open call for board interest, May 22nd to June 22nd:

Any active member in good standing can apply for a seat on the board. This includes direct members, sponsored members, and GEM members. Sponsoring organisations, service providers, and Metadata Plus subscribers who are not also members are not eligible to sit on the board.

Application review, June through August:

Applications will be reviewed by our Nominating Committee. We also gather internal information about the member organization, such as metadata habits, history with Crossref, any previous experience in Crossref working groups or community initiatives.

Brief interviews with final candidates, August:

The committee will hold brief virtual interviews with the top candidates before finalising the slate of nominations.

Announcement of the slate and election, September:

The committee will announce the final slate of candidates in September and the online election will begin, culminating at the annual meeting at the end of October.

How to apply

Please click here to submit your expression of interest.

The goal of the expressions of interest is to get to know the candidates. We will not use AI tools to evaluate your application. We ask that if you use AI tools to assist in writing your application that you please disclose how you’ve used them. We want to hear your original ideas, but understand the tools may be used to refine and polish your statement, provide support for translation, proofread for grammar, and improve readability.

Please contact me with any questions at voting@crossref.org

Mission Accessible: building better user interfaces for everyone

Lena Stoll — Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and accessibility has been on our minds lately. We’ve recently completed an internal audit of all our user interfaces, and have added a new accessibility page to our website, where you can find the accessibility documentation that we put together as part of the audit.

Why accessibility matters

Of course we want to keep the barriers to participation in Crossref as low as possible for users with various disabilities. But also, more accessible tools work better for everyone. A person’s access needs can change really quickly: even if you consider yourself to be relatively able-bodied, you are only one minor inconvenience away from at least a temporary disability. All it takes is some dazzling sunlight hitting your eye or your phone screen, or perhaps your dog going after a rabbit in an awkward direction while you are holding the lead (ask me how I know!) - and before you know it, you will be relying on accessibility features to navigate the digital and/or physical world for a while.

An accessible user interface is one that you can navigate and interact with by various methods, including a mouse or touchpad, keyboard, screen reader, voice control, and other assistive technologies. It can be used on various screen sizes and supports zooming in or out without losing any content or functionality. It has sufficient colour contrast, doesn’t flash fast-moving images at you, and has a clear structure that can be understood by both humans and machines.

Where we are today

It is worth mentioning that we didn’t only start thinking about accessibility when we started tackling the full audit of our user interfaces in March 2026. For example, Patrick Vale has previously written in this blog about a browser extension he has created to improve the accessibility of DOI links anywhere on the Internet. And we have known for a long time that there were accessibility gaps in many of our tools, but we didn’t have this centrally documented anywhere.

When we did begin testing all our interfaces for compliance with level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) as part of the audit, we knew that some of what we would find was not going to be pretty. In the 26+ years of working with and for the scholarly community, Crossref has built countless tools and reports to offer to members and users, many of which we still maintain today. These are often decades old and have been built in a way that makes it virtually impossible to make them more accessible without rebuilding them entirely. So we know that we will continue to have accessibility gaps for the foreseeable future, but at least now we have a better idea of the scale of the challenge.

It’s also not all doom and gloom: more recently created user interfaces, such our new Metadata Manager, performed much better in the audit than legacy alternatives such as the web deposit form. We found a similar trend when looking at our report interfaces. To illustrate this, compare what happens when running the axe DevTools extension for Google Chrome on a member’s participation report - this is a user interface that was completely re-implemented in 2025. Doing this brings up 26 issues:

Meanwhile, the browsable title list, which has completed a few more trips around the sun, has 254 issues listed:

Beyond WCAG

If you’ve read this far, I hope you are convinced that accessibility is more than just ticking boxes on a conformance report. But especially for a global community like ours, there are other, less technical barriers to participation that we have to consider. For example, language is a major accessibility factor: much of what we as Crossref staff write and say is in English. When we host community events, we enable captions, and we try to leave space for these captions at the bottom of our slides.

We have also started experimenting with simultaneous interpretation during our online events, such as our recent project showcase event for the 2026 metadata sprint in São Paulo. You can find recordings of this event in Spanish, Portuguese, and English on our YouTube channel to see the promising results of these efforts.

What we are working on next

We are currently addressing the accessibility issues identified in our audit of the Crossmark service. Many Crossref members have implemented the Crossmark button and pop-up on their own platforms and websites, so we thought this was a great place to start the remediation efforts following our audit.

We are also in the process of redesigning our main website, www.crossref.org, following an information architecture review completed in 2025. Making changes to the design and navigation of our website will be the perfect opportunity to make our content not just more discoverable and more understandable, but also more accessible.

Clearly there is even more to be done, so watch this space for more updates on our accessibility roadmap and improvements. And if you have first-hand experience of using Crossref services and interfaces with assistive technologies, or you have other input or feedback you’d like to share, leave a comment below or start a discussion in our community forum.

References

Vale, P. (2025). Enhancing DOI Accessibility for All Users. Crossref. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.64000/pp4rw-mtv44
World Wide Web Consortium (2024). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/
Montilla, L. & Mahomed, R. (2026). Voices from Crossref Metadata Sprint in São Paulo. Crossref. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.64000/a5qzf-k1738
Stoll, L. & Korzec, K. (2025). Request for proposals: Crossref website information architecture review. Crossref. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.64000/058mr-k3s56

From 1990 to today: connecting HFSP's grant history to the research nexus

Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For a funder with over thirty years of funding history, making all of their funding metadata openly available is no small undertaking. In this conversation, I chat with Guntram Bauer, Chief Scientific Officer at the Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP), about how the organisation is working to register decades of grant data with Crossref, the challenges of linking historical awards to published research outputs, and what open, structured funding metadata means for accountability to member countries and the wider scientific community.

RGP: Why did HFSP join Crossref and decide to share its funding metadata openly?

GB: Accountability starts with openness and transparency. If we are not open as a global funding organisation, we can’t convey that message to our constituents, our grantees, and our community. Before we could share our metadata openly through Crossref, we would share our funding activities through annual reports with a simple list of awardees and projects. In the digital era there are new possibilities to do this better and demonstrate to our member countries what we do with the funds. For us, it is a very helpful way to fulfil our obligations and the due diligence that is expected of us.

We started registering decade-old grant metadata, something we had always wanted to do but that before the current waiver would have meant a big financial undertaking.

– Guntram Bauer, Chief Scientific Officer, Human Frontiers Science Program

RGP: How did you find integrating the Grant Linking System (GLS) within your existing workflows?

GB: It was very straightforward. We work with Proposal Central, through Altum, which also acts as our Crossref sponsor, to help HFSP handle grant operations and related metadata, which makes it all very easy. One thing we did think carefully about was what the grant landing page would look like: what information people would see when they clicked on a grant DOI. Before Altum, we couldn’t even add an ORCID to our workflows, let alone a Crossref grant DOI! Having structured metadata to support transparent reporting to our own supporting member countries has been very valuable.

This step was independent from our funding policies. Registering funding metadata and assigning Crossref grant DOIs was paralleled with informative campaigns and direct information to our awardees to inform them about the new way of acknowledging funding.

RGP: Can you tell us about HFSP’s experience registering historical grant data?

GB: When HFSP started working with Crossref to benefit from the Grant Linking System (GLS) and make our funding metadata openly available, we began by registering data about our fellowships. More recently, in the context of the newly introduced waiver for historical grant data, we started registering decade-old grant metadata, something we had always wanted to do but that before the current waiver would have meant a big financial undertaking.

RGP: Why are you so interested in registering historical grants?

GB: HFSP has been registering funding with Crossref for a while, and the recent announcement of the two-year waiver made us decide to make all our historical data available. That’s going back all the way to 1990! We have been doing it little by little. We are keen to introduce as much funding metadata as possible into the system, to improve our transparency, but also to add to the research nexus and be able to link our funding to outputs, even the decades-old ones.

RGP: Are there any challenges specific to registering historical grants?

GB: There are a couple. When registering a historical grant, from 2005 for example, the publications that came out of that funding couldn’t be linked to the Crossref grant DOI since it didn’t exist when it was published, so the connection is missing. This is one of the key added values to the GLS, which in our view is the ability to track the impact of funding. Additionally, grantees who were awarded their funding many years ago and are only now receiving a Crossref grant DOI may not be as primed as current grantees to use that DOI when acknowledging their outputs.

Encouraging recent grantees of their new Crossref grant DOI so they can start acknowledging their outputs is one thing. However, persuading earlier grantees to go back and inform publishers of a new grant DOI involves a lot of actors and many potential points of failure. How can those connections between grant DOIs and related outputs be established, beyond direct communication with grantees?

RGP: That is indeed a challenge that we are well aware of! What excites us going forward is matching those records back to historical outputs with automated strategies. These will increasingly allow us to match, connect, and insert relationships between published outputs and Crossref grant DOIs. This is only possible when both the output and the grant are registered with Crossref and there is enough funding metadata in the output record to make the match. The more metadata available about an award (such as award number and funder name) in the output’s metadata, the more matches we can make, and the more confident the community can be in them.

RGP: Is the GLS changing how you approach reporting or shifting the culture within the organisation?

GB: For us, it’s an evolving situation. There is definitely a demand from our member countries to be more open and transparent, for the accountability reasons we mentioned. As the only truly globally operating funder supporting basic rather than applied research, demonstrating our impact across such a diverse membership is not always straightforward. If anything, the GLS and Crossref grant DOIs can help us in making our reporting evidence-based and follow the impact of the funding.

We are very grateful to Guntram Bauer for his perspectives and insights.

Strengthening community connections in São Paulo

Susan Collins — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Versão em português

As our global community continues to grow, it is important for us to build and maintain our connections within it. In March this year, we had the opportunity to visit São Paulo for a community event at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas. The content of our presentations is available online. Events such as this provide an opportunity for us to update our members on Crossref fundamentals and developments, and help us better tune in to the varied needs of our communities and learn how we can work together more effectively. This was our third visit to Brazil, with previous events held in Campinas and São Paulo in 2016, and Goiânia and Fortaleza in 2018.

Our membership in Latin America has grown steadily in the meantime. We currently work with more than 3,300 members across the region; and the largest number is based in Brazil, with over 1,900 members. The majority of these represent universities, societies, and government organisations, followed by libraries and foundations that also register their works with us. In total, our members in Brazil have contributed over 2 million open metadata records to the Research Nexus.

On March 3, we welcomed 60 attendees, which included members, sponsors, service providers, and researchers. Each of these groups contribute unique perspectives and experiences, and use our services in a variety of ways. We were also joined by four Crossref ambassadors - Pedro López Casique from Mexico, Juan Felipe Vargas, Nicolás Mejía Torres from Colombia, Edilson Damasio from Brazil, as well as colleagues from SciELO Brazil.

Photo: Crossref staff and ambassadors: Leandro Contreras, Pablo López Casique, Nicolás Mejía Torres, Luis Montilla, Susan Collins, Juan Felipe Vargas, Jason Portenoy, and Isaac Farley

We started the day with an emphasis on metadata quality, the role of Crossref DOIs, and content registration best practices. We offered an overview of our helper tools: the updated Metadata Manager for record registration and Participation Reports for reviewing metadata completeness. Pedro, who is also a Publication Support Specialist with Public Knowledge Project (PKP), gave an overview of working with the Open Journals Systems (OJS) platform, which is widely used by our members throughout Brazil.

Photo: PKP’s Pedro López Casique highlighting Brazil as the second highest user of OJS-hosted journals globally.

Later in the day we shifted to more technical topics including metadata retrieval, the use of metadata for discoverability and research integrity, and common metadata errors in the registration process. Roberta Takenaka, systems developer at SciELO, discussed an overview and challenges of the adoption of DOIs in the SciELO network.

This was a tri-lingual event with presentations delivered in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, with live interpretation available for participants and presenters.

Photo: Isaac Farley discussing metadata updates

During the session, we asked attendees to share their feedback on both the value of Crossref to their organisation and the challenges they face when working with us. Participants noted persistence, the commitment to scientific development, metadata standardisation, interoperability, and increasing content visibility as important benefits. The most common challenge reported was language - the majority of our documentation is in English, which makes it difficult for many to fully utilise the available resources. Several mentioned that costs can be a challenge for some organisations, and others noted that more training opportunities, held in Brazilian Portuguese, would be appreciated.

Photo: Participants chatting during the morning coffee break

The question and answer sessions covered a wide range of technical topics, including OJS integrations, interpreting monthly resolution reports, updating metadata in bulk, and implementing Crossmark. During the coffee breaks, discussions continued as participants shared their thoughts, additional questions, and feedback with us.

Following the presentations, we held small group sessions with participants to gather feedback on two ongoing projects. Leandro Contreras, our new UX researcher, met with a group to gather information on how users interact with our website, as part of our website architecture improvement project. Luis Montilla, Technical Community Manager, led a group discussion with editors to learn more about editorial workflows and how they interact with scholarly metadata.

Many of the participants also joined us for our Metadata Sprint, which took place in the days following, exploring the uses of open scholarly metadata in creating new tools and solutions. These events were an opportunity to reconnect with the community, gather feedback to create additional training and support materials, share developments and resources, and strengthen our connections with members and key collaborators. Ana Marlene Freitas de Morais, former vice-president of the Associacao Brasileira de Editores Cientificos do Brasil (ABEC Brasil), our largest Sponsor in Brazil, stressed the importance of face-to-face collaborations, such as this event, for engagement in Brazil. Through our Ambassadors, Sponsors, and other partners, we aim to continue building lasting relationships and supporting our growing community in Brazil.

With special thanks to our hosts at Fundação Getúlio Vargas for the generous use of their venue and support personnel.

Português version

À medida que nossa comunidade global continua a crescer, é importante para nós construir e manter nossos laços dentro dela. Em março deste ano, tivemos a oportunidade de visitar a nossa comunidade em São Paulo num evento na Fundação Getúlio Vargas. O conteúdo das apresentações está disponível online. Eventos como este nos proporcionam uma oportunidade de atualizar nossos membros sobre os fundamentos e desenvolvimentos da Crossref, além de nos ajudar a nos sintonizar melhor com as diversas necessidades de nossas comunidades, e aprender como podemos trabalhar juntos eficazmente. Esta foi a nossa terceira visita ao Brasil, com eventos anteriores realizados em Campinas e São Paulo em 2016, e em Goiânia e Fortaleza em 2018.

Nosso conjunto de membros na América Latina tem crescido de forma constante ao longo do tempo. Atualmente, trabalhamos com mais de 3.300 membros em toda a região; e o maior número está concentrado no Brasil, com mais de 1.900 membros. A maioria deles representa universidades, sociedades e organizações governamentais, seguidas por bibliotecas e fundações que também registram seus trabalhos conosco. No total, nossos membros no Brasil já contribuíram com mais de 2 milhões de registros de metadados abertos para o Research Nexus.

No dia 3 de março, recebemos 60 participantes, entre os quais membros, patrocinadores, prestadores de serviços e pesquisadores. Cada um desses grupos traz perspectivas e experiências únicas, e utilizam nossos serviços de diversas maneiras. Também contamos com a presença de quatro embaixadores da Crossref: Pedro López Casique, do México; Juan Felipe Vargas e Nicolás Mejía Torres, da Colômbia; e Edilson Damasio, do Brasil, e também colegas da SciELO Brasil.

Foto: Equipe e embaixadores da Crossref: Leandro Contreras, Pablo López Casique, Nicolás Mejía Torres, Luis Montilla, Susan Collins, Juan Felipe Vargas, Jason Portenoy e Isaac Farley

Começamos o dia com ênfase na qualidade dos metadados, no papel dos DOIs da Crossref e nas boas práticas de registro de conteúdo. Apresentamos uma visão geral das nossas ferramentas: Metadata Manager, atualizado para registro de registros e os Participation Reports para verificar a integridade dos metadados. Pedro, que também é especialista em suporte a publicações no Public Knowledge Project (PKP), apresentou uma visão geral do trabalho com a plataforma Open Journals Systems (OJS), amplamente utilizada por nossos membros em todo o Brasil.

Foto: Pedro López Casique, da PKP, destacando o Brasil como o segundo maior usuário de revistas hospedadas no OJS em todo o mundo.

No decorrer do dia, passamos a abordar temas mais técnicos, incluindo a recuperação de metadados, o uso de metadados para a visibilidade e a integridade da pesquisa, e erros comuns de metadados no processo de registro. Roberta Takenaka, desenvolvedora de sistemas da SciELO, apresentou uma visão geral e discutiu os desafios da adoção de DOIs na rede SciELO.

Este foi um evento trilíngue, com apresentações em inglês, português e espanhol, com interpretação simultânea disponível para participantes e palestrantes.

Photo: Isaac Farley discussing metadata updates.

Durante a sessão, pedimos aos participantes que compartilhassem comentários sobre o valor da Crossref para suas organizações, e sobre os desafios que enfrentam ao trabalhar conosco. Os participantes destacaram a persistência, o compromisso com o desenvolvimento científico, a padronização de metadados, a interoperabilidade e o aumento da visibilidade do conteúdo como benefícios importantes. O desafio mais comum relatado foi o idioma - a maior parte da nossa documentação está em inglês, o que dificulta para muitos a utilização plena dos recursos disponíveis. Vários mencionaram que os custos podem ser um desafio para algumas organizações, e outros observaram que mais oportunidades de treino, ministradas em português do Brasil, seriam bem-vindas.

Foto: Participantes conversando durante o intervalo da manhã.

As sessões de perguntas e respostas abordaram uma ampla variedade de tópicos técnicos, incluindo integrações com o OJS, interpretação de relatórios mensais de resolução, atualização em massa de metadados e implementação do Crossmark. Durante os intervalos para o café, as discussões continuaram enquanto os participantes compartilhavam suas ideias, perguntas adicionais e comentários conosco.

Após as apresentações, realizamos sessões em pequenos grupos com os participantes para coletar feedback sobre dois projetos em andamento. Leandro Contreras, nosso novo pesquisador de experiência do usuário (UX), reuniu-se com um grupo para coletar informações sobre como os usuários interagem com nosso site, como parte do nosso projeto de melhoria da arquitetura do site. Luis Montilla, gerente da comunidade técnica, conduziu uma discussão em grupo com editores para aprender mais sobre os fluxos de trabalho editoriais e como eles interagem com metadados acadêmicos.

Muitos dos participantes também se juntaram a nós no nosso Metadata Sprint, realizado nos dias seguintes, para explorar os usos de metadados acadêmicos abertos na criação de novas ferramentas e soluções.

Esses eventos foram uma oportunidade para nos reconectarmos com a comunidade, coletar feedback para criar materiais adicionais de treinamento e apoio, compartilhar desenvolvimentos e recursos, e fortalecer nossos laços com os membros e principais colaboradores. Ana Marlene Freitas de Morais, ex-vice-presidente da Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos (ABEC Brasil), nosso maior patrocinador no Brasil, destacou a importância das colaborações presenciais, como este evento, para o engajamento no Brasil. Por meio de nossos Embaixadores, Patrocinadores e outros parceiros, nosso objetivo é continuar construindo relacionamentos duradouros e apoiando nossa crescente comunidade no Brasil.

Agradecemos especialmente aos nossos anfitriões da Fundação Getúlio Vargas pelo generoso uso de suas instalações e pela equipe de apoio.

Reflections from Bangkok

Amanda Bartell — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Each organization in the global community of Crossref members (that’s currently over 25k organizations in 166 different countries) plays a key role in building the Research Nexus. Any opportunity we have to meet with our members in person is a highlight and a way for us to learn more from each other. The month of January saw three of us travel to Bangkok to attend the first-ever Charleston Conference organised in Asia and to meet with our growing community in Thailand.

The Charleston Conference is a meeting for librarians and publishers that is held annually in the USA. This year, the conference was held for the first time in Asia, and attending the event allowed us to connect with the library publishing community from the region and others, who had travelled from around the world to meet in picturesque Bangkok. Half of Crossref members are now based in Asia, so visiting Thailand gave us a great opportunity to meet members and colleagues from the continent in person.

At the conference, Robbykha moderated a panel discussion on “the importance of metadata for Asian scholarship”, capturing voices from across Asia on how open metadata is being used for discoverability, integrity, and assessment by different scholarly communities in the region.

Our visit to Bangkok culminated with a one-day Crossref Bangkok event that we had organised to meet with Crossref members in Thailand. We were also able to visit The Thailand National Library, who are the Thai ISSN Centre and stewards of so much of Thailand’s cultural heritage.

We were very grateful to our colleagues in Thailand for their warm welcome, particularly during the official mourning period for Her Majesty Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother.

Left hand photo: Madhura Amdekar (Crossref), Guo Xiaofeng (Crossref Ambassador and Crossref sponsors Sin-Chn Scientific Press Pte. Ltd (Singapore)), Robbykha Rosalien (Crossref), Mochammad Tanzil Multazam (Crossref sponsors Relawan Jurnal Indonesia), Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin (Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University and Crossref sponsors National Research Council of Thailand), Amanda Bartell (Crossref). Right hand photo: Members discussing challenges and opportunities for Thai scholarship.

Charleston Asia conference - a reminder of the importance of infrastructure

The three-day Charleston Asia conference gave us a great opportunity to meet with members and colleagues based in Asia, and hear about areas of focus and concern. It was refreshing to hear about the global challenges of access to knowledge, AI, and preserving research integrity, within the context of Asia’s institutional, linguistic, and economic environment. And it was wonderful to hear about so many projects (many at national level) integrating Crossref data to lead their strategies and even shape policy decisions.

Three inspiring keynotes covered many of the challenges of scholarship in Asia, covering local, national, and regional approaches.

Distinguished Professor Joyashree Roy (Asian Institute of Technology) presented her work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the United Nations. She highlighted how those in Asia are the most likely to be impacted by climate change, but underrepresented in the research due to structural, linguistic, and financial barriers. She explained how publishers and librarians can remove some of these barriers.

Professor Devika Madalli (Director of INFLIBNET Centre) talked about the various services that her team has created at a national level in India to reduce country and institution-wide inequalities. INFLIBNET subscribes to Crossref’s Metadata Plus service, and it’s great to see our community’s metadata being part of such useful services.

Professor Bin Zhang (Library Director, Renmin University of China) talked about the challenges of access to scholarship across different regions in China, and how investment in infrastructure is making a difference here.

There were many other fascinating sessions during the three days, including our panel discussion, moderated by Robbykha Rosalien.

The importance of metadata for Asian scholarship - our panel at Charleston Asia

Metadata isn’t just a technical detail—it’s the backbone of discoverability, credibility, trust, and impact in scholarly communication. In our panel session, we explored metadata trends across Asia and discussed how open metadata is shaping research visibility, integrity, and assessment in the region. Our panel brought together diverse voices: Mochammad Tanzil Multazam from Relawan Jurnal Indonesia, Ms. Guo Xiaofeng, Crossref Ambassador in Asia and Director at Sin-Chn Scientific Press (Singapore), and Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin from the Department of Information Science, School of Liberal Arts, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University in Thailand. Each shared experiences of challenges and solutions in adopting open metadata practices and leveraging metadata effectively.

Photo: panel session - Ms. Guo Xiaofeng, Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin, Mochammad Tanzil Multazam

The session opened with Robbykha presenting a striking graph: Crossref now has more than 14,000 members from Asia, representing over half of its global membership. As of January 19th, 2026, there are 13.8 million registered DOI records from Asia. Indonesia leads with 3.02 million registered DOIs, followed by Japan with 2.73 million, India with 2.52 million, South Korea with 1.28 million, and Türkiye rounding out the top five with 793,198. These numbers highlight Asia’s growing role in global scholarly communication.

Photo: Robbykha presenting the Asian metadata coverage from Crossref data

Mochammad Tanzil Multazam shared how government support for persistent identifiers and metadata in Indonesia has fueled one of the largest and fastest‑growing open‑access journal ecosystems worldwide. Of 27,807 national journals, nearly half already register DOIs and metadata records (SINTA, 13 January 2026). Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin provided an overview of the metadata landscape in Thai academia, highlighting both progress and ongoing challenges. Meanwhile, Ms. Guo Xiaofeng presented a case study on open metadata utilization across Asia, showing practical examples of how metadata strengthens discoverability and trust.

Participants emphasized the importance of metadata for Asian scholarship: enhancing discoverability, accessibility, and providing rich, accurate data. Yet challenges remain. One of the most pressing issues is multilingual content, and the best way to reflect this in the metadata. For our current advice on multilingual metadata, take a look at our documentation and this interesting discussion on our forum. Our Metadata Advisory Group currently has a working group of members and metadata users discussing this further, to help ensure our future schema updates help to accurately reflect multilingual metadata.

Poll results from the panel audience on key challenges to the adoption of rich metadata

Crossref Bangkok - a reminder of the importance of visibility

The day after the Charleston Asia conference, around 75 attendees joined us for our Crossref Bangkok event. The event reinforced how valuable opportunities to interact directly with our members are for learning about the challenges that they face in scholarly publishing and to explore together how those can be overcome. We were supported during the event by our ambassadors Guo Xiaofeng, Amber Osman and Prof. MI Subhani, and by Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin and her team, who lead the sponsor organization from National Research Council of Thailand. We were also grateful to Mark Husskison from PKP for attending and helping attendees with some of their knottier OJS questions.

Most of the event attendees were from universities, which are our existing members in Thailand, and we were also joined by a team from the National Library of Thailand.

Photo: Participants from across Thailand’s research and publishing landscape

We started the day by hearing more about who was in attendance, where they had travelled from, and what they hoped to get out of the day. We moved on to an introduction to Crossref and DOI metadata records, which provided a refresher on the benefits and obligations of Crossref membership and highlighted the importance of rich metadata for discoverability and research integrity. Next up, we split up into small groups to discuss and share the challenges and opportunities in scholarly publishing in Thailand. From across the discussion groups, there was one word that kept coming up again and again: visibility. Attendees shared how visibility is both a challenge and an opportunity. They appreciate that registering rich metadata records with Crossref - which are then shared with the global scholarly ecosystem - provides them with a way to make their content more visible, but agreed that this isn’t without challenges. Attendees welcomed the in-person meeting, and asked for more training and support from Crossref, particularly in registering content. (We shared details of our regular “Getting Started at Crossref” webinars for new members, and our regular “Metadata Health Checks” for longer term members, and we’ll be thinking about how to support members in Asia with more training).

During the afternoon, we heard more from Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin on the importance of metadata for raising the visibility of Thai research. We then ran a practical session, explaining how to add (and update) metadata records for those using our new Metadata Manager, and those using the OJS platform. These were followed by a practical session, with participants exploring their own Participation Reports, and discussing how to fill in any gaps in their metadata. The new CSV download for metadata gaps was particularly useful. It was great to support members in adding in their missing references through the OJS platform live, by properly activating the OJS references plugin.

Attending the Crossref Bangkok Workshop made it clear that being a part of Crossref goes far beyond simply assigning DOIs, it is about contributing to a global research community. The sessions highlighted how rich metadata, such as references, abstracts, ORCID iDs, and funding information, play a vital role in making Thai research more visible and accessible worldwide. There was also a strong emphasis on the importance of English metadata and standard identifiers in overcoming language and name-related challenges. Overall, the workshop showed how high-quality metadata can help bring Thai research onto the global stage and strengthen its international recognition.

– Prof. Dr. Namtip Wipawin on behalf of the National Research Council of Thailand.

Visiting the National Library of Thailand - a reminder of the importance of stewardship

The warm welcome from National Library of Thailand team: Ms. Thanachcha Suwannavach (Librarian, Practitioner Level), Ms. Thitima Kumkhun (Librarian, Professional Level), Ms. Linda Puechsee (Librarian, Professional Level), Madhura Amdekar (Crossref), Robbykha Rosalien (Crossref), Amanda Bartell (Crossref), Ms. Bubphar Chuchat (Director of the National Library of Thailand), Dr. Prasittichai Lertratanakehakarn (Director of Information Resources Service Group), Ms. Rawiwan Putsorn (Director of Library Research and Development Group), Mrs. Atchara Jaruwan (Director of Information Resources Development Group), Mr. Jung Dippracone (Director of Manuscripts and Inscriptions Group), and Ms. Samachaya Dadrung (Librarian, Professional Level)

On our final day in Bangkok, we were lucky enough to visit with the team at the National Library of Thailand. They have a key role to play in scholarly publishing in Thailand as they run the National ISSN Centre. They are also stewards of much of Thailand’s cultural heritage, and we were honoured to view some of the artifacts that they look after.

Staff showcasing the digitization efforts at the National Library of Thailand — preserving knowledge and making it accessible for the future.

The role of DOI metadata in enhancing the visibility and accessibility of digital resources is vital. This experience has provided the National Library with a clearer strategic roadmap for establishing a DOI Center dedicated to rare materials and digital ancient manuscripts. This initiative aims to broaden the reach of these invaluable heritage resources, ensuring they are easily discoverable and accessible to a global audience.

– Ms. Bubphar Chuchat, Director of the National Library of Thailand

Wrapping up our visit, we left the National Library of Thailand feeling inspired. The team’s passion for preserving rare manuscripts while embracing digital tools shows how heritage and innovation can go hand in hand. It was a reminder that stewardship isn’t only about looking after the past; it’s about making sure knowledge and culture continue to thrive for the future.

Voices from Crossref Metadata Sprint in São Paulo

Luis Montilla — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This year, we placed a spotlight on the Latin American community, hosting the second Crossref Metadata Sprint in São Paulo, Brazil from 4 - 6 March 2026. In our first tri-lingual event, we brought together 31 participants from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. Our goal was to foster community co-creation using the open scholarly metadata. The Sprint was an opportunity to pose questions, share ideas, collaborate on research, and propose innovative solutions that enhance the use of metadata in scholarly communication and beyond.

Read on for more details about the content of the Sprint, and the resulting projects. You can also register to join our Sprint Showcase call on 22nd April to hear directly from the team about their creations.

We were excited to receive more than 100 expressions of interest for this sprint. We’re excited to see the growing enthusiasm in this space and will find new ways to channel it (watch the space!). We sought to balance that interest with ensuring a productive size of the group for the sprint. Our participants included librarians, researchers, grad students, developers, journal editors, and scholarly communications professionals. They engaged in rich, multilingual conversations about the different editorial practices across the region - dynamically jumping between Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

We coordinated our activities and ideas with the SciELO Brazil team, who also participated in the Sprint. SciELO is one of the most recognized scholarly organizations in the region and an important source of open scholarly content and metadata; articles, books, preprints, and datasets published in different languages.

Some of the participants of the 2nd Crossref Metadata Sprint, and Crossref Staff

Susan Collins, Luis Montilla, Isaac Farley, Jason Portenoy, and Leandro Contreras from Crossref acted as facilitators, providing general support, answering questions, and clarifying the ins and outs of Crossref tools and interfaces.

Using the key learning from our first Metadata Sprint, we created opportunities for the group to interact and get acquainted remotely, before the event, to help them hit the ground running and maximise the value of the time we spent together. It really paid off in terms of quality and progress of the sprint projects.

Projects summary

The projects developed also have their own mini stories. When we opened the call for expressions of interest, we invited individual pitches for projects that make creative use of Crossref metadata to answer questions and support solutions to problems faced by our communities locally. During the preparations to the event, participants refined their proposals and coalesced into project teams. This is the list of the projects they progressed during our Sprint:

Crossref Metadata Refiner: A tool that queries the Crossref API for any publisher prefix or ISSN and computes a Crossref Health Score for each DOI, crossing citation count with metadata completeness. The result is a prioritized action list for the member: fix the most-cited papers with the worst metadata first.
Improving Error Messages in Crossref Submission Details: A proposal for the redesign of the presentation of error messages in the Crossref Submission Details interface. Instead of showing only raw XML diagnostics, display structured and human-readable messages.
Scholarly Retractions and Corrections Tool: The development of a user-friendly form for Crossref members to fill in correction and retraction metadata.
Best practices for metadata journals in OJS, according Crossref schema: A guide that shows the correct completion of metadata fields in order to avoid errors already seen in everyday work, and facilitate the correct registration of metadata with the necessary quality to avoid errors in XML export.
Metrics for publishers using the Crossref API: A Power BI dashboard that summarises members’ metrics and indicators based on metadata retrieved from the REST API.
Metadata Integrity Check: A proposal for the implementation of a second stage of XML integrity verification after using the XML parser. This additional step would allow preliminary verification of the presence of mandatory metadata elements and encourage the inclusion of recommended metadata, such as institutional affiliations and references.
Integration OJS / OPS - Crossmark: This project advanced the development of a plugin for the current versions of OJS (3.4 and 3.5), so that when an article receives a correction, update, or new version after publication, each published version of the same work receives its own DOI, while maintaining structured relationships between these versions.
Automated Detection of Reference Rot in Scholarly Web Citations: An automated evaluation pipeline to retrieve citations containing URLs, then traces redirect behavior, and records HTTP status codes and final page locations. It also extracts evidence from both the citation data and the webpage itself, including titles, creators, identifiers, and other metadata.

We will hold a community call where the teams will showcase their projects. If anything here caught your eye and you would like to learn more – join us on 22nd of April (or register to receive the recording). In the spirit of the São Paulo Sprint, we will hold the call in three languages again! Register now to join our Sprint Showcase call.

I am still in awe at what our community achieved in such a short time in the Sprint: dashboards, clever API integrations, best practices manuals… all of these projects are sure to make a mark. The Metadata Sprint in São Paulo is a testament to my belief that great ideas are everywhere, and I’m happy to have taken part in amplifying them!

Said Leandro Contreras, User Experience Researcher

Like many in attendance, this was my first Crossref Metadata Sprint. I went into the event hoping to make connections, help where I could, and learn from those in attendance. Thanks to Susan and Luis for all their planning and thoughtful leadership and the collaborative spirit of everyone participating in São Paulo, the sprint was three days full of rich co-creating, thoughtful shared problem solving, and lots of fun. It exceeded my expectations! I learned a lot and am eager for the next steps with the projects completed there. I hope to be able to participate in another Crossref sprint again very soon (and, encourage everyone reading to get to one in the future)!

Said Isaac Farley, Head of Support

Voices from the Sprint

During and after the Sprint, participants were actively sharing their experiences online. Here are a few highlights from across the community:

Being in this collaborative space allows us to deepen knowledge, exchange experiences with professionals from different countries and, above all, improve the quality of the metadata of our articles. This technical work, often invisible to the reader, is essential to ensure greater visibility, traceability and scientific impact to RBC’s publications.

Carina Munhoz de Lima - Librarian at Revista Brasileira de Cancerologia, on Linkedin, 5 March 2026.

The session was a valuable opportunity to exchange knowledge, strengthen professional ties and reflect on the current challenges around metadata management and scholarly communication.

Sandra Gisela Martín - Library System Director at the Catholic University of Córdoba, on Linkedin, 10 March 2026.

The best experience of the Sprint was recognizing the potential of combining open infrastructure, reusable data and collaboration, with the accompaniment of Crossref experts.

Sofia E. Calle Pesántez - Research Impact and Scholarly Publishing Consultant, On Linkedin, 10 March 2026.

I am grateful to see Crossref’s concern in personally listening to the demands of the Latin American scientific community!

Alex Mendonça - Client Solutions Manager at ScholarOne, on Linkedin, 5 March 2026.

Its been an absolute privilege representing Galoá at the Crossref metadata Sprint in Brazil… our specific focus during this Sprint has been clear: rolling up our sleeves to elevate the quality of metadata for Brazilian and Latin American scientific publications.

Fabiano Sant’Ana - Founder at Galoá, on Linkedin, 6 March 2026

It was wonderful to connect with so many people working to strengthen scholarly communication in the region, and to meet the Crossref staff who organised such a thoughtful and engaging program.

Zach Coble - Graduate Research Assistant, University of Missouri-Columbia, on Linkedin, 7 March 2026

We developed a free tool for registering retractions in the Crossref metadata Sprint… the motivation for the project was to develop a solution that would make the Crossmark registration process easier and more user-friendly.

Eugênio Telles, Genius Design blog, also on Crossref’s community forum. Browse Eugênio’s gallery of photos on Instagram, 8 March 2026

Participants

None of this would’ve been possible without our enthusiastic participants. Huge thanks to everyone! Here is the full list of those who attended our second Metadata Sprint:

Name	Affiliation
Julia Bottesini	Data-PASS Journal Editors Discussion Interface
Pedro Cacique	Public Knowledge Project
Sofia Calle	Red Iberoamericana de estudios científicos de la edición, evaluación y circulación del libro
Zach Coble	University of Missouri
Edilson Damasio	Universidade Estadual de Maringá
Ana Claudia Ribeiro	Editora E-papers
Eugênio Fernandes Telles	GeniusDesign
Jhonathan de Seixas Miranda	Lepidus Tecnologia
Juan Felipe Vargas Martinez	Journals & Authors
Mariana Garroux Montezuma	Sabesp
Nicolas Mejia Torres	Universidad de La Sabana
Juliana Aaparecida Bolzan	Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Deise Katiuscia Xavier Kaisa Oliveira	Centro Universitário de Mineiros
Glicélia Pereira Silva	Centro Universitário de Mineiros
Carolina Tanigushi	SciELO
Amanda de Souza Ramalho	SciELO
Karolayne Costa Rodrigues de Lima	Universidade Federal do Paraná
Sara Jaqueline Santos da Silva	Universidade Federal de Uberlândia
Diego Abadan M. Melgarejo	Lepidus Tecnologia
Natalino Perovano Filho	Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia
Sandra Gisela Martin	Universidad Católica de Córdoba
Roberta Takenaka	SciELO
Amélia Galdino Monteiro Amâncio	Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin
Quele Pinheiro Valença	Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz
Rafael Dias Da Silva Campos	Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro
Igor Moura Danieleviz e Silva	Lepidus Tecnologia
Heytor Diniz Teixeira	Universidade de São Paulo
María Eduarda Dos Santos Puga	Universidade Federal de São Paulo
Fabiano Sant’Ana	Galoá Science
Flaviane Cristina Rocha Cesar	Centro Universitário de Mineiros
David Antonio Da Costa	Universidade Federal de São Paulo

The second Crossref Metadata Sprint in a nutshell

Reflections from the Crossref Ambassador Community

Johanssen Obanda — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref Ambassadors act as local points of contact, meeting editors, librarians, researchers, and institutions to help them navigate Crossref services and understand how strong metadata supports visibility, integrity, and trust in research. They explain how to participate in our rich network of connections between works, people, and institutions, in ways that make sense in their own contexts. And last year, being our 25th anniversary, Ambassadors also massively contributed to our celebrations!

In 2025, the Crossref Ambassador Programme continued to grow globally with 51 volunteers from 41 countries. We were delighted to welcome five new Ambassadors: Ahmet Anıl Müngen (Turkey), Mokheseng Richard Buti (South Africa), Richard Risasi (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Pedro López Casique (Mexico), and Nadia Boutaleb (Morocco).

During the year, Ambassadors promoted the value of robust metadata through webinars, including Metadata Health Check sessions in Arabic, Bahasa, French and Turkish, alongside conference participation and institutional visits across their regions. While others were more active in the Crossref Community Forum, bringing questions from their communities and contributing to discussions that helped others learn and problem-solve together.

ABEC Conference 2025 in Brazil and the 5th Latin American Scientific Journal Editors and Researchers Congress in Colombia, with Crossref Ambassadors engaging editors and researchers.

Highlights

We endeavour to stay in touch with our communities locally, and Ambassadors play a critical role in these efforts. Ambassadors joined the first Metadata Sprint in Spain, supported engagement at the Beijing International Book Fair, and co-organised local Crossref events, such as Crossref Quito and Crossref Accra. Others played active roles in the Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program, engaging communities in Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Ghana, and Senegal.

Ambassadors connecting with the scholarly community at the Beijing International Book Fair (China)(upper left), Crossref Quito (Ecuador)(upper right), and Crossref Accra (Ghana).

Dr. Lasith Gunawardena leading a GEM programme workshop at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Some Ambassadors delivered metadata health check sessions in French, Turkish, Bahasa, and Spanish. Several institutions supported by Ambassadors went on to become new Crossref members, while others began conversations about improving their metadata completeness.

Crossref Ambassador Ahmet Anıl Müngen hosting a Metadata Health Check webinar in Turkish.

Ambassadors contribute their understanding of the industry and local contexts, and their communities’ feedback into Crossref, too. Nicolás Mejía Torres, Juan Felipe Vargas, Ahmed Moustafa, Sandra Gisela Martín and Guo Xiaofeng have recently joined our new Metadata Advisory Group, where they support us to craft our metadata for the future in tune with the community’s needs, and in particular, helping us shape how we reflect global scholarship through multilingual metadata.

To mark Crossref’s 25th anniversary, a celebratory series of Ambassador-led satellite events was hosted to coincide with the Annual Meeting. These events, held in Nairobi (Kenya), Bogotá (Colombia), and Medan (Indonesia), featured workshops, presentations, and a watch party, allowing attendees to synchronously join the main live annual meeting program.

Crossref satellite events bringing local communities together in Bogotá (top), Medan (center), and Nairobi (bottom).

Many of our Ambassadors routinely organise virtual meetings and webinars. Recognising the growing need for effective online engagement, we partnered with the Centre for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement (CSCCE) to deliver a targeted training program focused on the advanced skills of convening and facilitating highly engaging and interactive online events. This intensive training was designed to provide our Ambassadors with practical techniques and resources for maximising participant involvement, fostering dynamic discussions, and ensuring that their online gatherings are both productive and stimulating. Equipping Ambassadors in this way ultimately strengthens the overall effectiveness of their outreach and community-building efforts.

Challenges & lessons learned

Alongside successes in their roles as Crossref Ambassadors, many balanced the role alongside demanding professional responsibilities, while others encountered language gaps or uneven awareness of Crossref across their regions. In some contexts, limited institutional readiness or infrastructure meant that engagement required more foundational work and patience.

These experiences offered valuable lessons, including the importance of demonstrations, translated reference and training materials, and more regionally tailored support.

The impact of the programme was also reflected through Ambassador feedback. In the annual survey, most reported feeling that their work had significantly increased their community’s capacity to understand and use Crossref services. Similarly, Ambassadors reported that their role helped Crossref reach new people and institutions that were previously unaware of Crossref.

Survey results showing how Ambassadors increased community capacity around Crossref services and helped reach new institutions (40 of 51 responses).

In 2025, Ambassadors delivered 43 activities, including training sessions, webinars, events, translations, and feedback on tools and services both individually and collaboratively, reaching more than 1,200 people worldwide.

In 2026, the priority for the program includes strengthening regional and multilingual outreach, increasing visibility of the Ambassador role, expanding access to up-to-date resources and tools, and creating more opportunities to connect with Crossref staff.

Renewed partnership: DOAJ and Crossref focus on equitable scholarly metadata and global support

Reyhana Mahomed — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We have renewed our partnership with DOAJ to focus on a new set of objectives that reflect both organisations’ commitment to improving sustainable and equitable services and infrastructure. This renewed collaboration focuses on improving the quality of scholarly metadata while expanding support for journals in low- and middle income- countries.

We have worked together since 2021, primarily to encourage the dissemination and use of scholarly research using online technologies, and regional and international networks, partners and communities. This partnership has helped to build local institutional capacity and sustainability within the global scholarly communication ecosystem. A continued partnership also reflects that we have a shared community; currently almost 90% of DOAJ journals are represented in Crossref.

Our renewed collaboration will support:

Article Metadata Enhancements: DOAJ will improve the ingestion, processing, storage, and display of article-level metadata. Improvements include:

Author affiliations and persistent identifiers
Open references
Expanded metadata harvesting

These enhancements are expected to benefit both direct users of DOAJ and downstream discovery, aggregation, and research analytics services that rely on DOAJ metadata.

Ambassador Programme: Our collaboration with DOAJ will support the continued development of DOAJ’s Ambassador programme. This global network of ambassadors primarily based in low- and middle-income countries:

Support journal editors in understanding and applying good practices in open access publishing
Organise and deliver workshops, webinars, and local events
Collaborate with regional partners and policymakers
Raise awareness of DOAJ and publishing standards within local scholarly communities

Crossref’s contribution will support ambassador travel and the organisation of workshops and events.

We value our longstanding collaboration with Crossref. As fellow open scholarly infrastructures, we share a commitment to strengthening the systems that support trusted, global research discovery. This new partnership enables DOAJ to move forward with important work around interoperability. Improving how infrastructures connect and exchange information is a priority for us, and this support helps ensure we can continue to serve the community in line with the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure—with openness, collaboration, and long-term sustainability at the centre.

– Joanna Ball, Managing Director of DOAJ

The collaborations with DOAJ so far only reaffirmed our shared goal to help make the global scholarly communications system more equitable wherever we can. Our joint projects aim to seek out and devise support for resource-constrained journals in multiple ways. DOAJ’s work is essential in helping journals to adopt good practice, while Crossref offers an open infrastructure to ensure all journals can be included and discoverable in the global scholarly record.

– Ginny Hendricks, Chief Program Officer at Crossref

About DOAJ

DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer reviewed journals. DOAJ deploys around one hundred carefully selected volunteers from the community of library and other academic disciplines to assist in curating open access journals. This independent database contains over 20,400 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities. DOAJ is financially supported worldwide by libraries, publishers and other like-minded organizations. DOAJ services (including the evaluation of journals) are free for all, and all data provided by DOAJ are harvestable via OAI/PMH and the API. See https://doaj.org/ for more information.

Contact: DOAJ - Joanna Ball, Managing Director - joanna@doaj.org.

About Crossref

Crossref is a non-profit organisation that runs an open infrastructure to link research objects, entities, and actions, creating a lasting and reusable scholarly record that underpins open science. Together with their 24,000 members in 166 countries, Crossref drives metadata exchange and supports nearly 2 billion monthly API queries, facilitating global research communication, for the benefit of society.

Contact: Crossref - Kora Korzec, Director of Community – kkorzec@crossref.org.

A spotlight on our community in Indonesia

Susan Collins — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Click here for the translation in Bahasa Indonesia

As Crossref celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, we are highlighting some of the most active and engaged regions in our global community.

Over the past 25 years, the makeup of Crossref membership has evolved significantly; founded by a handful of large publishers, we now have more than 24,000 members representing 165 countries. Nearly two-thirds of them self-identify as universities, libraries, government agencies, foundations, scholar publishers, and research institutions.

The Crossref community in Indonesia is by far the most dynamically growing region. Each year since 2017, we’ve seen the highest number of new members joining from the country. There are now over 4,400 members based in Indonesia who have registered the metadata for more than 2.6 million works, connecting their research to the global community.

Indonesia also happens to be the largest user of OJS globally, with close to 20,000 journals publishing on the platform. Most journals are published by universities, research institutions, and government agencies.

There is a strong emphasis on publishing as part of completing a university degree. The Ministry of National Education policy requires all students to publish their research before graduation. To provide opportunities and accessible platforms for publication, Indonesian universities and faculties have established journals to help their students meet these requirements for graduation.

Most journals in Indonesia are indexed in SINTA (Science and Technology Index), which is managed by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (MoHEST). The aim of SINTA is to improve journal quality, facilitate assessment, and increase the competitiveness of Indonesian journals. The use of DOIs is a requirement for indexing on the platform.

Members know the value of persistent identifiers for their content, but many also realise the value of Crossref’s commitment to open metadata and the open scholarly record. Being a member of Crossref means being part of a larger community. While DOIs may be required for national indexing, organisations have various reasons for becoming Crossref members. One of the most important factors is to increase the global visibility of their content and, therefore, increase the impact of their publications.

“We feel like we’re part of the Crossref community because we don’t just use your service; we contribute to it. By providing DOIs and metadata, we’re helping to build the open scholarly record that benefits everyone. Being a part of the Crossref network is more than just being a member—it’s about a shared vision. We see ourselves as active contributors. Every time we register a DOI and provide metadata, we add a new link to the global chain of knowledge. This helps ensure our research can be easily found, cited, and connected to other works, which benefits everyone.” — Nita Nurdiana, Universitas PGRI Palembang

We have very dedicated ambassadors based in Indonesia who advocate for Crossref’s mission, Fauji Nurdin ST. Mudo and Zulidyana Rusnalasari. Each has been instrumental in organising in-person events and webinars for members, as well as in representing Crossref at events throughout the region.

In October, as part of our 25th Anniversary celebration, the ambassadors, with the support of our Sponsor Relawan Jurnal Indonesia (RJI), held a satellite event in Medan, which brought together participants from universities, publishers, government agencies, research institutes, non-governmental organisations, libraries, and museums. It provided a forum for dialogue around key topics in scholarly publishing.

Crossref 25th Anniversary Satellite Event, Medan, October 2025

The majority of members in Indonesia work through one of our regional sponsors. Sponsors provide support to smaller organisations that often face financial, technical, and language barriers, making membership challenging. Their knowledge of the unique needs of their local publishing community and extensive networks help organisations learn more about Crossref in a more accessible way.

Our first sponsor in Indonesia, Relawan Jurnal Indonesia (RJI), joined in 2017; we now have eight sponsors that together support over 3,900 members in Indonesia.

Our sponsors are also key partners in helping us engage with the community, facilitating webinars and supporting our in-person meetings. In August 2024, in collaboration with RJI, we held a two-day in-person event in Jakarta, attended by over 100 members, and joined by our sponsors and ambassadors. Along with discussions on the fundamentals of Crossref and the role of quality metadata, we’ve heard from Ahmad Saefudin Surapermana, a sub-coordinator from ISSN Indonesia. Because so many members in Indonesia use the OJS publishing platform, colleagues from the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) joined us for a session on OJS plugins and an upgrade workshop for OJS system administrators. We continue to receive feedback from members that more regular in-person and online events should be held to facilitate connections and share developments.

Crossref Jakarta, August 2024

While interest in Crossref among this community is ever-growing, there are still painpoints for Indonesian members. Though many join through a Sponsor, some report challenges with metadata deposits, errors, and submission failures, and others struggle to navigate the documentation when technical issues arise. Some members have noted that our metadata requirements can be complex and that they struggle to achieve metadata completeness in their records. These concerns can be particularly challenging for institutions with limited resources.

To provide additional support, we developed a series of webinars in Bahasa Indonesia, covering topics such as using our Participation Reports to assess metadata completeness and workshops on best practices for using OJS. These webinars have been some of the most attended by our members. The strong interest reflects the value these sessions bring to our community, and we continue to receive requests for additional training opportunities. In total, we welcomed 1,044 registrants and 501 attendees across our webinars last year. This level of participation highlights the importance of ongoing training and the enthusiasm of our members to engage, learn, and grow together.

Despite some challenges, many members feel there is significant value in being a Crossref member. Including their metadata in Crossref enhances the visibility and accessibility of their journals globally. Because Crossref provides the infrastructure of persistent identifiers and open metadata, this ensures scholarly outputs are discoverable, connected, and part of a global research record.

“Crossref’s vision of creating open, connected scholarly infrastructure directly supports our university’s core mission of advancing knowledge and research impact. As an academic institution, we rely on Crossref’s DOI system to ensure our faculty publications and institutional repository content remain permanently accessible and properly cited. This infrastructure is essential for maximizing the visibility and impact of our research output, which directly contributes to our university’s reputation and ranking. Additionally, Crossref’s commitment to open scholarly communication aligns with our values of making knowledge freely accessible, supporting our open access initiatives and helping us demonstrate research impact to funding bodies and stakeholders. The persistent linking system also supports our students and researchers in conducting reliable literature reviews and building upon existing scholarship with confidence that their citations will remain valid over time.” — Anggota dari STIS Darul Falah, Indonesia

Ratna Galuh Manika Trisista, from Universitas Islam Jakarta, has also illustrated how joining Crossref and stewardship of rich metadata supports the development of Indonesian journals in her presentation, Our Metadata Story: Improving Citation Visibility through Reference Linking during the Crossref2025 Annual Meeting.

As membership growth in Indonesia continues, we look forward to building relationships within the community, supported by our ambassadors, sponsors, and members’ contributions.

Much of the information in this report comes from a survey sent to our members, sponsors, and ambassadors in Indonesia. We appreciate all the feedback, comments, and suggestions we received, and we look forward to continuing our collaborations and increasing our engagement with the community.

Translation in Bahasa Indonesia

Tahun lalu Crossref merayakan usia ke-25, dan momen ini menjadi kesempatan istimewa untuk menyoroti wilayah-wilayah yang paling aktif dan berperan penting dalam komunitas global Crossref. Salah satunya adalah Indonesia.

Dalam perjalanan 25 tahun tersebut, keanggotaan Crossref telah berkembang pesat. Yang awalnya hanya digagas oleh beberapa penerbit besar, kini Crossref menaungi lebih dari 24.000 anggota dari 165 negara. Menariknya, hampir dua pertiga anggota Crossref saat ini berasal dari perguruan tinggi, perpustakaan, lembaga pemerintah, yayasan, penerbit ilmiah, serta institusi riset, menunjukkan semakin kuatnya peran komunitas akademik dalam ekosistem publikasi global.

Indonesia menjadi wilayah dengan pertumbuhan komunitas paling dinamis di Crossref. Sejak tahun 2017, Indonesia secara konsisten mencatat jumlah anggota baru terbanyak setiap tahunnya. Saat ini, lebih dari 4.400 anggota Crossref berbasis di Indonesia telah mendaftarkan metadata untuk lebih dari 2,6 juta karya ilmiah. Kontribusi ini tidak hanya memperkuat visibilitas riset nasional, tetapi juga menghubungkan pengetahuan yang dihasilkan di Indonesia dengan komunitas ilmiah global.

Pertumbuhan ini tentu tidak terjadi begitu saja. Ia lahir dari kerja kolektif para pengelola jurnal, penerbit perguruan tinggi, editor, dan komunitas akademik di Indonesia yang terus belajar, beradaptasi, dan saling berbagi praktik baik dalam tata kelola publikasi ilmiah. Semakin banyak institusi yang menyadari pentingnya metadata yang berkualitas, transparansi dalam publikasi, serta keterhubungan riset melalui DOI sebagai fondasi visibilitas dan keberlanjutan ilmu pengetahuan.

Di berbagai forum, pelatihan, dan pendampingan komunitas, semangat kolaborasi ini terus tumbuh. Komunitas Crossref di Indonesia tidak hanya berkembang secara kuantitas, tetapi juga menunjukkan peningkatan kualitas dalam pengelolaan metadata, kepatuhan terhadap standar internasional, serta komitmen terhadap praktik publikasi ilmiah yang etis dan terbuka. Inilah yang menjadikan Indonesia bukan sekadar pengguna, melainkan kontributor aktif dalam ekosistem pengetahuan global.

Indonesia juga dikenal sebagai pengguna Open Journal Systems (OJS) terbesar di dunia, dengan hampir 20.000 jurnal yang dikelola dan diterbitkan melalui platform ini. Sebagian besar jurnal tersebut diterbitkan oleh perguruan tinggi, lembaga riset, dan instansi pemerintah, yang menunjukkan kuatnya peran institusi akademik dan publik dalam ekosistem publikasi ilmiah nasional.

Budaya publikasi ilmiah di Indonesia sangat erat kaitannya dengan dunia pendidikan tinggi. Kebijakan Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi, Sains, dan Teknologi mewajibkan mahasiswa untuk mempublikasikan hasil penelitiannya sebagai salah satu syarat kelulusan. Untuk menjawab kebutuhan tersebut sekaligus menyediakan ruang publikasi yang inklusif dan mudah diakses, banyak universitas dan fakultas di Indonesia membentuk serta mengelola jurnal ilmiah mereka sendiri sebagai wadah bagi karya mahasiswa.

Sebagian besar jurnal di Indonesia terindeks dalam SINTA (Science and Technology Index) yang dikelola oleh Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi, Sains, dan Teknologi (MoHEST). SINTA bertujuan untuk meningkatkan kualitas jurnal, memfasilitasi proses penilaian, serta mendorong daya saing jurnal ilmiah Indonesia. Dalam konteks ini, penggunaan DOI menjadi salah satu persyaratan penting agar jurnal dapat terindeks di platform tersebut.

Para anggota Crossref di Indonesia memahami pentingnya persistent identifiers untuk memastikan keberlanjutan dan keterlacakan karya ilmiah mereka. Namun, semakin banyak pula yang menyadari nilai lebih dari komitmen Crossref terhadap metadata terbuka dan rekam jejak ilmiah yang terbuka. Menjadi anggota Crossref bukan sekadar memenuhi kewajiban teknis, melainkan juga menjadi bagian dari komunitas global yang lebih besar. Meski DOI dibutuhkan untuk kepentingan pengindeksan nasional, banyak organisasi memilih bergabung dengan Crossref demi meningkatkan visibilitas global konten mereka—dan pada akhirnya, memperluas dampak dari publikasi yang dihasilkan.

“Kami merasa menjadi bagian dari komunitas Crossref karena kami tidak hanya menggunakan layanannya, tetapi juga berkontribusi di dalamnya. Melalui pendaftaran DOI dan penyediaan metadata, kami ikut membangun rekam jejak keilmuan terbuka yang bermanfaat bagi semua. Menjadi bagian dari jejaring Crossref bukan sekadar status keanggotaan—ini adalah tentang visi bersama. Kami melihat diri kami sebagai kontributor aktif. Setiap kali mendaftarkan DOI dan metadata, kami menambahkan satu mata rantai baru dalam jejaring pengetahuan global. Hal ini memastikan riset kami dapat ditemukan, disitasi, dan terhubung dengan karya lain, sehingga memberi manfaat bagi semua pihak.” — Nita Nurdiana, Universitas PGRI Palembang

Semangat kontribusi ini juga diperkuat oleh peran para ambassador Crossref di Indonesia yang dengan penuh dedikasi mengadvokasi misi Crossref. Fauji Nurdin ST. Mudo dan Zulidyana Rusnalasari telah menjadi penggerak penting dalam penyelenggaraan berbagai kegiatan, mulai dari acara luring hingga webinar untuk para anggota, sekaligus mewakili Crossref dalam beragam forum di berbagai wilayah Indonesia.

Pada bulan Oktober lalu, sebagai bagian dari perayaan ulang tahun ke-25 Crossref, para ambassador ini—dengan dukungan sponsor dari Relawan Jurnal Indonesia (RJI)—menyelenggarakan sebuah acara satelit di Medan. Kegiatan ini mempertemukan peserta dari perguruan tinggi, penerbit, instansi pemerintah, lembaga riset, organisasi non-pemerintah, perpustakaan, hingga museum. Acara tersebut menjadi ruang dialog yang hidup untuk membahas isu-isu kunci dalam dunia publikasi ilmiah dan memperkuat jejaring kolaborasi lintas sektor.

Crossref 25th Anniversary Satellite Event, Medan, October 2025

Sebagian besar anggota Crossref di Indonesia bergabung dan beraktivitas melalui sponsor regional. Para sponsor ini berperan penting dalam mendampingi organisasi-organisasi kecil yang kerap menghadapi berbagai tantangan—mulai dari keterbatasan finansial, kendala teknis, hingga hambatan bahasa—yang membuat proses keanggotaan menjadi tidak selalu mudah. Dengan pemahaman yang kuat terhadap kebutuhan khas komunitas penerbitan lokal serta jejaring yang luas, para sponsor membantu organisasi mengenal dan memanfaatkan Crossref dengan cara yang lebih ramah dan mudah diakses.

Sponsor pertama Crossref di Indonesia, Relawan Jurnal Indonesia (RJI), bergabung pada tahun 2017. Hingga kini, Indonesia telah memiliki delapan sponsor yang secara kolektif mendukung lebih dari 3.900 anggota di seluruh Indonesia. Peran ini menjadikan para sponsor sebagai tulang punggung pertumbuhan dan keberlanjutan komunitas Crossref di tanah air.

Lebih dari sekadar pendamping teknis, para sponsor juga menjadi mitra strategis dalam membangun keterlibatan komunitas—mulai dari memfasilitasi webinar hingga mendukung pertemuan luring. Pada Agustus 2024, misalnya, Crossref bekerja sama dengan RJI menyelenggarakan acara luring selama dua hari di Jakarta, yang dihadiri oleh lebih dari 100 anggota. Selain diskusi mengenai dasar-dasar Crossref dan pentingnya metadata berkualitas, kegiatan ini juga menghadirkan Ahmad Saefudin Surapermana dari ISSN Indonesia, serta para sponsor dan ambassador Crossref. Mengingat banyaknya anggota di Indonesia yang menggunakan platform OJS, rekan-rekan dari Public Knowledge Project (PKP) turut bergabung untuk memberikan sesi khusus tentang plugin OJS serta lokakarya peningkatan versi bagi para administrator sistem OJS. Hingga kini, Crossref terus menerima masukan dari para anggota bahwa kegiatan luring dan daring yang lebih rutin sangat dibutuhkan—tidak hanya untuk memperkuat jejaring, tetapi juga untuk berbagi perkembangan terbaru dalam dunia publikasi ilmiah.

Crossref Jakarta, August 2024

Seiring dengan meningkatnya minat komunitas ini terhadap Crossref, masih terdapat sejumlah tantangan (pain points) yang dirasakan oleh anggota di Indonesia. Meskipun banyak yang bergabung melalui sponsor, sebagian anggota melaporkan kendala dalam proses deposit metadata, munculnya error, hingga kegagalan pengiriman data. Ada pula yang merasa kesulitan menavigasi dokumentasi teknis ketika menghadapi permasalahan sistem. Beberapa anggota juga menilai bahwa persyaratan metadata Crossref cukup kompleks, sehingga mereka mengalami tantangan dalam mencapai kelengkapan metadata pada rekaman mereka. Kondisi ini tentu menjadi lebih berat bagi institusi dengan sumber daya yang terbatas.

Untuk memberikan dukungan tambahan, Crossref kemudian mengembangkan rangkaian webinar dalam Bahasa Indonesia, yang membahas topik-topik praktis seperti pemanfaatan Participation Reports untuk menilai kelengkapan metadata, serta lokakarya praktik terbaik dalam penggunaan OJS. Webinar-webinar ini menjadi salah satu kegiatan dengan tingkat kehadiran tertinggi. Minat yang kuat mencerminkan nilai yang dibawa sesi ini bagi komunitas kami, dan Crossref terus menerima permintaan untuk pelatihan tambahan. Secara keseluruhan, kami menyambut 1.044 pendaftar dan 501 peserta dalam webinar sepanjang tahun 2025. Tingkat partisipasi ini menegaskan pentingnya pelatihan berkelanjutan serta antusiasme anggota kami untuk terlibat, belajar, dan berkembang bersama.

Di balik berbagai tantangan tersebut, banyak anggota tetap merasakan nilai strategis dari keanggotaan Crossref. Penyertaan metadata jurnal ke dalam Crossref secara signifikan meningkatkan visibilitas dan aksesibilitas jurnal Indonesia di tingkat global. Melalui infrastruktur persistent identifiers dan metadata terbuka yang disediakan Crossref, keluaran ilmiah menjadi lebih mudah ditemukan, saling terhubung, dan tercatat sebagai bagian dari rekam jejak riset global.

“Visi Crossref dalam membangun infrastruktur keilmuan yang terbuka dan saling terhubung sangat mendukung misi utama universitas kami dalam memajukan pengetahuan dan dampak riset. Sebagai institusi akademik, kami mengandalkan sistem DOI Crossref untuk memastikan publikasi dosen dan konten repositori institusi kami tetap dapat diakses secara permanen dan disitasi dengan tepat. Infrastruktur ini sangat penting untuk memaksimalkan visibilitas dan dampak luaran riset kami, yang secara langsung berkontribusi pada reputasi dan peringkat universitas. Selain itu, komitmen Crossref terhadap komunikasi ilmiah terbuka sejalan dengan nilai-nilai kami dalam membuka akses pengetahuan seluas-luasnya, mendukung inisiatif open access, serta membantu kami menunjukkan dampak riset kepada lembaga pendanaan dan para pemangku kepentingan. Sistem keterhubungan yang berkelanjutan ini juga mendukung mahasiswa dan peneliti kami dalam melakukan tinjauan pustaka yang andal, dengan keyakinan bahwa sitasi yang digunakan akan tetap valid dalam jangka panjang.”
— Anggota dari STIS Darul Falah, Indonesia

Pengalaman serupa juga disampaikan oleh Ratna Galuh Manika Trisista dari Universitas Islam Jakarta, yang memaparkan bagaimana keikutsertaan di Crossref dan pengelolaan metadata yang kaya dapat mendukung pengembangan jurnal Indonesia. Hal ini ia sampaikan dalam presentasinya berjudul “Our Metadata Story: Improving Citation Visibility through Reference Linking” pada Crossref Annual Meeting 2025. Seiring pertumbuhan keanggotaan Crossref di Indonesia yang terus berlanjut, kami menantikan penguatan relasi dengan komunitas—dengan dukungan para ambassador, sponsor, serta kontribusi aktif dari para anggota itu sendiri.

Sebagian besar informasi dalam laporan ini bersumber dari survei yang dikirimkan kepada anggota, sponsor, dan ambassador Crossref di Indonesia. Kami sangat menghargai seluruh umpan balik, komentar, dan saran yang telah diberikan, dan berharap dapat terus melanjutkan kolaborasi serta meningkatkan keterlibatan bersama komunitas di masa mendatang.

Insights from a roundtable on author affiliation metadata

Amanda French — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been said that Americans are unusual in tending to ask “Where do you work?” as an initial question upon introduction to a new acquaintance, indicating a perhaps unhealthy preoccupation with work as identity. But in the context of published research, “What is this author’s affiliation?” is a question of global importance that goes beyond just wanting to know the name – and perhaps prestige level – of the place a researcher works.

When collected, used, and analyzed at scale, data about author affiliations can provide intriguing insights about international collaboration trends, signal trust and lack of trust in particular research institutions, generate business intelligence for publishers, help universities track the work their researchers do, help funders demonstrate the impact of their funding, and much more.

In November we partnered with OA Switchboard to organize a roundtable on author affiliation metadata for the Crossref community, service and infrastructure providers, production vendors, data scientists, researchers, and librarians. We aimed to bring together scholarly information professionals with many diverse perspectives; ultimately, participants from more than 40 organizations joined the roundtable to share their experiences and their thoughts.

In focusing on a single type of metadata, we hoped to focus our discussions, as well. Similarly, in October the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information organized a roundtable on “Moving Funding Metadata Forward” in which it became clear that “improving the quality and coverage of funding metadata was on the agenda of many organisations and there was a strong interest in collaborating on practical next steps.”

While many of the issues and solutions discussed at both roundtables are similar, in the course of the author affiliation metadata roundtable we identified some unique challenges as well as benefits related to this particular flavor of information. In this blog post, I’ll share these insights.

Insights from presenters

I opened the roundtable with a brief introduction and a working definition of affiliation metadata: names and/or identifiers such as Research Organization Registry (ROR) IDs for organizations where research was conducted or with which authors and contributors are associated, usually officially, as in their place of employment.

Next, to create a shared context for discussion, we heard four presentations on the current state of author affiliation metadata, its importance, and Crossref’s ongoing initiative to enhance it automatically.

Nees Jan van Eck of Leiden University’s Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) shared observations on the state of author affiliations from a preprint titled “Crossref as a source of open bibliographic metadata” that presents the findings of an analysis performed annually since 2021. Nees’s key points:

Crossref is a foundational data source for bibliographic metadata.
Affiliation metadata is available for only 1 out of 3 journal articles in Crossref for the period 2023-2024.
There is considerable variation in the extent to which Crossref members deposit affiliation metadata.
Downstream sources try to fill gaps using suboptimal approaches, leading to missing, inaccurate, and inconsistent linking of publications to institutions.
Publications lacking affiliation metadata in Crossref are less visible in bibliometric applications, analyses, studies, and tools (such as the open edition of the Leiden Ranking of over 2800 universities).

Next, Yvonne Campfens of OA Switchboard reiterated the desirability of the Crossref community providing complete and accurate author affiliation metadata at the source. Yvonne called upon publishers to “Integrate metadata creation in your systems and workflows before publication and relay it throughout the editorial, production, and publication processes.”

Yvonne pointed out that in the context of managing Open Access agreements, publishers ought to keep in mind that providing good affiliation metadata improves customer satisfaction, since institutions and consortia need to have that information in order to connect research to the correct organization. In closing, Yvonne featured best practices from OA Switchboard’s Data Quality Challenge:

eLife captures affiliations at submissions with “author select,” ensuring that ROR IDs are introduced early and verified before publication, coupled with a quality assurance process during proofing. (See also our piece on Metadata Excellence Award winner eLife.)
EMS Press captures metadata via manuscript extraction as early as at submission, building on globally valid identifiers whenever possible (ROR IDs, DOIs, ORCIDs).
Pensoft Publishers uses AI-assisted metadata extraction with human review and in-house metadata validation.
Beilstein-Institut performs post-acceptance metadata quality assurance through automation and expert review.
The Royal Society embeds metadata in OA payment and agreement workflows.
American Chemical Society (ACS) has a multi-method persistent identifier matching strategy with near-complete coverage.
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) combines AI-powered submission tools with editorial oversight via expert manual checks. (See also our piece on Metadata Excellence Award winner ASM.)
Rockefeller University Press (RUP) maintains ROR IDs across the full publishing workflow with “author select” at submission through metadata deposits upon publication. (See also the ROR case study on RUP.)

Adam Day of Clear Skies Ltd began his talk by wryly framing the first and second rules of data science as contradictory: “Never fix data: always use sources that produce high-quality data in the first place,” but also “Get good at fixing data, because you will have to.” Adam went on to demonstrate the central role author affiliation metadata plays in research integrity investigations, displaying anonymized data for institutions with a high number of alerts. In conclusion, Adam reiterated the importance of author affiliation metadata to research integrity efforts:

Data analysis is critical to research integrity.
Quality data helps enormously by giving oversight, saving time, and assisting investigations.

Lastly, our own Director of Technology Dominika Tkaczyk gave an account of our plans to enrich author affiliation metadata by matching organization name text strings to ROR IDs as part of our metadata matching initiative. A strategy for performing such matching has already been developed and tested and an open dataset of results made available. Tests on a set of 3,000 affiliations sampled from our metadata show that the strategy can be expected to match 95 million ROR IDs to organization names with 97.35% precision, an astronomical increase over the less than 1 million ROR IDs deposited in Crossref records to date.

Dominika concluded the presentation portion of the session by reiterating that our planned enrichment of author affiliation metadata

Will use flexible and transparent matching strategies (and open code),
Will welcome community participation in developing new strategies, and
Will be available in the REST API.

Automatic matching of organization names to ROR IDs in author affiliations cannot solve the problem of missing organization names, of course, but it represents a huge leap forward in addressing metadata quality issues.

All of our speakers’ presentations are available on Zenodo at https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.13003/661591chqlyw.

Insights into challenges

In the next stage of the event, participants broke into six breakout groups to identify factors contributing to incomplete or inaccurate affiliation metadata. Participants were pre-assigned to groups randomly by role to ensure a variety of perspectives in every discussion.

At least two participants, it should be noted, pointed out that it would be helpful to agree on a definition of “complete” and “accurate” affiliation metadata, which in itself is a challenge, and one we did not address in this roundtable. For instance, practices most recently have trended away from defining a complete author affiliation in open metadata as including an institutional address, although many internal databases might include such information separately.

Even without such definitions, however, all six groups were able to identify several general areas for attention, and one participant provided a particularly helpful categorization of these areas that is largely reused here.

Inherent data complexity

Research organizations have names in different languages, abbreviations, and many other name variants.
Research organizations have frequent name changes, mergers, and rebranding.
Research organizations have different degrees, levels, and complexity of hierarchical granularity, and authors, publishers, and software systems are often misaligned as to which level in an organization’s structure is appropriate to use in a particular instance.
Research organizations often lack official policies on how affiliations should be written, leading to hundreds of variations for a single institution.

Corresponding authors often submit information for all co-authors, which can lead to inaccuracies.
Many authors have multiple profiles across multiple submission systems, which can introduce errors.
Authors may have “octopus affiliations,” claiming affiliations with many institutions that are difficult to verify.
Authors may fail to update affiliations when changing institutions between manuscript acceptance and publication.
Authors may demonstrate “apathy” when repeatedly filling out submission forms, sometimes providing incomplete, inconsistent, or incorrect information.
On occasion, authors might even provide false or purchased affiliations, which of course is a significant research integrity concern.

Technical barriers

Many manuscript tracking and peer review systems, especially legacy systems, lack structured fields for affiliations or don’t support open organization identifiers like ROR.
Some systems limit authors to a single affiliation, despite many researchers having multiple institutional connections.
Some systems only collect affiliation information for the corresponding author.
Some systems link affiliations to user accounts instead of to publications.
Different systems use competing identifier registries, including proprietary identifier registries, creating interoperability challenges.

Publisher practices

Even when publishers improve current metadata collection practices, historical data correction is resource-intensive and often not prioritized.
Publishers collect affiliation information at submission but don’t ensure that it is maintained throughout all stages of the publication process and deposited in metadata.
Some publishers are unaware of the importance of author affiliation metadata or do not prioritize its improvement.
Some publishers deliberately choose not to deposit affiliation metadata to Crossref, viewing it as value-added information they’ve invested in curating.

Insights into solutions

Naturally, we didn’t rest at identifying challenges: after a break, we gathered in the same groups to brainstorm approaches to improving author affiliation metadata.

Adopt collective approaches

Collective action, where corrections and improvements made by various stakeholders flow back into shared systems, has historically worked for proprietary systems and could be even more powerful with open infrastructure.
Since those who do not provide metadata “upstream” will inevitably have it provided for them “downstream” by multiple separate entities using multifarious methods, provenance metadata indicating who asserted author affiliations and how (whether automatically or with the author’s or editor’s input) would help metadata users assess trust levels.

Engage authors and institutions

Reach out to authors and institutions to educate them on the need for more consistent affiliation reporting, especially in terms of language, name format, and degree of hierarchical granularity.
Demonstrate the benefit to institutions of maintaining accurate records in registries like ROR, including abbreviations and name variants.
Publishers and/or software systems should allow authors to review (though not necessarily edit) affiliation information during the proofing process to verify accuracy. Authors should not, however, need to know, see, or use ROR IDs.

Improve the tech

Publishers would welcome submission systems that incorporate structured fields for author affiliations with well-designed auto-suggestions linked to ROR or other organization identifiers.
Making affiliation data mandatory at submission could significantly improve capture rates, although it would be important to ensure that independent researchers can use these systems as well.
Enable collection of affiliations for all authors, not just the corresponding author.
Pull in verified affiliation information from ORCID.
Increasingly, intelligent matching systems can be implemented to reduce author burden and perhaps also increase accuracy and completeness of metadata.
Better crosswalks between different organization identifier systems would make it vastly easier for publishers to maintain better metadata. Since open registries cannot include proprietary information, proprietary registries should provide their customers with crosswalks to all standard open identifiers.

Encourage publisher best practices

Publishers can use already-available tools to help assess and improve the quality of both new and legacy author affiliation metadata.
Share the benefits of improved author affiliation metadata for internal and external analytics, customer satisfaction, and research integrity.
Identify best practices in collecting and structuring author affiliation metadata.
Understand that the entire research ecosystem would benefit from publishers sharing collected affiliation data with Crossref.

It’s worth mentioning that these solutions are heterogeneous: not all strategies can be implemented by any one actor nor even by any one sector of our profession. Clearly, collaborative action is necessary for substantive change.

Moving forward

The affiliations metadata roundtable represented an important step in addressing affiliation metadata challenges in a productive and collaborative way. If there was a consensus, it was that while perfect completeness and accuracy of author affiliation metadata may not be achievable (or even definable), incremental improvements can substantially enhance the quality and availability of affiliation metadata for the entire scholarly information community.

Here at Crossref, we intend to use the insights from this roundtable to inform our support of the Crossref community, including publishers, service providers, and metadata users. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions on this issue! Share your thoughts with Amanda French at alfrench@crossref.org.

References

van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2025). Crossref as a source of open bibliographic metadata (No. smxe5_v2). MetaArXiv. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.31222/osf.io/smxe5_v2
Tkaczyk, D. (2025). Crossref relationships involving research organisations [Dataset]. Zenodo. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.5281/zenodo.15254993
French, A., van Eck, N. J., Campfens, Y., Day, A., & Tkaczyk, D. (2026, January 19). Affiliations Metadata Roundtable 2025—All Presentations. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.13003/661591chqlyw

Participating organizations


Africa PID Alliance / TCC Africa	Frontiers Media SA
American Association of Cancer Research (AACR)	Iowa State
American Chemical Society (ACS)	Kriyadocs / Exeter Premedia Services
American Physical Society (APS)	MDPI
American Society for Microbiology (ASM)	Noyam Publishers
Aptara	OpenAIRE / OpenOrgs
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)	Optica Publishing Group
Atypon	ORCID
Beilstein-Institut	Oxford University Press
California Digital Library (CDL)	Public Knowledge Project (PKP)
Cambridge University Press	Public Library of Science (PLOS)
Carnegie Mellon University	River Valley Technologies
CHORUS	Rockefeller University Press
Clarivate / Web of Science	SAGE Publications
Copernicus GmBH	Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information
Curtin University / Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI)	Silverchair / ScholarOne
De Gruyter Brill	Springer Science & Business
Digital Science / Figshare	TNQTech
Digital Science / Symplectic Elements	University of Laval
eLife	University of Chicago Press
Elsevier BV	University of Split
Enago

The GEM program - Year Three and program expansion for 2026

Susan Collins — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As Crossref membership continues to grow, finding ways to help organisations participate is an important part of our mission. Although Crossref membership is open to all organisations that produce scholarly and professional materials, cost and technical challenges can be barriers to joining for many.

Our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program aims to provide greater membership equity and accessibility to organisations in the world’s least economically advantaged countries. Eligible members pay no membership or record registration fees. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country. Seeing its effectiveness in increasing participation in the research nexus from previously underrepresented regions, this year we are expanding the GEM program to include 18 new countries.

Overview of the first 3 years of GEM

The program began in January 2023 with 214 existing members. By the end of 2025, we had 628 organisations under the GEM program. Of these, 535 are independent members, and 89 members work through one of our sponsors. To date, GEM program members have contributed approximately 334,000 works to the Research Nexus.

Global equitable membership	2023	2024	2025
New members joining	129	127	151
Total member count	327	458	628

Total number of Crossref GEM members by country until the end of 2025:

GEM country – alphabetically	Total no. of members	GEM country – alphabetically	Total no. of members
Afghanistan	29	Malawi	2
Bangladesh	167	Maldives	4
Benin	6	Mali	4
Bhutan	6	Marshall Islands	0
Burkina Faso	7	Mauritania	1
Burundi	3	Micronesia	0
Cambodia	14	Mozambique	2
Central African Republic	1	Myanmar	3
Chad	0	Nepal	60
Comoros	1	Nicaragua	2
Congo, Democratic Republic	24	Niger	0
Côte d’Ivoire	3	Rwanda	9
Djibouti	0	Samoa	0
Eritrea	0	São Tomé and Principe	0
Ethiopia	17	Senegal	7
Gambia	0	Sierra Leone	2
Ghana	38	Solomon Islands	0
Guinea	0	Somalia	10
Guinea-Bissau	0	South Sudan	0
Guyana	3	Sri Lanka	31
Haiti	2	Sudan	14
Honduras	3	Tajikistan	8
Kiribati	0	Tanzania, United Republic of	28
Kosovo	9	Togo	1
Kyrgyz Republic	27	Tonga	0
Lao, People’s Democratic Rep.	5	Tuvalu	0
Lesotho	0	Uganda	23
Liberia	1	Vanuatu	0
Madagascar	5	Yemen	37
		Zambia	8

Membership Density in GEM Program Countries until the end of 2025

Program expansion in 2026

Starting on 1st of January 2026, we’re excited to invite organisations from Angola, Belize, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Dominica, Eswatini, Fiji, Grenada, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Timor Leste, and Uzbekistan to join Crossref and register their content and metadata with us without membership or record registration fees. There are 711 existing Crossref members based in these countries who are now eligible for the program, bringing the overall number of GEM members to 1339 across 77 countries (that’s close to 5% of all Crossref members).

In creating our eligibility list, we refer to existing sources. For the first three years of the program, our list was predominantly based on the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) classification. In 2026, we leveraged additional sources to curate our list, resulting in the inclusion of 18 new countries in the program. Following community feedback, we now refer to the IDA, the IDA Blend List, and the United Nations Least Developed Countries list. In our choices, we also keep abreast of the global situation and conversations about supporting equitability in scholarly publishing and in the future, we may consider other factors too.

We will review our lists and the eligibility criteria annually and note any changes on our website. Members whose country moves on or off the GEM Program will be notified of any upcoming fees (or the removal of fees) with adequate time to plan and budget accordingly. Although the GEM program reduces financial barriers, many small organisations may still need administrative, technical, and language support provided by our Sponsors, and we will continue working with suitable organisations to make participation in Crossref easier.

Crossref annual report 2025: highlights of a very busy year

Ginny Hendricks — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref Annual Report 2025

Crossref’s 2025 Annual Report — published on the blog with a DOI, rather than as a standalone designed PDF. The post covers the year’s governance, finances, programmes, and community highlights. Registered with DOI 10.64000/hsdpk-8cm70.

Strategists

See where Crossref stands at the end of 2025. The shape of membership, infrastructure, and community across the year, and the direction the organisation is heading into 2026.

Decision-makers

Understand governance, finances, and POSI commitments. Board decisions, financial position, and how Crossref measures up against the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure.

Practitioners

See what shipped, what’s running, and what’s next. Programme updates, service activity, and the practical work members and staff delivered together through 2025.

What the report covers

Membership — growth, geographic distribution, and the makeup of the membership at the end of 2025
Programmes — the year’s work on integrity, equity, and metadata quality
Services and infrastructure — registration and retrieval activity, service uptake, and resilience work
Governance — board composition, member meetings, and committee work
Finances — revenue, expenditure, and the financial position at year end
POSI — the year’s commitment audit against the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure
Community highlights — events, ambassadors, sponsored memberships, and member contributions

Read the report

Read the 2025 Annual Report

Highlights of a very busy year: our 2025 annual report

Ginny Hendricks — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As we finish celebrating our 25th anniversary, we can look back on a truly transformational year, defined by the successful delivery of several long-planned, foundational projects—as well as updates to our teams, services, and fees—that position Crossref for success over the next quarter century as essential open scholarly infrastructure. In our update at the end of 2024, we highlighted that we had restructured our leadership team and paused some projects. The changes made in 2024 positioned us for a year of getting things done in 2025. We launched cross-functional programs, modernised our systems, strengthened connections with our growing global community, and streamlined a bunch of technical and business operations while continuing to grow our staff, members, content, relationships, and community connections.

Read on for the highlights of a very busy year, grouped around our four strategic themes.

Strategic theme 1: Contribute to an environment where the community identifies and co-creates solutions for broad benefit

Enhanced tools and services

In October, we released an enhanced Participation Reports dashboard that shows metadata coverage across all 180 million records and provides individual member organisations with actionable gap reports to guide them to improve metadata completeness. The new tool provides more complete coverage of all members and resource types, now including funders and grants, with up to 11 best-practice metadata elements publicly tracked.

We launched support for journal articles in the New Metadata Manager record registration form (initially only for grants), which includes built-in reference and relationships deposit capabilities. In the New Metadata Manager, it’s now also possible to search for previously registered DOIs to edit your metadata records. In the coming years, we are planning to expand the new Metadata Manager to support all the many different content types that you can register with Crossref DOIs.

After a long break between regular updates, we have fixed our process for and just released v.1.63 of the Open Funder registry. With the updated process, we’re now able to resume more frequent updates to the registry (while of course still working towards the transition to ROR for funders).

Throughout 2025, we conducted a website information architecture review to improve the information we provide to our members and the wider community. Based on the recommendations from this review, we will be renewing our website and documentation in 2026.

Deprecations and modernisation

‘Old’ Metadata Manager is to be retired at the end of 2025, with users transitioning to the ‘New’ version or to our other helper tools for registering and updating DOIs. All users have been contacted during 2025 and received training on how to use the New Metadata Manager.

We also announced the deprecation of Co-access, which will end in 2026, bringing an end to the service that allowed duplicate DOIs for book content. Users of co-access have been informed and are in the process of transitioning to multiple resolution.

Together with Turnitin and our members, we are working to transition all subscribers to our Similarity Check service to a new version of iThenticate 2.0. We are happy to report that all platforms with integrations with us transitioned to 2.0 during 2025, and we will continue working with our members to get everyone transitioned during 2026.

Eating our own DOI dogfood

In June this year, we were particularly pleased to finally support the registration of DOIs for our own content, this very blog, through partnering with Rogue Scholar. Blogs are a growing format for scholarly discourse and our own blog is no different as it’s the main way that we share guidelines and best practices, as well as news and stories from the scholarly community. With a Crossref DOI for all blogs going back to 2006, we’re setting ourselves up to ensure better future preservation of the discussion and information about Crossref.

Community connections

We delivered 29 metadata health-check webinars over the course of the year, in French, Indonesian, Spanish, and English, reaching 2,166 participants with practical advice on identifying gaps in journal metadata using Participation Reports.

Crossref Accra took place in March as our first in-person event in a GEM country. We also held similar events in Ecuador and Türkiye with Crossref Quito in September and Crossref Ankara in November. At these three events, we welcomed key figures from each country’s library, government, publishing, and academic communities and we learned so much about the thriving communities there, and also that even more dedicated workshops on the specifics of metadata quality improvements would be appreciated.

Our metadata sprint in Madrid in April brought together community members to tackle specific problems collaboratively, with teams exploring coding, documentation, translation, and research using our open metadata. We’re already planning our next sprint in São Paulo for March 2026, and it will be held in three languages: Portuguese, Spanish, and English.

A strategic goal for Crossref is to grow research funders’ adoption of the Grant Linking System, and we produced the first in a series of interviews with funder members this year to highlight how and why Crossref DOIs are fulfilling goals to assess the reach and return of their research support for FWF (Austria), NWO (Netherlands), FCCN|FCT (Portugal), and Wellcome. This year, we welcomed more funders including Fonds de recherche du Québec (Canada) and Independent Research Fund Denmark as part of their national research platform NORA; we look forward to reporting on their experiences and outcomes next year and others as they work towards Crossref Grant DOI adoption.

We continued working closely with PKP and renewed our partnership to help drive better experience for OJS users registering metadata with Crossref. We also delivered a proportion of the metadata health-checks together to maximise the learning opportunities for our members using OJS; and we joined PKP’s Sprint in Oslo to help make improvements to OJS and OMP.

Crossref staff members serve on almost 50 committees, boards, and other community bodies alongside our own direct work. These include in the areas of research integrity, metascience, metadata and PID standards, open science policy or monitoring, development of new models (such as Diamond OA), editorial production, library and institutional publishing, and citation and other metadata analyses. We also work with other DOI Registration Agencies and support the sustainability of the DOI Foundation with an additional annual subsidy. Many DOI RAs are also Crossref Sponsors so that their members can access our unique reference matching service. While we often might advise, we also learn a huge amount from collaborating with the numerous systems and initiatives that make up the wider research community.

Our involvement with developing the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information led us to become the fiscal host and to participate in most of the working groups on open metadata. Of particular note this year was the Funding Metadata Working Group round table about moving forward the state of funding metadata, which we co-hosted with Barcelona Declaration colleagues, and three funding bodies, NWO (Netherlands), FWF (Austria), and ANR (France) as we heard from publishers and their vendors about challenges and how to overcome them to increase the quantity and quality of available open funding metadata.

All our community engagement activities have been enthusiastically supported and enriched by our indispensable Ambassadors and our group of now 130 Sponsors, organisations that help thousands of Crossref members with local language and technical support and lower cost access to our membership.

Strategic theme 2: A sustainable source of complete, open, and global scholarly metadata and relationships

Schema developments

The grant schema version 0.2.0 was released in January, adding support for ROR identifiers to identify funders and new funding types for in our taxonomy, including APC, BPC, and infrastructure. All of these funding types can be specified in the metadata of our grant-giving members alongside the existing types such as use of facilities or salary/training awards, etc.

Version 5.4 of our publications schema was released in March, marking our first update in many years and a great opportunity to learn how to do this and make the process more efficient. This release introduced typed references to denote the type of object referenced (dataset, blog, software, etc.), preprint status indicators, and version numbering.

Just last week, we also added a dedicated field for grant DOIs to our publications schema. This means it’s now possible to indicate in an article’s metadata which grant(s) funded the research using the persistent identifier. This is an essential step toward better alignment between grant funding and research, enriching the Research Nexus.

We also launched our new Metadata Advisory Group and they have already devised sub-working groups in three focus topic areas:

Multilingual metadata
Subjects and keywords
Relationships

Public data file

We released the 2025 public data file in March, containing metadata for (at the time) over 165 million research outputs from more than 22,000 organisations.

Inaugural Metadata Awards

In May, we launched the first-ever Metadata Awards to recognise members demonstrating excellence in metadata completeness and enrichment. Winners included Noyam Publishers (Ghana), GigaScience Press (Hong Kong), eLife (UK), American Society for Microbiology (USA), Universidad La Salle Arequipa (Peru), and Instituto Geologico y Minero de España (Spain). The awards will be held biennially going forward.

Metadata Matching project

In April, we launched the metadata matching project with the aim of building a more complete picture of the research nexus over time by automatically identifying missing relationships between entities across the scholarly record. The project’s goal is to modernise Crossref’s enrichment workflows by rebuilding them using modern software development and data science practices.

We are in the throws of developing a consolidated matching workflow that will eventually replace all existing production matching processes, with results exposed through the REST API. All new matching strategies will be rigorously evaluated, and the resulting data will be accompanied by clear provenance information. This project covers six matching tasks:

bibliographic reference matching
funder name matching
preprint matching
affiliation matching
grant matching
title matching

In the meantime, while work continues on integrating matching results into the REST API, we’ve been releasing standalone matching datasets for separate download and analysis. These include relationships between preprints and journal articles, relationships involving research organisations, and relationships between grants and research outputs.

Data infrastructure and Research Nexus participation dashboard

Staying on the data science front, we’ve established an internal data environment that combines all relevant data sources (scholarly metadata, logs and usage data, and external datasets) in their raw forms into a single place. This environment is supported by a suite of modern tools and data processing techniques, enabling data science experiments and analytics pipelines to run effectively at scale.

Building on this foundation, we plan to develop a series of dashboards to monitor the state of the scholarly record over time. These dashboards will feature both work-level and member-level statistics (for example, how many works of a given type have been registered, or how many members are registering grant IDs) as well as more detailed insights at the relationship level (for example, how many bibliographic references have been automatically matched, or how many times ROR IDs are included in funder assertions). Some of these statistics are already available in a public spreadsheet for now, pending the dashboard.

Retraction Watch integration

In 2023, Crossref acquired the Retraction Watch database to make it open data. Initially, this was done through sharing simple CSV files, but this year we have set up a pipeline to feed this information into our REST API, which means that Retraction Watch data is now fully available through the REST API, integrated with Crossref member-supplied retraction and correction metadata. This is the first example of Crossref integrating third-party metadata, and we’re learning a lot about how to best incorporate other datasets in future.

Metadata API and services improvements

From 1 December 2025, we revised rate limits for the REST API to ensure system stability whilst maintaining free access to metadata for everyone. Changes were made to the rate limits for our ‘public’ and ‘polite’ APIs, while the limits for our Metadata Plus users stayed the same. We continue to make all metadata openly available to the whole community.

We also improved how information from our content system feeds into the REST API. A tool we call ‘pusher’—because it pushes information from the content system to the REST API—was rebuilt so that we now have a more reliable transfer of information between our two systems.

While adding to technical improvements, we’ve also worked to better understand the use of and streamline the service offering for paid options. We’ll share more about this year’s Metadata Plus consultation soon. And based on feedback, we have already retired the ‘Query Affiliate’ service, where a handful of organisations still paid us a fee to access our XML API, whereas no credentials have been required for some time.

Strategic theme 3: Manage Crossref openly and sustainably, modernising and making transparent all operations so that we are accountable to the communities that govern us

Infrastructure modernisation

One of our biggest projects of 2025—if not the biggest—was the move from our data centre into the cloud (AWS). For 25 years, Crossref had been running a physical data centre in Massachusetts, USA, but as part of modernising our systems, it was high time to move everything into the cloud. The move to AWS took several months, but we successfully completed this move to the cloud in July this year. We’re spending these last weeks of 2025 fully decommissioning our data centre, which means that we are removing all the equipment we had there and locking the door for the last time.

A part of the move to AWS included moving onto an open-source database solution, PostgreSQL. This reduced our reliance on closed, costly licensed solutions, while also aligning with our POSI commitment to open-source. Running our entire system in AWS provides a more stable, modern approach to our infrastructure, but it also is expensive. We expect to spend about 2 million USD on AWS fees next year, with the majority of this cost coming from REST API usage. Some of the improvements described above will help us manage those costs and better observe traffic patterns.

Our new cloud infrastructure is a bittersweet milestone: while we are happy to not have to rely on a physical presence to support a 24/7 global infrastructure, we also say a sad farewell to our much-loved and long-suffering Sys Admin, Tim Pickard, who has been with Crossref since 2002, and has contributed significantly and unwaveringly to keeping our system up and running in the data centre. Tim will be leaving Crossref at the end of the year; we’re grateful to Tim for all his years of dedication, and we will greatly miss his impressive Hawaiian shirt game on our all-staff calls.

After 25 years, it was also time to get serious about modernising our core content system, because even though it serves our community well, an older system with legacy code is a constant risk and frustration. We’ve therefore embarked on a multi-year modernisation project where we are replacing our old code piece by piece. We no longer want to have one big content system (a monolith), but are planning to identify different pieces of functionality and rebuild these as separate services (a modular, flexible, and robust approach). This year, we already managed to reconstruct some smaller pieces (for example, the ‘pusher’ mentioned above), and next year we will tackle larger projects, such as Metadata Matching and Authentication.

We continue to prioritise open, timely communication for planned or unplanned service interruptions and encourage everyone to monitor our status page at status.crossref.org. We’ll further hone our incident response processes in 2026, including openly posting incident reviews, and we’ll also centre system maintenance and documentation clarity in everything we do.

RCFS Projects

The Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability projects (RCFS) and the work of our Membership & Fees Committee resulted in deciding not to change some things (such as the basis for annual membership fees), but to change three things about our fees, as reported in July:

A new lower membership fee tier of 200 USD for members with annual revenues/expenses of under 1000 USD - so far, this includes around 3000 members. See below for more info.
A removal of volume discounts to reduce complexity in our billing code; they were little used, and those who did use these were fine with the loss of the discount.
A removal of the rule that only publishers of a title could register peer review reports (including comments and annotations) at the lower 0.25 USD fee for the first review; this lower fee is now available to any member to register any reviews of any other members’ works.

A new late-breaking addition to these fee decisions is the reduction of fees for members registering grants. As of January 1st 2026, there will be no fee for back-year (BY) grant registration, to encourage the faster adoption of older grants, which are more likely to have research outputs to be matched. This will be a two-year pilot to trial how a reduced fee incentivises adoption and boosts metadata connections, and could be extended to other record types as we monitor its success and sustainability. In addition, the 2 USD fee per current-year (CY) grant record is being reduced to 1 USD in line with the next-nearest fee, this is a permanent change for the foreseeable future.

Membership growth, efficiencies, and accessibility

In March, the board voted to update membership terms and bylaws to clarify processes for suspending and revoking membership, and to be more explicit about member practices that preserve the integrity of the scholarly record. A short-term Member Practices Working Group will be meeting in the first half of 2026 to draft these.

Crossref now serves 23,600 members across 164 countries, with continued growth particularly in Asia and Latin America. We’ve continued our ongoing member onboarding activities to support new members joining the community. We see around 230 new members join each month, and have welcomed 2,700 this year so far. We recently reported on how the shape of membership has evolved over our 25 years of operation.

From January 2026, we’re introducing a new lower membership fee tier of 200 USD for organisations with annual revenue or expenses of 1,000 USD or less, making membership more accessible to low-resourced organisations. Already, over 3000 members have been eligible to move into or join under that fee, and the idea is to monitor how this affects Crossref’s financial sustainability and potentially adjust the 200 USD annual fee down again in future years.

From 1 January 2026, the GEM program, which offers fee-free membership and content registration for all members from certain countries, will expand to include 18 additional countries, further reducing financial barriers to participation in the scholarly record, so we expect several hundred further members to join the existing 600 organisations in this category. More information about the GEM program expansion here.

As our membership base continues to grow, the Membership and Finance teams are constantly exploring ways to make shared processes more efficient. A key component in this work has been the efforts to automate several tasks within both teams to help us manage the additional work caused by our growth and allow our teams to focus more on providing the best quality service we can.

Our membership team continues to support our members, sponsors, service providers, metadata users and the wider community by email and through our community forum. The membership team includes staff members who focus on member support, and staff members who focus on technical support. During 2025 so far, we’ve received 36.8k member enquiries through our support system, a 17% increase from last year. This includes 22.6k inquiries related to general membership and 13k technical support enquiries. We’ve received 3.8k membership applications, and welcomed 2.7k new members.

Growth by the numbers

Crossref continues its steady revenue growth in 2025 due to the expansion of our membership base. With the addition of new members and the general growth of Crossref, comes an increase in the transaction-based tasks our Finance team handles.

So far in 2025 we have issued 14,833 invoices, which is a 9% increase since last year. We’ve seen an 11% increase in the number of payments received and applied, and a 12% increase in the amount of credit and debit memos applied over the same time last year. We have also seen a 42% increase in the number of billing-related tickets, totalling 20,723. A large segment of these tickets are related to fee updates associated with the new $200 membership tier.

Not all transactional work in Finance has increased as steadily, with increased revenue of 8% we have also seen a 14% increase in operating expenses. Through the strategic consolidation of vendors and use of financial tools, we have only seen a 1% increase in Accounts Payable invoices processed.

Organisational sustainability

Finance-wise, we’re doing well. We’re projecting to finish this year with revenue of 14,200,000 USD and expect revenue next year of 14,500,000 USD. We’re budgeting 2% growth in overall revenue, accounting for some of the changes to fees that will reduce our earnings on membership dues, but anticipating continued growth of content registration revenue.

Revenue and expenses trends

About 67% of our expenses come from personnel costs, and the other 33% include non-personnel costs like AWS, travel, legal fees, etc. As we continue to build out the team, we have ten new positions planned for the next year (recruitment for many of these is already underway or done). With additional staff roles and AWS expenses, we’re expecting expense growth of 16%. We post our financial statements and Form 990 filings on the financials page on our website.

Revenue per member size (by tier)

As the chart above shows, we still see ’the long tail’ of smaller members in the lowest fee category (275 USD) contributing more revenue than those in the largest category (50,000 USD) at 5.8 million USD versus 5 million USD.

Another aspect of sustainability is our impact on the world around us. And this year we were able to publish a second report on Crossref’s carbon footprint, having monitored and controlled for several carbon-heavy activities, primarily staff travel. Our reported emissions went up 40% from 2023 to 2024, due to more travel given our growth in staff and members, better recording our emissions (for example, with hotel stays), and including travel that we support for our partners, ambassadors and board members. In terms of travel spending, we are still well below 2019 when we were smaller, demonstrating that we are following through on not going back to the pre-pandemic norm.

We were one of the first open infrastructure organisations to adopt the POSI Principles and now have a few years’ experience in trying to meet them. Together with other adopters, we proposed updates and additions to the principles, based on real-world practice, and gathered a lot of community comment, resulting in the group publishing POSI v2 in October. We conduct a self-assessment every other year and we’ll be involving all our staff in the next self-assessment, due later in 2026.

Open governance through board election and annual meeting

We continued our commitment to being member-led and community-driven. This year’s anniversary Annual Meeting in October brought together members to discuss strategy, metadata developments, and hear the results of their voting in our board election. It comprised two half-days of online conferencing and several in-person satellite meetings spread across five continents, gathering close to 500 members of our community. It was a platform to reflect together on the past quarter of the century of building community infrastructure and connections underpinning the progress of scholarship, and to share plans for the future.

Each member has one vote, and together they elected the following organisations to serve a three-year term alongside the rest of the board:

Tier 1 candidates (electing one seat):

Rebecca Wambua, Distance, Open and e-Learning Practitioners’ Association of Kenya

Tier 2 candidates (electing four seats):

Damian Bird, CABI
Rose L’Huillier, Elsevier*
Anjalie Nawaratne, Springer Nature*
Nick Lindsay, The MIT Press*

*returning board member

Congratulations to the remaining and incoming board members as we start their new term in January 2026. Have a look at all the outputs from our Annual Meeting.

Strategic theme 4: Foster a strong team—because reliable infrastructure needs committed people who contribute to and realise the vision, and thrive doing it

Team structure

We reorganised the team heading into 2025 because we had ambitious goals that required a more structured, collaborative approach. We reorganised the work around three strategic, mission-driven areas of focus described above. This was our first full year with the cross-functional program groups in place, and the activities reported here make it evident that our team members, both existing and new, are firing on all cylinders.

New staff and new roles

We welcomed eight new team members in 2025. In February, we welcomed our new Director of Programs & Services, Helena Cousijn, and a new member of the Technical Support team, Arley Soto. In March, we welcomed our new Community Manager for funders, Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza. In April, we launched our new Data Science team by welcoming Jason Portenoy and Alex Bédard-Vallée. In November, we welcomed our new DevOps Engineer, Thelma Laryea, and our new Program Technical Lead for the OSO program, Bharath Govindarajan. In December, we welcomed another member of the Technical Support team, Natali Giorgobiani.

We also had team members step up into new roles. Dominika Tkaczyk completed the new leadership team by taking on the Director of Technology role, Paul Davis has started his new role as Product Manager, and Michelle Cancel has taken on the Head of Human Resources role. And there’s more to come! As next year begins, two team members will step into Program Technical Lead roles: Carlos del Ojo Elias for the CRN program and Patrick Vale for the CCT program. Together with the Program Technical Lead for the OSO program and the Head of Infrastructure Services, these roles will complete the new structure of the technology team. This structure is more closely aligned with how our work is organised and will enable stronger coordination both within and across cross-functional programs.

Supporting a thriving global culture

As our team grows in different aspects within our new org structure to meet the needs of the community, we remain committed to supporting a thriving culture through training, conducting regular temperature checks, and organising our annual staff retreat. This year, we continued our work on psychological safety and introduced workshops on giving and receiving feedback and on consensus building. We were able to put some of this training into practice at our in-person all-staff event in Split, Croatia, where we all came together to build our roadmap.

We are ending the year with 51 staff in 14 countries and look forward to diversifying and evolving even further as a team in 2026—we’re currently hiring in UX, Communications, and Membership—and keep an eye on our jobs page for forthcoming opportunities in Software, DevOps, Metadata, and Operations!

Thank you to our community of members, partners, board, ambassadors, sponsors, metadata users, service providers, integrators—and of course our team—for making 2025 such a productive year. Together, we’re building a richer, more connected research ecosystem for the benefit of society. We can’t wait to continue the work together in 2026.

Wellcome and Europe PMC: supporting Open Research through open metadata

Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In my latest conversations with research funders, I talked with Hannah Hope, Open Research Lead at Wellcome, and Melissa Harrison, Team Leader of Literature Services at Europe PMC. Wellcome and Europe PMC are working together to realise the potential of funding metadata and the Crossref Grant Linking System for, among other things, programmatic grantee reporting. In this blog, we explore how this partnership works and how the Crossref Grant Linking System is supporting Wellcome in realising their Open Science vision.

What motivated you to join Crossref?

Hannah: The motivation for Crossref Grant IDs is to be able to disaggregate research outputs between funders. Funders’ grant identifiers come in a range of formats, funders might change them over time, and there are also similarities between funders’ names, which is a challenge. Permanent identifiers, in this case, Crossref Grant IDs, are an opportunity to avoid some of the confusion if we were able to implement them throughout the research ecosystem.

This is also being discussed in different contexts, for example, within the Barcelona Declaration working groups, funders and other stakeholders are exploring the diverse motivations that exist to implement changes into our workflows, as well as the challenges that funding metadata and persistent grant IDs can help solve.

The way Wellcome implemented the Grant Linking System is a bit unique, given that it partnered with Europe PMC for the technical implementation and metadata registration with Crossref. Can you tell us more about how it works?

Hannah: The collaboration between Wellcome and Europe PMC in the implementation of Crossref’s Grant Linking System started because they already had the grants landing page feature ready and available to us.

There was an initial hope that other funders of Europe PMC, which also have these grant landing pages, could then leverage that same system to make Crossref grant IDs more broadly available to the research community, but I am not sure if that has materialised yet.

Melissa: Currently we are supporting Wellcome’s implementation of Crossref grant IDs, but the infrastructure remains available to other Europe PMC funders should they decide to take advantage of it. We already have funding metadata for Europe PMC funders because it is a requirement for grantees to select their grant identifier when submitting their accepted manuscripts for indexing and archiving. As we already have that metadata, naturally we can pull it together and send it to Crossref, along with the link to the Europe PMC grant landing pages!

An additional benefit of partnering with Europe PMC is the comprehensive metadata we deliver to Crossref with the grant IDs. For example, we have invested in supplementing affiliation data with ROR iDs and we deliver to Crossref all the data we have that matches their schema for grant data.

How is Wellcome leveraging the funding metadata and Crossref grants IDs that are being shared and registered with Crossref?

Hannah: We are discussing internally how we can better socialise the Crossref grant DOIs among the grantees, either via our grant management system or through Europe PMC. One place where the Crossref grant DOIs are being used and shared is through our publishing platform, Wellcome Open Research. The Crossref grant DOI is included in the publication metadata, ensuring that the research output is linked to the funding via the open metadata registered.

However, as we use Europe PMC as our repository for funded written research outputs, these outputs are aggregated alongside the grant records which includes the Crossref grant DOI, facilitated by Europe PMC APIs. So we have the means to link the two things together.

Melissa: There are some UX and technical blockers to fully integrate Crossref grant IDs within the Europe PMC grant system currently that are detrimental to the utility of these IDs, for example, you can’t search for a specific grant in Europe PMC grant finder using a Crossref grant ID. We are partnering with Crossref to solve these challenges and offer users more functionality in this space next year.

Hannah: Beyond eLife and Wellcome Open Research, I am not sure which publishers use Crossref grants DOIs in their workflows.

Rocio: That’s an interesting question, as we aren’t seeing a massive flow of Crossref grant IDs in the works metadata records just yet. We are exploring with publishers and their service providers how to make this business-as-usual, and in the meantime, we are running a series of matching projects to ensure that, when possible, we make those connections ourselves to enrich the metadata with funding information. We already insert reciprocal relationships where one record asserts a link with another (in this case, where either a grant Finances a work or a work isFinancedBy a grant record, Crossref adds in the reverse). Improving and enriching these relationships directly in the metadata makes sure that metadata provided by funders can make their way to the research outputs that originate from the grant.

Wellcome is streamlining the way of asking grantees to report on their publications, facilitated by Europe PMC. Can you tell us a bit more about how this will work and what role metadata will play?

Hannah: We will stop asking researchers to report their publications directly to us as part of progress and end-of-grant reporting. We believe there is sufficient open metadata with high-quality tagging in the ecosystem for us to collect written research outputs programmatically from this public data. Under our new system, we will be directing researchers to look at their grant record within Europe PMC and make sure that their written research outputs are properly linked there; otherwise, we won’t see them. We are trying to leverage open data, existing infrastructure, and a route that enables us to improve the completeness of open metadata.

There aren’t many mechanisms that enable our researchers to add assertions to funding and research output records retrospectively, and Europe PMC offers us that opportunity, and that is really critical for us. Rather than collecting information in our own system, we can contribute to enhancing the global corpus of knowledge and the quality of open metadata more broadly. Since correcting metadata at source isn’t easy, Europe PMC presents us with an opportunity to contribute to that system.

Melissa: We are thinking broadly about this problem; many institutions curate their research information in spreadsheets or closed CRIS systems and struggle to make it publicly available. We are thinking about how Europe PMC can be leveraged to be a public home for that data. EMBL-EBI hosts Europe PMC and utilises it as the institutional repository, so we have started a pilot project to add ROR IDs for affiliations to EMBL-authored publications within Europe PMC. This is manually curated, high-quality metadata that would otherwise be lost from the public ecosystem.

If you look into the future, what would your hopes be for the GLS and greater transparency in funding metadata in general? What do you think that we could achieve collectively as a community?

Melissa: It would be amazing (!) if everybody, from funders to publishers, to institutions and authors, would coalesce around the Crossref Grant Linking System, and add to metadata exchange workflows – you would potentially have a very clean and clear picture of where the money is going, what the outputs are, and how they relate.

Currently, even with the Open Funder Registry, there is ambiguity around funder names - for example, different geographical national funders sharing the same exact name as their counterpart in another country - so even with the best will in the world, funder institutions could be misidentified in systems and assigned the wrong identifier. The Crossref Grant Linking System facilitates complete disambiguation because grants are associated with the issuing funder’s correct identifier, ensuring traceability of outputs and funding and enabling more precise, cleaner metadata.

Hannah: I think that is a bit of the Holy Grail and in reality, its a bit messy, there isn’t just one system! We need to be able to move past the chicken and egg discussion, where we talk about the use of different identifiers, with sometimes competing priorities. For me, the real challenge for the metadata community is how do we enrich metadata, correct errors, and develop greater interoperability between PID systems. So that multiple parties can contribute towards the creation of a greater whole record, rather than relying on a single owner of the record to provide all the information. If we could all, funders included, connect information from individual partners to create a unified record at the end of it, we could have better records and probably save time by distributing the workload.

What would you say to colleagues in other funders about investing in open metadata?

We all need information from other partners in the ecosystem and investing in our own internal system will not give us the same return as collectively investing in opening up that information wherever possible.

——-

We are very grateful to Hannah Hope and Melissa Harrison for their perspectives on open funding metadata and the role of the community in ensuring a complete and comprehensive Research Nexus.

Some things are big because they are small – the new fee tier for Crossref members takes effect

Kornelia Korzec — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Haz clic aquí para ver la versión en español

In January 2026, our new annual membership fee tier takes effect. The new tier is US$200 for member organisations that operate on publishing revenue or expenses (whichever is higher) of up to US$1,000 annually. We announced the Board’s decision, making it possible in July, and––as you can infer from Amanda’s latest blog––this is the first such change to the annual membership fee tiers in close to 20 years!

The new fee tier resulted from the consultation process and fees review undertaken as part of the Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability program, carried out with the help of our Membership and Fees Committee (made up of representatives from member organisations and community partners). The program is ongoing, and the new fee tier, intended to make Crossref membership more accessible, is one of the first changes it helped us determine.

When our membership renewal invoices are sent out in January 2026, the new fee tier will apply to 3,194 of our existing members, who will receive annual membership invoices 27% lower than previously. Surveys preceding the introduction of the new fee tier have shown that it might be applicable to between 30-60% of the organisations in what used to be our lowest fee tier (US$275 fee for organisations with publishing revenue or expenses of up to US$1 million).

We received positive feedback from members affected by the change.

We are very grateful for the new lowest membership fee tier. The Crossref fee is indeed a significant expense for our organisation, but we accept it given its importance. This new fee structure will make it easier for us to cover the cost.” – said Marina Pérez, Análisis Filosófico.

This initiative by Crossref to reduce membership fees is a welcome step toward achieving a truly global and connected research ecosystem. This will undoubtedly help our journal’s mission in fostering inclusive, open, and accessible publishing.” – said Dev Roychowdhury, Journal of Psychological Experience.

Following the feedback provided in the consultations and a number of prompts over the months after the original announcement, our Membership Team gathered information necessary to transition 3,194 members into the new fee tier. That’s 14.5% of all Crossref members (please note that in the graph below the number of members in $200 tier is higher due to recent influx of new members who didn’t need to transition, further – “$0” denotes all our sponsored members, who don’t pay membership fees to us, and those included in the GEM program).

Any members out there who think their organisation should be moved to the new lowest membership fee tier and haven’t already informed us – please contact us as soon as possible, before the end of the year, so we can make the change before invoices are raised in January.

We know – from speaking with our community (and thank you SO MUCH, for everyone’s feedback in surveys and discussions!) that this change makes participation in Crossref more accessible to smaller organisations communicating research. This will result in a continued flow of new records and associated metadata into the research nexus, helping us to make it easier to find and assess research, achieve greater transparency in the scientific process, and continue building trust in its outputs.

We’re not done reviewing our fees, and we don’t think the new fee tier addresses all the needs of the growing and evolving scholarly community. We continue working with Sponsors and Ambassadors, and we have upcoming changes to the Global Equitable Membership program to facilitate participation by all types and sizes of organisations sharing research.

Version in Español

Algunas cosas son grandes porque son pequeñas: la nueva tarifa para los miembros de Crossref entra en vigencia

En enero de 2026 entrará en vigencia nuestra nueva tarifa anual. Será de 200 dólares americanos (US$) para las organizaciones miembro que operen con ingresos o gastos editoriales de hasta 1000 US$ al año. Tras anunciar esta decisión de la Junta Directiva, se hizo realidad en julio y, como se puede inferir del último blog de Amanda, este es el primer cambio en las tarifas anuales de membresía en casi 20 años.

Esta nueva tarifa fue resultado de consultas y revisiones de tarifas que hicimos y que hacen parte del programa de financiación para la sostenibilidad a futuro de Crossref y que fue elaborada con la ayuda del comité de membresía y tarifas (compuesto por miembros representantes y aliados de la comunidad). El programa sigue en curso y la nueva tarifa, pensada para hacer más accesible la membresía de Crossref, es uno de los primeros cambios que nos ayudó a definir.

Cuando se envíen las facturas de renovación de membresía en enero de 2026, la nueva tarifa se aplicará a 3.194 de nuestros miembros actuales, quienes notarán que esta será un 27 % más económica que en otros años. Por otro lado, queremos que tengan en cuenta que las encuestas realizadas antes de la introducción de la nueva tarifa demostraron que esta podría ser aplicable a entre el 30 y el 60 % de las organizaciones que anteriormente se encontraban en nuestro nivel de tarifa más bajo (275 US$ para organizaciones con ingresos o gastos de publicación de hasta 1 millón de US$). Ya hemos recibido retroalimentación positiva de miembros que han sido beneficiados con el cambio:

Estamos agradecidos por la nueva tarifa más baja. El costo de Crossref es, sin duda, un gasto significativo para nuestra organización, pero lo aceptamos dada su importancia. Esta nueva estructura de tarifa hará que cubrir el costo sea más fácil.”, dijo Mariana Pérez, de Análisis Filosófico.

La iniciativa de Crossref de reducir las tarifas de membresía es la bienvenida a lograr un verdadero ecosistema de investigación global y conectado. Sin duda, esto va a ayudar en la misión de nuestra revista de fomentar una publicación inclusiva, abierta y accesible.”, dijo Dev Roychowdhury, del Journal of Psychological Experience.

Siguiendo los comentarios proporcionados en las consultas y una serie de indicaciones a lo largo de los meses posteriores al anuncio original, nuestro equipo de membresías recopiló la información necesaria para trasladar a 3.194 miembros al nuevo nivel de tarifas, lo que representa el 14,5 % de todos los miembros de Crossref (el gráfico a continuación muestra que el número de miembros en el nivel de $200 es mayor debido a la reciente afluencia de nuevos miembros que no necesitaron hacer la transición; además, “$0” denota a todos nuestros miembros patrocinados, que no pagan cuotas de membresía, y a aquellos incluidos en el programa Global Equitable Membership (GEM)).

Nota: los miembros que consideren que su organización debería pasar a esta nueva tarifa de cuota de membresía y que aún no nos lo hayan comunicado, por favor, contáctenos antes de que termine el año para que podamos hacer el cambio antes de que se emitan las facturas en enero.

Dicho lo anterior, por medio de las conversaciones que tenemos con nuestra comunidad (y GRACIAS por todos sus comentarios en encuestas y debates), sabemos que este cambio hace que la participación en Crossref sea más accesible para organizaciones pequeñas que comunican investigación. Estamos seguros de que esto promoverá un flujo continuo de nuevos registros y metadatos asociados que sumarán al nexo de la investigación, lo que nos ayudará a facilitar la búsqueda y evaluación de la investigación, lograr una mayor transparencia en el proceso científico y seguir construyendo confianza en sus resultados.

Aún no terminamos de revisar nuestras tarifas y no creemos que este nuevo nivel de tarifas considere todas las necesidades de la comunidad académica, que está en crecimiento y evolución. Seguimos trabajando con nuestros patrocinadores y embajadores y tenemos próximos cambios en el programa GEM para facilitar la participación de organizaciones, de todo tipo y tamaño, que comparten investigación.

Traducido por: Nicolás Mejía Torres

Metadata in editorial workflows

Madhura Amdekar — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Scholarly metadata, deposited by thousands of our members and made openly available can act as “trust signals” for the publications. It provides information that helps others in the community to verify and assess the integrity of the work. Despite having a central responsibility in ensuring the integrity of the work that they publish, editorial teams tend not be fully aware of the value of metadata for integrity of the scholarly record. How can we change that?

Thousands of publishers and institutions from all over the world, big and small, are Crossref members, providing us rich metadata for their publications. During our discussion with the community on this topic, it has surfaced that it is usually the technical or production teams, which interact closely with Crossref, where the appreciation of benefits and value of metadata remain confined.

Although editors may interact with some aspects of metadata when they screen manuscripts that come their way, it is not evident whether they see metadata as useful for signalling trust. In the last couple of years, we have been specifically engaging with editors, meeting them, speaking to them, and writing for them on this topic. As next steps in this effort, we are now keen to engage with the diverse editorial community to understand where metadata fits in their workflows, and to identify opportunities for providing visibility to the importance of rich metadata.

To get a better grasp on this subject, I reached out to Christine Ferguson, to share her rich experience across many editorial roles with me, and to try and paint a better picture of the mutual gaps in understanding when it comes to publication metadata. Here’s what we discovered about the different editorial roles and some ideas for how Crossref might better engage with editors.

We know that

Our members come in all shapes and sizes, and that is also reflected in the diversity of editorial functions that may exist within their organisations. Some of our publishing members have editorial staff whose role is to screen submissions, which includes checking them to make sure that the manuscripts are formatted correctly, and have all the required information e.g. on ethics approvals, or ORCIDs (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) of authors. They then pass these manuscripts on to an external or an academic editor, who is usually a subject matter expert and is responsible for the editorial oversight of the content, to manage the rest of the peer review process, such as assessing the novelty and scope of the work, inviting and securing reviewers, and making a final decision on the manuscript. The academic editors make up a vast majority of the editorial community, variously serving as the editor-in-chief, section editors, and members of the editorial board. They usually volunteer their time as an editor, while having another primary job function.

Other publishers may have in-house editors who are subject matter experts themselves and manage the peer review process. Manuscripts can come to these editors after initial checks have been performed on them or the editors may also perform these checks, following which selected manuscripts undergo the peer review process.

Production editors assume responsibility for the manuscripts that are accepted. Their role is to make the manuscript production and publication ready, often liaising with the authors to finalise the formatting, and finally assigning it to an issue.

Then there are editorial roles that may be a combination of one or more of the above. The size and operational structure of an organisation may determine how editorial and other responsibilities are delegated within the organisation. For some of our medium or smaller members, it may be that the same individual or team is responsible for one or more tasks related to assessing the scientific content of the manuscript, managing the peer review process, as well as being in charge of the post-production workflows such as registering metadata with Crossref.

There are also emerging publishing workflows involving solicited peer-reviews of preprints or other types of works, which sometimes retain a form of editorial oversight.

In summary, editorial roles and responsibilities may vary quite a lot within our member organisations and we have less clarity about editorial roles and responsibilities within member organisations.

All of these different flavors of editors also interact with metadata at various stages in their workflows. For example, the title of the manuscripts, names of authors, whether they have ORCIDs and what is reflected in their ORCID records, and the abstracts may be used to assess the novelty and integrity of the work under consideration. The names of authors, especially if they are not known personally to the editor, can be verified in part by an ORCID check, ensuring the individuals exist, are affiliated to the organisations as claimed, that they have the relevant expertise to write or contribute to the manuscript, and to be able to find what they have written previously on the subject. Making sure that whether all or some of the authors (e.g. the corresponding author) have provided their ORCIDs, or if the link to where the dataset has been deposited in a repository resolves correctly, is usually a part of the pre-screening or post-acceptance checklists. As our recent metadata awardee, ASM has highlighted that having this metadata can be hugely beneficial during the peer-review management process, such as for identifying conflicts of interest, to ensure data policy compliance, and even for carrying out systematic analyses.

We’d like to know more about…

whether all editors interact with metadata in their workflows, and whether they are sufficiently informed about the power of rich metadata. It is evident that there is a lot of diversity in editorial roles and functions. Editors, whether they are mostly concerned with scientific content or with the manuscript peer-review process, are closely connected to the researcher community and the latest research topics and trends. By virtue of this, they are in an excellent position to ascertain the important metadata elements most relevant in their scholarly community. If we have a better understanding of how editors are using metadata in their workflows, we’d be able to identify specific opportunities for engaging with this key community to create greater recognition of the role of metadata in preserving the integrity of the scholarly record.

What we have in mind is to engage systematically with editorial community members and understand from them how, where, and which metadata are they using in their workflows. We’d like to do so by talking to editors who represent different Crossref members, perhaps in small groups, where participants will be able to share which metadata elements they interact with. We’d also like to share with them information about the use of metadata for research integrity. We’d like to understand whether they have been leveraging metadata in this context and the relevance of this information for them. Via this exercise, we hope to pick out some commonalities about the use of metadata in editorial workflows. Ultimately, we’d like to use this information to create resources that can be used for educating editors (and ultimately the researchers who submit their work for publication) about the importance of metadata, especially in signalling trust and preserving the integrity of the scholarly record.

Crossref members over the years: a journey through space and time

Amanda Bartell — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref was created back in 2000 by 12 forward-thinking scholarly publishers from North America and Europe, and by 2002, these members had registered 4 million DOI records. At the time of writing, we have over 23,600 members in 164 different countries. Half of our members are based in Asia, and 35% are universities or scholar-led. These members have registered over 176 million open metadata records with DOIs (as of today). What a difference 25 years makes!

In our 25th anniversary year, I thought it would be time to take a look at how we got here. And so—hold tight—we’re going to go on an adventure through space and time¹, stopping every 5 years through Crossref history to check in on our members. And we’re going to see some really interesting changes over the years.

2005

Let’s go back twenty years to 2005. Crossref has been running for five years, and at this point, we have just 318 members from 31 countries, with 18 million DOI records already registered. These members and the Crossref infrastructure are supported by five Crossref employees based in just two countries—the US and the UK.

In 2005, the majority of our members are based in North America, Northern Europe and Western Europe, and they are mostly publishers or societies. Our sponsor program doesn’t yet exist, so all members pay a membership fee directly to Crossref. Our membership fee structure is the same as it is today—we have tiered membership fees so our members can contribute to our infrastructure based on their capacity to pay. At this point, half of our members are eligible for our lowest fee tier.

2005 at a glance

318 members from 31 countries.
18 million DOI records registered.
Supported by five Crossref employees based in two countries - the US and the UK.
The majority (89%) are based in North America or Northern & Western Europe.
Half are eligible for our lowest fee tier.
Mostly societies (40%) and publishers (33%).

2010

Let’s move on by five years to 2010. By this stage, Crossref membership had grown to 1101 members from 69 countries, and these members have now registered 44 million DOI records. They are now supported by 14 Crossref employees, still all located in either the US or the UK.

We’re starting to see some changes in where our members are based. You’ll remember that back in 2005, 89% of Crossref members were based in North America, Northern Europe or Western Europe. By 2010, that percentage has dropped to 63%, and we’re seeing the number of members based in Asia starting to grow. In 2005, only 4% of our members were based in Asia, but by 2010, 18% of our members are based there, with 93 members in the Republic of Korea alone.

By 2010, the percentage of members who are eligible for our lowest fee tier has grown to 78%, so we are seeing smaller and less well-funded organisations starting to join. The types of organisations joining hasn’t changed significantly—members are still mostly societies and publishers. However, we are starting to see universities and scholar-led organisations beginning to join.

2010 at a glance

1,101 members from 69 countries.
44 million DOI records registered.
Supported by 14 Crossref employees based in two countries - the US and the UK.
Growth of members based in Asia (18%).
Smaller, less well-funded organisations starting to join - 78% eligible for our lowest fee tier.
Still mostly societies (37%) and publishers (28%), but universities and scholar-led members starting to emerge (23%).

2015

Jumping ahead another five years to 2015, we see Crossref membership has grown to over 3,000 members from 93 countries, with registered DOI records exceeding 77 million. These members and the Crossref infrastructure are supported by 28 employees, still all based in the US and UK.

Membership in Asia has now really taken off, and Asian organisations now account for 38% of all Crossref members. We also see membership in Latin America emerging, representing 12% of our membership. We have members from 12 different countries in Latin America in 2015, but the most significant number are from Brazil, with 274 members.

Our formal Sponsor program started to emerge from 2012 onwards. Our Sponsor program supports members who are otherwise eligible for our lowest fee tier and provides financial, technical and language support to organisations that would otherwise face barriers to membership. By 2015, we have 26 sponsors in 14 countries, and 20% of all members are working with us through a Sponsor. This is one of the drivers behind smaller, less well-funded members joining Crossref. We really see a leap here in 2015 with over 90% of members now eligible for our lowest fee tier.

Around 2015, we also begin to see an interesting shift in the types of organisations that are becoming members. Increasingly, our new members are university-based, and that type of member organisation has overtaken the publisher group in number for the first time. However, societies still make up the largest number of members.

2015 at a glance

3,134 members from 93 countries.
77 million DOI records.
Supported by 28 Crossref employees based in two countries - US and UK.
Growth in Asia (38%) and members in Latin America (12%) starting to emerge.
Leap in smaller, less well-funded members - 92% eligible for the lowest fee tier.
Sponsor program emerges - 26 sponsors in 14 countries.
Rise of university and scholar-led members (29%) - overtaking publishers (21%). Societies (31%) are still the largest group.

2020

Can you believe we’re already in 2020? Crossref now has almost 12,000 members in 133 countries, with registered DOI records totalling over 120 million! These members and the Crossref infrastructure are now supported by 43 employees across five countries, with Ireland, Germany, and France added to our staff locations.

Almost half of our members are based in Asia at this time, driven by growth from Indonesia, where we have 1681 members in 2020. Our sponsor program now contains 77 sponsors across 32 countries, including our first sponsor in North Africa.

We can now really see how membership is weighted towards smaller, less well-funded organisations: 97% of members are eligible for the lowest fee tier, and 57% choose to work with a sponsor.

By 2020, we also see a fundamental change in the types of organisations that are Crossref members. Societies no longer account for the largest share of our members, with both universities and publishers overtaking them. In 2016, we updated our schema to enable members to register records for preprints (and connect them to an article where relevant). By 2020, 65 members are registering preprints, and many preprint repositories have already become members.

2020 at a glance

11,976 members from 133 countries.
120 million DOI records.
Supported by 43 Crossref employees in five countries - France, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and the US.
46% of members based in Asia.
77 sponsors in 32 countries, first sponsor in N Africa.
Membership heavily weighted to smaller, less well-funded organisations - 97% eligible for the lowest fee tier and 57% working through a sponsor.
Universities and scholar-led are now the largest group (37%), followed by publishers (29%) and societies (24%).

2025

And so we find ourselves back in the present day.

With such steady growth, it’s pretty easy to predict almost exactly how many members we will have by 31st December 2025. By year-end, we would expect to have 23,800 members in 164 countries, with registered DOI records totalling around 177 million. With recent hiring, these members and our infrastructure will be supported by 52 Crossref employees in 14 different countries.

Member organisations are now a real mix, with museums, hospitals, botanic gardens, banks, and many more joining. The largest proportion remains those at a university or scholar-led (35%), but interestingly, we see the percentage who consider themselves to be societies starting to fall (19%) and publishers starting to grow again (29%).

And we see the arrival of a new type of member - since the launch of the Grant Linking System in 2019, we now see Research Funders joining Crossref in order to register identifiers for individual grants. These grant identifiers can then be included in the metadata for published content to uniquely identify the funding source, providing context and trust signals for the content, and fleshing out the Research Nexus. We currently have 45 funders who have registered over 175,000 grant records.

By 2025 we have 129 sponsors in 51 countries - including our first sponsors in East and West Africa who joined in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Half of all members are now based in Asia. 98% of members are now eligible for our lowest fee tier and 57% are working with us through a sponsor.

In 2023, we launched our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program, which offers relief from any membership and content registration fees for organisations in the least economically advantaged countries in the world. We use the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) list as our data source for countries to include in the program. When we launched the program, 187 existing members moved under the program. Since the program’s focus is to enable participation for those who would otherwise find Crossref unaffordable, we are happy that we now have 583 organisational members in the GEM Program, showing the growth in participation from lower-income nations. Most members in the GEM Program are based in Southern Asia (48%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (33%).

November 2025 at a glance

23,622 members in 164 countries.
175 million DOI records.
Supported by 52 Crossref employees from 14 countries - Armenia, Austria, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, the UK, and the US.
51% of members are based in Asia.
129 sponsors in 51 countries - first sponsors in East and West Africa.
98% of members are eligible for the lowest fee tier, and 57% working through a sponsor.
Real mix of organisation types - universities and scholar-led (35%), publishers (29%), societies (19%), but also research funders, museums, pharmaceutical companies, news agencies, and more!

Changes over the years

Here are some of that data over time, depicted in charts.

2026 and beyond

As you can see from our adventure through space and time, the types of organisations that work with Crossref have changed significantly over the years as the scholarly communications world has evolved. Our members now tend to be university-based research-performing organisations or scholar-led journals, based in Asia, and with low or zero publishing revenues (and volumes).

To meet our mission of a truly global and connected research ecosystem, it is essential to ensure that participation in Crossref and all our services and metadata is accessible to everyone involved in documenting scholarly progress.

We want to ensure that access to the Crossref infrastructure is equitable, so we are making two key changes in 2026: we’re extending eligibility for the GEM Program (more to follow), and we are introducing a new, lower-fee tier as an outcome of the RCFS projects more here.

We’re excited to see how our members will change as we head into our next 25 years—we hope you’ll continue with us on our journey and welcome all kinds of new members to the expansive and vibrant Crossref community.

Technically, this is only an adventure through time. At the time of writing, we have no members based in space. Unless you count the European Space Agency, NASA, et al. ↩︎

Celebrating Noyam Journals’ Metadata Award

Johanssen Obanda — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Noyam Journals, based in Accra, Ghana, was recently recognised for the completeness of its metadata through the Crossref Metadata Award, part of our 25th anniversary celebrations. Noyam was one of six publishers worldwide to receive the award and stood out as a leader among members of our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program.

The GEM Program supports publishers and organisations in low- and middle-income countries to participate in the global scholarly community by reducing barriers to membership and services.

Earlier this year, at our Crossref Accra event, representatives from Noyam spoke about how registering metadata with Crossref has expanded their readership worldwide. They also encouraged other publishers and institutions in Africa to utilise Crossref’s infrastructure to enhance the visibility and impact of their work.

Following their award, we spoke with Naa Kai Amanor-Mfoafo from Noyam Journals about their approach to metadata quality. She shares her reflections in the Q&A below.

What motivates your team to work towards high-quality metadata?

Our commitment towards high-quality metadata stems from our organisational goal to promote the dissemination of usable knowledge by publishing innovative and high-quality research content. Over the last five years, registering our metadata with Crossref has strengtheed authors’ trust as their institutions can verify quality through tools like Crossmark. For instance, many institutions use the Crossmark feature on our published articles to access the latest information about a scholarly article, including updates, corrections, or retractions.

Do you have a strategy for complete metadata?

We prioritise inclusion of ORCID IDs, Abstracts, and References as these increase visibility of our articles. We also include Affiliations, Licenses, and Crossmark, and we use Similarity Check to help ensure research integrity.

As part of our team structure, we have a dedicated staff member responsible for ensuring that every article is assigned a Crossref DOI on the same day it is published online. Our in-house system supports this process, allowing us to capture and register all the key metadata efficiently.

What impact of good metadata can you see on your organisation?

Good metadata has made a real difference for our organisation. It has helped increase the visibility and discoverability of our journal articles, making it easier for researchers and readers around the world to find and cite our work. We’ve noticed more engagement with our publications since improving our metadata, which encourages us to keep strengthening the quality of the information we register.

Have you encountered any challenges in curating or improving your metadata, and how did you address those?

One major challenge we’ve faced is discovering errors in previously uploaded metadata, and we haven’t yet established a systematic process for correcting them. We’re currently working to improve our workflow to help ensure the correctness of our metadata to follow Crossref’s recommended best practices.

Have your efforts around metadata led to real benefits for your community?

Our authors appreciate the fact that their ORCID profiles are automatically updated with their published articles once they are assigned DOIs from Crossref. They are, of course, also enjoying increased visibility of our published articles globally.

Looking ahead, how are you planning to build on your metadata quality?

We need to stay informed about developments at Crossref. Once in a while, we visit the Crossref website or participate in a webinar to stay informed. For example, a few months ago, we got to know that a new record registration form had been initiated for metadata uploads through the documentation section on the Crossref website.

We advise others who are new to Crossref to focus on consistency. Ensure your organisational system includes staff dedicated to keeping your metadata up to date. Secondly, feel free to seek technical support from the Crossref team when the need arises.

Integrating grant metadata for seamless research interconnectivity at FCCN|FCT

Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click here for the version in Portuguese

Welcome back to our series of case studies of research funders using the Grant Linking System. In this interview, I talk with Cátia Laranjeira, PTCRIS Program Manager at FCCN|FCT, Portugal’s main public funding agency, about the agency’s approach to metadata, persistent identifiers, Open Science and Open Infrastructure. With a holistic approach to the management, production and access to information on science, FCCN|FCT’s decision to implement the Grant Linking System within their processes was not simply a technical upgrade, but a coordinated effort to continue building a strong culture of openness. With the mantra “register once, reuse always”, FCCN|FCT efforts to embrace open funding metadata was only logical.

Could you introduce your organisation?

We are FCCN, the digital services of the FCT, the Foundation for Science and Technology, which is the main public funding agency in Portugal. FCT supports research and innovation in Portugal through multiple funding instruments targeting researchers, projects, institutions and international partnerships. FCCN is focused on providing digital services to the scientific and academic community in Portugal.

I am the manager of a program called PTCRIS, part of the FCCN, within the ‘Scientific Knowledge’ pillar of the unit. PTCRIS is a broad program, whose main goal is to fulfill the mantra ‘register once, reuse always’. We aim to develop an integrated ecosystem of scientific information, so all the projects we run have this main goal and that’s what we work towards. We develop infrastructure and added-value services, such as the scientific curriculum vitae management platform and an indicator system that exposes information of all the funding that supports research and innovation in Portugal.

What motivated you to join Crossref?

We had already adopted ORCID and we also developed a national PID, connected to the citizen card additional to ORCIDs. In 2015 we adopted the ISNI and we also had DOIs for research outputs. So we were clearly missing one piece, which was metadata for funding. At the same time we started developing a national infrastructure on science and technology funding, to have an aggregated and holistic view of the funding that is distributed in Portugal.

Before that the information was scattered across different databases and websites from many different funders, so we organised and aggregated this information into a platform called SciPROJ, which brings together all the information on scientific funding in one place, with quick and flexible access. But we didn’t have persistent identifiers for grants, and this was at the same time that Crossref started to build the Grant Linking System, so we were actually one of the first organisations to join, and in 2023 we had a pilot, where we registered 6000 grants, and we have been registering funding metadata ever since.

Can you tell us about your experience using the Grant Linking System?

The beginning of the pilot was the most critical stage of the process; some effort was needed to map our data models to the Crossref grant metadata schema. FCCN wasn’t in a bad position to do this since we already had all that information in a registry and it was well organised, we just had to map them to make sure that the information we had could be shared following the Crossref metadata schema and best practices. It has been two years since the pilot, which puts us in phase 2 of the implementation of the system. During the pilot we concentrated on registering both historical and current grants’ metadata, in the current phase, we are focusing on current grants’ metadata.

What do you find useful about registering grant metadata with Crossref?

Although this is the very beginning of this journey, we envision a world where we have the ability to link grants to any other object and entity that comprises the ecosystem: people that execute that funding, projects, institutions, outputs. Outputs are something particularly important to us, like for many other funders, because we want to be able to monitor the impact of our funding and that is something that is always at the back of our mind.

We are actually developing more and more services that aim to show how these links can be very useful to retrieve information from the system. For example, we are developing an indicator system that is focusing on the funding but also on the outputs and the links between the two. We are also monitoring OA trends, to see how FCT funding is contributing to Open Science initiatives.

Additionally, our OA policy was recently launched but we currently don’t have any system that allows us to track policy compliance. We are working towards that, but to achieve this it is absolutely fundamental that grants are linked to the outputs through metadata.

What are your hopes for the GLS and greater transparency in funding metadata in general?

The interconnectivity and interoperability of entities and objects, which is something that the field of scientific information management has always wanted to do, but that it’s very difficult to do. There have been attempts in the past to achieve this using information from the acknowledgement sections of publications, but this is fairly inefficient and there needs to be more structure to it. A critical piece of this puzzle would be to influence publishers, manuscript submission platforms to facilitate the systematic sharing of grant IDs and grant metadata by design. I think this is something that is still missing and that I would like to see happening soon.

Has anything surprised you while implementing the Grant Linking System?

Something that we have seen that was surprising was that researchers, who in general are not that concerned about PIDs, when it came to grant IDs, they would ask us proactively what the Crossref grant ID for their award was! It was very refreshing to see that we didn’t need to do any advertising to socialize Crossref grant IDs among our grant holders. I think that tells you about the high level of awareness there is within our community of the importance of the Crossref grant ID, using it and putting it in the acknowledgment section of their publications.

Based on your experience, what would be your advice for colleagues from other research funders?

I would say go for it! The more the merrier! This is like any other similar information system – it only works if there are enough people using it, registering grants metadata that facilitate the links between objects.

It is a very easy process to get into. Once you map the metadata schema to your own data it’s not a technically difficult thing to do. For us it’s an automated process that runs very smoothly, from grant registration to communicating this information to grant holders. We can see this in action in this example: the grantee published an article that acknowledges their funding through Crossref’s grants IDs or funding received being acknowledged in the website of a Research Center.

If you could change something about the GLS or how the grant metadata you register is used, what would it be?

I would love to have access to a visualization of grants’ metadata, how many outputs are linked to, and how they relate to other objects and entities. That would really give us a clearer understanding of the impact that our funding is having. We’d also love to see better integration between Crossref and ORCID for grants—just like it works for publications. Ideally, when a grant is registered and linked to a researcher, they’d be notified and could easily add it to their ORCID record. This would allow the information to flow seamlessly into their national CV via PTCRISsync, ensuring consistency and reducing manual work.

We are grateful to Cátia Laranjeira and FCT|FCCN for sharing their perspective and long-standing experience in this space. Their experience highlights the role that funding metadata plays in an interconnected and complete research and funding ecosystem.

Version in Portuguese

Translation by Edilson Damasio

Integração de metadados de financiamento pela FCCN|FCT para reforçar a interoperabilidade da informação sobre a atividade científica

Bem-vindo(a) de volta à nossa série de estudos de caso sobre instituições financiadoras de investigação que utilizam o Grant Linking System. Nesta entrevista, conversamos com Cátia Laranjeira, gestora do programa PTCRIS na FCCN|FCT, a principal agência pública de financiamento à ciência em Portugal, sobre a abordagem da instituição aos metadados, identificadores persistentes, Ciência Aberta e Infraestruturas Abertas.

Com uma abordagem holística à gestão, produção e acesso à informação científica, a decisão da FCCN|FCT de integrar o Grant Linking System nos seus processos não representou apenas uma evolução técnica, mas sim um esforço coordenado para consolidar uma forte cultura de abertura. Sob o lema “registar uma vez, reutilizar sempre”, a adoção de metadados abertos de financiamento pela FCCN|FCT foi um passo natural e coerente com essa visão.

Poderia apresentar a sua organização?

A FCCN é a unidade de serviços digitais da FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, a principal agência pública de financiamento à ciência em Portugal. A FCT apoia a investigação e a inovação através de diversos instrumentos de financiamento dirigidos a investigadores, projetos, instituições e parcerias internacionais. A FCCN dedica-se a disponibilizar serviços digitais à comunidade científica e académica portuguesa.

Na FCCN|FCT, sou gestora do PTCRIS, um programa integrado no pilar do Conhecimento Científico. O PTCRIS é um programa abrangente que tem como objetivo central concretizar o princípio “registar uma vez, reutilizar sempre”. Trabalhamos para desenvolver um ecossistema integrado de informação científica, e todos os projetos que conduzimos convergem nesse propósito. Desenvolvemos infraestruturas e serviços de valor acrescentado, como a plataforma de gestão do currículo científico CIÊNCIAVITAE e um sistema de indicadores que disponibiliza informação sobre todos os financiamentos que apoiam a investigação e a inovação em Portugal.

O que motivou a adesão à Crossref?

A FCCN tinha já adotado o ORCID e desenvolvido um identificador nacional persistente (PID), ligado ao cartão de cidadão, como complemento aos ORCIDs. Em 2015, adotámos o ISNI e também tínhamos DOIs para a produção científica. Ficava claramente em falta um elemento: os metadados de financiamento.

Ao mesmo tempo, iniciámos o desenvolvimento de uma infraestrutura nacional de financiamentos de ciência e tecnologia, com o objetivo de ter uma visão agregada e holística do financiamento que suporta a investigação e inovação em Portugal.

Antes disso, a informação estava dispersa por diferentes bases de dados e websites de múltiplos financiadores. Organizámos e agregámos esta informação numa plataforma chamada SciPROJ, que reúne toda a informação sobre financiamentos científicos num único local, com acesso rápido e flexível. No entanto, ainda não existiam identificadores persistentes para os financiamentos, coincidindo com o momento em que a Crossref começou a desenvolver o Grant Linking System. Fomos, assim, uma das primeiras organizações a aderir. Em 2023, realizámos um piloto com 6.000 financiamentos registados, e desde então temos vindo a registar continuamente os metadados de financiamento.

Pode falar-nos sobre a sua experiência com o Grant Linking System?

A FCCN iniciou a utilização do Grant Linking System com um piloto, que constituiu a fase mais crítica do processo. Foi necessário algum esforço para mapear os nossos modelos de dados para o esquema de metadados de financiamentos da Crossref. A FCCN estava, no entanto, bem posicionada para isso, uma vez que já dispunha de toda a informação num registo organizado; o passo necessário foi apenas assegurar que esta informação pudesse ser partilhada de acordo com o esquema de metadados da Crossref e as melhores práticas.

Já passaram dois anos desde o piloto, o que nos coloca na fase 2 de implementação do sistema. Durante o piloto, focámo-nos no registo de metadados de financiamentos históricos e atuais; na fase atual, estamos focados no registo de metadados de financiamentos atuais.

O que considera útil no registo de metadados de financiamento na Crossref?

Embora este seja ainda o início deste percurso, a FCCN idealiza um ecossistema em que seja possível ligar financiamentos a qualquer outro objeto ou entidade do sistema científico — projetos, pessoas que executam esses financiamentos, instituições onde são executados e produções científicas que dele resultam. Estes últimos são particularmente importantes para nós, como para muitos outros financiadores, pois queremos monitorizar o impacto do financiamento — uma preocupação que está sempre presente no nosso trabalho.

Estamos, de facto, a desenvolver serviços que demonstram o valor dessas ligações para a recuperação de informação no sistema. Um exemplo é o sistema de indicadores em desenvolvimento, que se centra nos financiamentos, nas produções científicas e nas relações entre ambos. Estamos também a acompanhar as tendências de Ciência Aberta, para perceber de que forma o financiamento da FCT está a contribuir para as iniciativas de Open Science.

Além disso, a política de Acesso Aberto da FCT foi recentemente lançada, mas ainda não dispomos de um sistema que permita monitorizar a conformidade com essa política. Estamos a trabalhar nesse sentido, mas para o concretizar é absolutamente essencial que consigamos associar inequivocamente os financiamentos às produções científicas através de metadados.

Quais são as suas expectativas para o GLS e para uma maior transparência dos metadados de financiamento em geral?

A interconectividade e interoperabilidade entre entidades e objetos é algo que a área da gestão de informação científica sempre procurou alcançar — embora seja um objetivo difícil de concretizar. No passado, houve várias tentativas nesse sentido, recorrendo à informação presente nas secções de agradecimentos das publicações, mas esse método revelou-se pouco eficiente e carece de uma estrutura mais sistemática.

Uma peça essencial deste puzzle seria influenciar as editoras e as plataformas de submissão de manuscritos a facilitarem a partilha sistemática de identificadores e metadados de financiamento. Este é um elemento que ainda falta concretizar, mas que gostaríamos de ver implementado em breve.

Algo o surpreendeu durante a implementação do Grant Linking System?

Algo que nos surpreendeu durante a implementação do Grant Linking System foi a reação dos investigadores. Normalmente, os investigadores não demonstram grande preocupação com identificadores persistentes (PIDs), mas, neste caso, começaram a procurar ativamente o identificador Crossref do seu financiamento! Foi muito positivo perceber que não foi necessário fazer qualquer esforço de divulgação para promover o uso dos Grant IDs da Crossref entre os beneficiários dos financiamentos. Isso mostra o nível de consciência existente na comunidade científica sobre a importância destes identificadores — usá-los e incluí-los na secção de agradecimentos das publicações.

Com base na sua experiência, qual seria o seu conselho para colegas de outros financiadores de investigação?

Com base na nossa experiência, o conselho para outros financiadores seria simples: avancem! Quanto mais, melhor! Este tipo de sistema de informação só é verdadeiramente eficaz quando há muitas entidades a utilizá-lo, a registar metadados de financiamento e a criar ligações entre objetos.

É também um processo simples de implementar. Uma vez feito o mapeamento entre o esquema de metadados e os dados internos da instituição, não há grandes desafios técnicos. No nosso caso, o processo é totalmente automatizado e flui de forma eficiente, desde o registo do financiamento até à comunicação dessa informação aos beneficiários. É possível ver isso em prática em vários exemplos — desde artigos que reconhecem o financiamento através dos Grant IDs da Crossref até ao reconhecimento do apoio financeiro nos sites dos centros de investigação.

Se pudesse alterar algo no GLS ou na forma como os metadados dos subsídios que regista são utilizados, o que seria?

Se pudéssemos mudar algo no Grant Linking System ou na forma como os metadados de financiamento são utilizados, gostaríamos de ter acesso a uma visualização interativa que mostrasse quantas produções científicas estão ligadas a cada financiamento e como esses se relacionam com outras entidades e objetos. Isso permitiria compreender de forma muito mais clara o impacto real dos financiamentos.

Gostaríamos também de ver uma melhor integração entre a Crossref e o ORCID no que respeita aos financiamentos — tal como já acontece com as publicações. Idealmente, quando um financiamento fosse registado e associado a um investigador, este seria notificado e poderia adicioná-lo facilmente ao seu registo ORCID. Assim, a informação fluiria automaticamente para o currículo nacional via PTCRISsync, garantindo consistência e reduzindo o trabalho manual.

Agradecemos à Cátia Laranjeira e à FCT|FCCN por partilharem a sua perspetiva e longa experiência neste domínio. A sua experiência destaca o papel que os metadados de financiamento desempenham num ecossistema de investigação e financiamento interligado e completo.

Piecing together the Research Nexus: uncovering relationships with open funding metadata

Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Crossref Grant Linking System (GLS) has been facilitating the registration, sharing and re-use of open funding metadata for six years now, and we have reached some important milestones recently! What started as an interest in identifying funders through the Open Funder Registry evolved to a more nuanced and comprehensive way to share and re-use open funding data systematically. That’s how, in collaboration with the funding community, the Crossref Grant Linking System was developed. Open funding metadata is fundamental for the transparency and integrity of the research endeavour, so we are happy to see them included in the Research Nexus.

As emphasised recently by Hans de Jonge from NWO, funding metadata’s value is in the transparency of the relationships it enables. The system is powered by the collective action of the research community– including research funders – that registers open metadata with Crossref, making these relationships possible. With close to 180,000 grant records in our corpus we wanted to know how far they reach and what story they tell.

In March 2022, we developed an approach for linking grants to research outputs and analysed how many such relationships could be established. Now we’re able to present the latest dataset that contains relationships between grants and research outputs, both those deposited by Crossref members and discovered by an automated matching strategy. It includes data deposited up to the end of July 2025.

This work is part of our ongoing Metadata Matching project.

What exactly is in this new open dataset of grant<>output relationships?

The dataset contains 250,163 total funding relationships between grants and research outputs.
We welcomed a number of funders, such as the Dutch Research Council and Fonds de Recherche du Quebec, which together registered almost 27,000 grants in the past year.
It’s clear that the more grant metadata is registered the more funding relationships we can uncover.
The percentage of relationships that are registered explicitly by Crossref members providing grants IDs in funding information has grown from less than 0.1% in 2023 to 1% (modest numbers but amazing growth!).

The methodology

We created a dataset of relationships between grants and research outputs by analysing their metadata in several ways. A relationship is included in the dataset if at least one of the following conditions is met:

A relationship was explicitly deposited by a Crossref member through a finances or isFinancedBy relationship: 488 (0.2%) relationships
The research output contains the grant DOI within the award number in the funding metadata: 2,003 (0.8%) relationships
The award numbers in the grant and the research output are similar, and the associated funding organisations are either the same, or one is the sub-organisation of the other: 247,672 (99%) relationships

The dataset includes data deposited until the end of July 2025 and contains 250,163 total relationships.

The code used to generate the dataset is available in our GitLab repository.

The results

As you can see in the graph below, the number of relationships grant-research output continues to grow as the number of grants records Crossref members register with us increases.

Figure 1: Cumulative totals of grants, linked grants, research outputs, and grant–research output relationships from 2019 to 2025. Stepwise increases correspond to the addition of major funder datasets, including Wellcome (2020), OSTI (2021), JST (2022), the European Union (2022), the Austrian Science Fund (2023), and the Fonds de recherche du Québec (2025).

Looking at the numbers broken down by grant registrants we can see that the more grants registered the more relationships can be uncovered. The table below shows funders who have at least 1,000 total grants registered and for whom at least 10% of their registered grants are linked to research outputs, showing the number of relationships, grants, linked grants and linked research outputs (sorted by the percentage of linked grants), and compared with the data from the 2023 analysis (where available) to see how the uptake of open funding metadata is evolving.

Funder	Relationships		Linked research outputs		Grants		Number of linked grants		Percentage of linked grants
Funder	2023	2025	2023	2025	2023	2025	2023	2025	2023	2025
European Union	86,979	128,572	78,576	114,491	39,703	53,473	14,860	21,402	37.4%	40%
Japan Science and Technology Agency	19,549	30,728	16,265	25,003	9,923	11,866	2,609	3,900	26.3%	32.9%
Wellcome	34,254	45,596	25,720	33,783	17,547	19,929	5,238	6,206	29.9%	31.1%
American Cancer Society	50	604	49	586	380	1,162	34	277	8.9%	23.8%
American Heart Association (AHA)	40	1,040	38	935	598	2,764	30	621	5%	22.5%
Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia	0	27,915	0	15,681	5	17,422	0	3,793	–	21.8%
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)	–	10,387	–	7,459	–	19,576	–	2,712	–	13.9%

Table 1: Comparison between data from 2023-07-31 and 2025-07-31 of a number of Crossref members registering grants. It shows the number of relationships, grants, linked grants and linked research outputs, sorted by the percentage of linked grants.

We encourage funders to join as members once they have determined the means of effective implementation of the GLS within their processes. By further analysing metadata of matched outputs, funders have the opportunity to monitor compliance with their policies and learn more about the impact of their programs.

Following through funders’ Open Science commitments

The relationships showcased above and in the recent analysis are powered by open funding metadata. Open funding metadata plays a central role in building a transparent, accountable and high integrity research environment by making visible the connections between the funding, grantees, research outputs, and their impact. Funders’ openness mandates and Open Science commitments emphasize the importance of traceability in the research process, so ensuring that the support given-whether financial or otherwise-can be systematically recorded and shared is instrumental. Openness is also part of the strategic plans of institutions such as the International Science Council, who has explicitly called for greater transparency in funding as a way to strengthen trust in science and counter misinformation. At the same time, initiatives such as the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information underscores the benefits of open, reusable funding metadata for monitoring, evaluation and assessment of research and researchers.

Crossref’s Grant Linking System offers funders’ a way to demonstrate a commitment to openness, modeling the standards they expect of the research community they support, while creating a more robust, trustworthy and collaborative research ecosystem.

Economy of scale: unlocking relationships with Crossref

Crossref houses millions of records, from the ubiquitous research articles and preprints, to books, peer review records, technical reports, datasets – you name it. Our members not only register, but also regularly update their metadata as new or corrected information becomes available. Our matching workflows allow us to make visible the hidden relationships and complete and improve the metadata records by adding new and reciprocal assertions.

This analysis shows the unique value of registering funding metadata with Crossref and adding an essential piece to the Research Nexus puzzle. The relationship metadata allows the funding that underpins the research process to be connected, and contextualise scattered data points, acting as an anchor that links publications, people, and other research outputs. This is made possible by the impressive number of records continuously being registered by more than 23,000 member organisations, and by the increasing availability of funding information in the system with more research funders joining in and registering their grant metadata with us.

Next steps

As we welcome more and more funders to the GLS, we, collectively, continue to complete the Research Nexus, record by record, field by field. The more awards we have in our corpus the more relationships we’ll uncover, so we’ll keep making these analyses periodically to make sure we don’t miss them.

But it is not all on us. We are working towards a vision where Crossref Grant IDs are business as usual – where funders register their awards, grantees are aware of them and share them with publishers, and those publishers share them back with us when registering their content – closing the loop organically. We continue working on making this easier. In the upcoming works schema update a specific Crossref Grant ID field will be added in the funding information, alongside Award ID (for an internal identifier).

Crucially, as the momentum of adoption among funders increases, and thousands of Crossref Grant IDs are available in the system, we are working with all members to raise their attention to the importance and desirability of funding metadata, so inclusion of that information in metadata of all works increases and consequently, the percentage of relationships asserted by Crossref members can grow.

This matching analysis is just one example of what we do to enrich metadata to highlight relationships among works, individuals, institutions, and actions. Earlier this year, we launched the Metadata Matching project, which is a major effort to rebuild our matching workflows using modern software development and data science practices. As part of the project, we plan to expose additional matched relationships between grants and research outputs in our REST API, alongside those deposited by our members. We’ll keep you updated as we go along!

Read more about metadata matching in the blog series:

Crossref and PKP enter new partnership phase to support richer and more inclusive metadata

Kornelia Korzec — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref and the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) have been working closely together for many years, sharing resources and supporting our overlapping communities of organisations involved in communicating research. Now we’re delighted to share that we have agreed on a new set of objectives for our partnership, centred on further development of the tools that our shared community relies upon, as well as building capacity to enable richer metadata registration for organisations using the Open Journal Systems (OJS).

Crossref is working towards the vision of a rich and open network underpinning global scholarship, making relationships between works, people, institutions, and actions visible, thanks to the thread of metadata – the research nexus. This vision depends upon participation of research communication organisations coming from all parts of the world, disciplines, and languages. Working with PKP towards making tools for metadata registration more comprehensive, accessible, and easier to use is a big step towards supporting our community to participate in the research nexus.

The renewed partnership has three main goals:

Developments to improve experience and support metadata registration workflows in OJS, bringing relevant functionalities together under the Crossref plug-in, and developing an OMP Crossref plug-in.
Joint community engagement in support of transitioning OJS users to the future Long-Term Support (LTS) version of OJS, which will enable richer metadata registration.
Creation of a PKP School self-paced training course for system administrators.

Crossref and PKP have a rich history of collaboration, including previous investment in tools development in 2020, which resulted in some vital improvements to Crossref metadata management in OJS and a more streamlined experience for Crossref members on the platform, as well as many collaborative community events and training.

We know that thousands of Crossref members use OJS to register their metadata. Many are based in resource-constrained institutions, so the training provided by Crossref and PKP will be key to building their capacity to participate in the research nexus. With OJS 3.5 empowering organisations to register richer metadata, we look forward to opening up more opportunities for members to enhance their participation.

At PKP, we’re excited to deepen our longstanding collaboration with Crossref, supporting our global community in amplifying the visibility and impact of their research through streamlined integration for robust metadata management. By working together on both technological innovation and capacity-building initiatives, we anticipate even greater outcomes that will strengthen open scholarship throughout the duration of this partnership and well into the future.” – said Kevin Stranack, PKP Director of Operations.

– Kevin Stranack, PKP Director of Operations

About Crossref

Crossref runs an open infrastructure to link research objects, entities, and actions, creating a lasting and reusable scholarly record that underpins open science. Together with their 23,000 members in 164 countries, Crossref drives metadata exchange and supports nearly 2 billion monthly API queries, facilitating global research communication, for the benefit of society.

About PKP

Public Knowledge Project (PKP) seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality, reach, and diversity of academic research through the research, development, implementation, and support of innovative open source software to support scholarly publishing and communication.

Raising the standard: GigaScience Press on metadata and discoverability

Scott Edmunds — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

To mark Crossref’s 25th anniversary, we launched our first Metadata Awards to highlight members with the best metadata practices. GigaScience Press, based in Hong Kong, was the leader among small publishers, defined as organisations with less than USD 1 million in publishing revenue or expenses. We spoke with Scott Edmunds, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief at GigaScience Press, about how discoverability drives their high metadata standards.

What motivates your organisation/team to work towards high-quality metadata? What objectives does it support for your organisation?

Our objective is to communicate science openly and collaboratively, without barriers, to solve problems in a data- and evidence-driven manner through Open Science publishing. High-quality metadata helps us address these objectives by improving the discoverability, transparency, and provenance of the work we publish. It is an integral part of the FAIR principles and UNESCO Open Science Recommendation, playing a role in increasing the accessibility of research for both humans and machines. As one of the authors of the FAIR principles paper and an advisor of the Make Data Count project, I’ve also personally been very conscious to practice what I preach.

Do you have a strategy for complete metadata? Which elements did you prioritise? What workflows, tools, or collaborations helped you get there?

We’ve been privileged to work with our technical partners at River Valley Technologies, and the novel XML-first publishing platform they have developed has made it particularly easy to integrate and collect persistent identifiers and other metadata, embedding it into the resulting rich-XML. As Open Access advocates, licensing and machine readability were early focuses when launching our journals. We ensured that we provided a text and data mining portal, allowing bulk downloads of our content to encourage reuse. Many specific metadata elements highlighted by the FAIR principles and UNESCO Open Science recommendations, and so these have also helped guide what should be prioritised. If there’s one specific tool to mention, we’ve been big fans of the Crossref participation reports, as this has helped highlight what is missing and what we need to improve upon.

How have you integrated these into your metadata processes?

The participation reports, in particular, have been useful for this, and by regularly checking them, we’ve managed to spot when processes have broken, for example. When you’ve added new fields to the reports like ROR IDs (Research Organization Registry), this has also motivated us to prioritise integrating these, so having a curated list of metadata fields like this definitively helps users focus on what should be the most important. River Valley Technologies has been very responsive to this type of feedback, and being able to see the participation report data in real-time has helped drive them to fix and update our metadata. So I thank them for being so patient and quick to respond to our very demanding standards.

What impact of good metadata can you see for your organisation?

From an Editorial side, our technical partners at River Valley Technologies have found having this metadata information available very useful in the Research Integrity tools they have developed and integrated into our publication platform. Things like ORCID IDs, RORs, and other identifiers are very useful for tracking provenance and increasing trust.

From a business side, putting the effort into collecting rich metadata has paid off in the long run by making it easier to integrate our publishing data into new platforms. Making it easier and quicker to integrate and track our data via OA Switchboard, for example. It also helps us more easily mirror and list our content in indexes like PMC, Scopus, Web of Science, and others.

Have you encountered any challenges in curating or improving your metadata?

One of the main metadata areas that has currently let us down, funding and registries, is because our publishing model is so affordable. The automated production processes from RVT’s novel publishing platform have allowed us to publish very cost-effectively (the APC of GigaByte is $535). We’ve also received sponsorship from the WHO to publish a series of public health papers, particularly supporting authors from the Global South who may not have sources of funding listed in these registries. Because of this, we’ve published numerous papers from independent researchers, students, and self-financed projects that may not have funding IDs or grant numbers. We’d like to push to get “unfunded” counted as a metadata field to address this.

Have your efforts regarding metadata yielded tangible benefits for your community? Is this something your editors, authors, or readers are aware of and appreciate? If so, why?

We’d like to think our authors find this useful, but we’ve not had any specific feedback on this. Our readers, both human and machine, should hopefully appreciate finding our work more easily, and from a purely selfish perspective, should get us higher access and citations. This is difficult to measure, but as evidence nerds, we have attempted to conduct RCTs examining this for Data Citations. One anecdote I can give is about the author who told us they pasted their paper into ChatGPT and asked it which was the best journal for their work, and it suggested our journal. I’d like to think that putting in this effort in making our papers more machine-readable and comprehensible pays off at times like this to make the discoverability and visibility of our journals greater.

Looking ahead, how are you planning to build on your metadata quality? Are there new elements or practices you’re exploring? And what advice would you give to others just starting to strengthen their metadata?

We still need to update older content with RORs, and improve it for the datasets linked to our papers. To do this, we’ve had interns working to improve our DataCite metadata.

We encourage others to think about metadata issues when setting up their workflows. While it may seem like additional work, it will be increasingly important to future-proof and get journals ready for our increasingly AI-centric age. And as we show here, we can more easily carry out important tasks like getting your content more quickly and widely indexed and disseminated.

Strong metadata ties open science, integrity, and discoverability together. GigaScience Press shows how consistent identifiers, machine-readable formats, and continuous checks deliver real benefits. As discovery becomes more AI-assisted, the priority is clear: keep metadata complete, open, and usable.

While it may seem like additional work, it will be increasingly important to future-proof and get journals ready for our increasingly AI-centric age.

– Scott Edmunds, GigaScience

Now, a few words from Scott.

Metadata Awards video - Gigascience

Deprecating co-access: Crossref plans and timelines

Isaac Farley — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

To date, there are about 100 Crossref members who have made use of our co-access service for one or more of their books. The service was designed to be a last-resort measure when multiple parties - book publishers, aggregators, and other members - had rights to register book content. Unfortunately, the service allowed members to register multiple DOIs for shared books and book chapters, thereby violating our own core tenet of one DOI per content item. We should not have created a service that violated that tenet, resulting in duplicate DOIs. As we are able to offer an alternative in the form of the multiple resolution service, it is time to switch co-access off. Among other benefits – for the publisher and the authors, creation of a single DOI for each item, regardless of where it might be hosted, will result in more accurate citation counts and usage statistics. We’re retiring co-access at the end of 2026.

An idiom to start

There’s an idiom used in technology circles called ‘eating your own dog food.’ It’s used to describe an organization that tests or uses its own products in the real world. I’m no developer and only have a handful of years of exposure to this phrase, but I’ve always wanted to work it into one of my blog posts. The visceral reactions I have observed when it’s been used on internal calls are just too tempting. That, and I think it applies to our own rollout of and missteps with a service we call co-access. The decision to enable co-access reflected the priorities of that period, but we can now improve on it with an upgraded multiple resolution service. That rickety footing for co-access doomed it from the start. Now’s the time to face the music and swallow our own kibble.

Always meant as a last-resort measure, co-access allows multiple Crossref members to register metadata for shared book and book chapter content. Thus, use of co-access results in multiple, duplicate DOIs registered for the same book content. There are well over 500,000 DOIs in co-access within our corpus today. At least half of those are duplicates (more on this below).

This is far from ideal and has adverse consequences for the integrity of the scholarly record and the community. As we are able to offer an alternative in the form of the multiple resolution service, it is time to switch co-access off.

Among other benefits – for the publisher and the authors, creation of a single DOI for each item, regardless of where it might be hosted, will result in more accurate citation counts and usage statistics.

Duplicate DOIs

We frequently receive questions from members, metadata users, and others in the community, like this one, asking us what we are doing to combat the very real problem of registration and propagation of duplicate DOIs. We do take measures to prevent the registration of duplicate DOIs, including flagging registration of potential duplicate records to our members using what we call conflicts and conflict reports. As you might expect, this has been a sensitive topic for us, because we have one glaring service, yes, co-access, that has been actively exacerbating the issue of duplicate DOIs.

So, while we have been actively trying to counter the rise of duplicate DOIs, co-access enabled duplicate registrations of book DOIs. For every prefix that we configured for the service, we knew we were contributing to the problem (our members noticed too. As I said above, co-access allows multiple members to register their own DOI for shared book content. That means that book content in co-access has at least two DOIs registered. In some cases, there is book content with five or more registered DOIs for a single book. That’s a great many duplicates that this service is responsible for.

Replacing co-access

We plan to replace co-access with an existing tool, multiple resolution, which allows for more than one resolution URL to be registered to a single DOI. A user resolving the DOI is presented with an interim page, allowing them to choose from the various content sources registered with this DOI. We’ve made some progress toward making multiple resolution simpler for members to implement, but we still have more to do.

We’re aware that the technical steps involved in adopting multiple resolution might present a barrier to implementation for some of our members. To help with the transition, we are working on a basic tool (currently in beta) that simplifies the process. We will make it available to members between now and the middle of 2026.

Our timeline

We are not going to make these changes tomorrow. We’re going to give members who have been using co-access time to adjust. Right now, we trigger co-access when a secondary DOI is registered by a secondary registrant (member) that: 1) is already in a co-access group within our system with the DOI prefix that registered the original DOI, 2) has at least one shared ISBN with the metadata of that original DOI, and 3) has a title (in the title element of the book or chapter XML) that exactly matches the title of the original DOI. We’re going to stop triggering co-access for book and book chapter registrations starting 2026 July 1. No new DOIs will be placed in co-access starting then.

From there, there will be six months to clean up records already in co-access. One definitive DOI should be selected by the parties in a co-access group; the DOIs that will no longer be maintained for those books and book chapters should be aliased to the primary (definitive) DOI that will be maintained going forward. The primary DOI should be the DOI used on all landing pages for that book (or, book chapter).

In January 2027, if co-access DOIs have not been aliased to one another, we will force alias the DOIs in the record to the DOI registered by the organization identified as the publisher in the metadata records already in our system. At any point in this timeline, our team will be happy to help with the registration of secondary URLs in order to move books from co-access to multiple resolution. As a result, we will encourage members, end users, and the broader community to move back to using a single, definitive source of truth for these books and book chapters.

What will registration of books and book chapters look like post-co-access?

Coordinated. We expect that our members and their publishing partners will define the single DOI for each book and book chapter well upstream of Crossref, so all entities and their systems will use that one definitive DOI.

As for the registration process and our system, the first member to register the book (and its ISBNs) will establish the DOI for that book and its chapters. Following attempts to register the same content, with a duplicate book-level DOI(s), will fail the registration. Multiple DOIs for the same book or book chapter should be avoided starting 2026 July 01, as we will no longer be able to place books and book chapters into co-access.

We believe this will result in increased cited-by and usage metrics for that single DOI, and a cleaner, more accurate scholarly record.

We’d love to hear your reaction to this news in our Community Forum.

Celebrating one year of Crossref Grant IDs at NWO

Hans de Jonge — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This month marks one year since the Dutch Research Council (NWO) introduced grant IDs—an important milestone in our journey toward more transparent and trackable research funding. We created over 1,600 Crossref Grant IDs with associated metadata. We are beginning to see them appear in publications. These early examples show the enormous potential Grant IDs have. They also highlight that publishers could extend their efforts to improve the quality of funding metadata of publications.

The promise of grant linking

For decades, funders have struggled with a seemingly simple challenge: tracking the research outputs that arise from their funding. The traditional approach—requiring grantees to cite their grants in acknowledgement sections of their papers—has all kinds of problems. Authors make many errors in providing this information, and even when funding organizations and schemes are cited correctly, there is no guarantee that a grant number is globally unique and not already in use by another funding council in the world.

To address these issues, and in collaboration with the research funding community, Crossref introduced the Grant Linking System (GLS) six years ago. The system allows funding organizations to assign globally unique and persistent identifiers to their grants, but - more importantly - the system allows connecting these grants with the outputs arising from them. The vision is straightforward: authors include Grant IDs (which are Crossref DOIs) in the funding acknowledgements of their research articles. Publishers either take these IDs from the acknowledgement or proactively ask authors for these IDs in their submission system. Next, when a publisher registers their publication with Crossref, it includes the grant identifier in the metadata of that publication, creating an unambiguous link between the publication and the grants from which the research was funded.

This last step—including the Grant ID in the metadata of the article when registering the publication with Crossref—is a crucial part of the system as it enables anyone to automatically retrieve all publications arising from a given grant over time via the Crossref API. Funding organizations interested in tracking the impact of their funding could then stop asking their grantees to manually report on the outputs of their funding, as most still do today. Instead, this information would become open data that funding organizations harvest directly themselves, reducing administrative burden on researchers while enhancing the ability to track the impact of their funding.

As Robert Kiley, former head of Open Research at the Wellcome Trust, which piloted the GLS in 2018, put it: “…if every funder were to adopt such a system and expose their grant metadata in a consistent, machine-readable way, it would facilitate the development of applications to help funders get a greatly enhanced picture of the global funding landscape, which in turn would inform strategic planning and resource allocation.”

NWO’s implementation journey

NWO joined Crossref’s Grant Linking System in 2024. It reflects our broader commitment to open science and aligns with our Persistent Identifier Strategy published in 2021, and our support for the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information. Since August 2024, all new grants awarded from July 2024 onward receive a Crossref Grant ID that persistently resolves to the information about the grant on our website, displaying all basic award information including project titles, summaries, grantee names, and affiliations. NWO is one of the 44 funding organizations worldwide that have introduced Crossref Grant IDs for their collective 111 funding programs. Other organizations include the European Commission, OSTI-DOE, the Wellcome Trust, Moore Foundation, Fonds de Recherche du Québec, CSIRO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, and the Austrian Science Fund.

Although it took time, implementation at NWO in general proceeded smoothly. Over the course of a year, we’ve registered over 1,500 grant records without experiencing difficulties or complaints from researchers. On the contrary, after we announced the introduction of Grant IDs, some researchers expressed disappointment on our decision—for practical reasons—to only register DOIs for new grants instead of the entire historical record. This shows that researchers understand the importance of persistent identifiers. Already, a year after its introduction, we are seeing the first NWO Grant IDs appearing in publications— showing that researchers are taking the extra step to look up their Crossref Grant ID and include it in their articles, as we are asking them to do. However, publishers don’t always manage to handle these identifiers in the way we expect them to.

Linking grants to publications in real life

One of the first publications to include an NWO Grant ID is a paper by Weile et al., published by the American Physical Society (APS) in the journal Physical Review X. On the left, we see the funding information provided by the authors, as included in the acknowledgement section of the published article. Funding by NWO from its Talent Scheme VIDI is identified with a Grant ID https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.61686/YDRHT18202.

On the right, we see how APS has included this information in the metadata of the publication: NWO is identified with its Funder ID and the grant with the Grant ID - forging an unambiguous link between funding and publication, initially between this particular grant and this particular publication, but potentially in the future between this grant and all other outputs arising from it. This works so long as all publishers include this information in the metadata of their publications; we need to encourage more publishers and other Crossref members (e.g., preprint services, repositories, blog platforms) to follow the APS example and do the same.

Where publishers fall short

There are big differences among publishers in their ability to include funding metadata. Many have been including funder IDs in the metadata for more than a decade, but some are still struggling to do that. Most are yet to catch up to start including Crossref Grant IDs, too.

Let’s demonstrate that in an example. On the left, we see the acknowledgements section of a paper by Van Zundert et al. in the journal Small, published by Wiley. The authors acknowledge a host of funding organizations and grants, including NWO with Grant ID https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.61686/LVZRW92421. On the right, we see that the publisher has correctly included NWO in the metadata as the funder with our Funder ID, but there’s no reference to our Grant ID, instead mentioning an award number, which seems to refer to a Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant for the same research with their internal award identifier.

Likewise, a publication by Criscuolo et al in Physics of Life Reviews (a journal published by Elsevier) correctly identified NWO using our Funder ID, but omitted our Grant ID in the metadata, despite its clear inclusion by the author in the acknowledgements (left). Apparently, this persistent link and open metadata is being thrown out of the infrastructure at a crucial time, when the article record could be connecting up with the grant record and making it easy and open for us all to track and report on the connection.

Several publishers do not seem to register funding data at all, despite the opportunity existing for almost 15 years, and sometimes even when comprehensive funding information is provided by authors.

The broader implications

It has been known for some time that publishers struggle with registering complete, high-quality funding metadata for their publications. They sometimes blame authors for not providing the required information or making errors in reporting their funding. Or they call on funders to identify their funding more precisely by introducing persistent Grant IDs for their grants. While these are legitimate issues, and it’s true that more funders could also do this, the examples presented here suggest this narrative is incomplete—when authors provide clear, standardized funding information using persistent identifiers, many publishers still fail to capture it accurately.

The Grant Linking System is still relatively new in terms of open infrastructure and open metadata development, and adoption from funders is still in the tens rather than the tens of thousands, with publishers being more accustomed to creating and providing millions of open metadata records for their publications. Most participating funders, like us, have only started registering grants in the past couple of years. Now that Crossref Grant IDs are becoming more widespread, and with publishers’ experience in creating open metadata, we would love to see publishers prioritise collecting and including Grant IDs in their Crossref metadata. By updating their production practices, they would be supporting the community at large in reaping the benefits of open grant metadata.

To address these challenges, we are organizing a roundtable session under the Barcelona Declaration in October to discuss concrete solutions for these issues. We invite publishers who are interested in participating to contact us. This follows a 2023 workshop where many publishers were very open in discussing the challenges and working towards improving the process together with funders.

Looking ahead

The introduction of Crossref Grant IDs represents just the first step in a longer journey toward more open research information for NWO. We are happy to see how quickly researchers are adopting the system by including Crossref Grant IDs in their work. For Grant IDs to truly become a Grant Linking System and fulfil its promise, however, publishers must act on the need to collect and process funding information in their publishing workflows, just as they do for other joint efforts, such as for ORCID iDs for contributors. The information is there—authors are providing it in the acknowledgement sections of their articles (and probably would too if asked directly in a submission form). The question now is: can we encourage more publishers to take up the request to capture and transmit this information accurately and register it with Crossref?

We’re hopeful. This first year has demonstrated the enormous potential of Crossref Grant IDs in action for NWO. We call on publishers to do their bit in ensuring this vital infrastructure reaches its full potential for the research community.

An eLife filled with possibility thanks to great metadata

Frederick Atherden — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

eLife recently won a Crossref Metadata Award for the completeness of its metadata, showing itself as the clear leader among our medium-sized members. In this post, the eLife team answers our questions about how and why they produce such high-quality open metadata. For eLife, the work of creating and sharing excellent metadata aligns with their mission to foster open science and supports their preprint-centred publication model, but it also lays the groundwork for all kinds of exciting potential uses.

Having complete and rich metadata puts you in the best position to fulfil future, as-yet-undetermined requirements.

– Fred Atherden, eLife

What motivates your organisation/team to work towards high-quality metadata? What objectives does it support for your organisation?

eLife is a mission-driven organisation tasked by its founders to help scientists accelerate discovery and encourage responsible behaviours in science. As such, we’re passionate about open science and metadata, and we’re vocal advocates of the benefits these provide to academic communities and beyond.

Given Crossref’s position as a hub at the centre of scholarly communication, providing Crossref with complete metadata furthers our mission. It facilitates the discovery and reuse of research and enables linkage to key but often overlooked outputs such as datasets and software. As signatories of DORA and supporters of the Barcelona Declaration, we are keenly aware of the wider context - that these efforts enable research assessment and policy decisions to be derived from open and transparent information, moving beyond closed systems that have proliferated the damaging use of anachronistic metrics.

Do you have a strategy for complete metadata? Which elements did you prioritise? What workflows, tools, or collaborations helped you get there?

There are plenty of existing guidelines that provide a great skeleton to follow. For example, we follow FAIR data and FORCE11 software citation principles, which ensure the capture of metadata for supporting datasets and software packages. There’s not any one particular element that we’ve prioritised, although we’re keen to ensure we follow best practices while also exploring the bleeding edge.

We’ve collaborated with and relied on the advice of many organisations over the years, including (but not limited to) Crossref, Research Organization Registry (ROR), JATS4R, FORCE11, Software Heritage, openRxiv, and our production vendors Exeter Premedia.

We’ve developed our own open source Crossref metadata generation library. Keeping this process in-house has proven really fruitful. It allows us to quickly and continuously improve upon the metadata we provide.

And we have a data team that has created a centralised data hub, serving as a really useful authoritative resource that can be queried, instead of always making use of disparate systems.

How have you integrated these into your metadata processes?

At submission, we collect ROR IDs for (a subset of) affiliations, and structured data for funding, datasets, and other information. Our publication model is centred around preprints, so it’s necessary to capture related information such as the preprint DOI, preprint posted date, the version that pertains to each specific revision (and so on). Without this information, we could not post public reviews to the correct preprint version on the preprint server, or indeed ensure the article we publish is the correct iteration of that work.

The systems that enable the publication of eLife Reviewed preprints are dependent on DocMaps, a framework for a machine-readable representation of the processes involved in the creation of a document. These are provided by our Data Hub and enable us to capture structured information about the peer review process and accompanying metadata for each article.

Our proofing system for journal articles only permits login via ORCID authentication, and we don’t capture unauthenticated ORCID IDs that have been copied or keyed (see ‘What’s So Special About Signing In?’). It also makes use of both the Crossref API and the PubMed Central API to ensure we have persistent identifiers where possible for references. We have an in-house content validator, which uses ROR’s API to ensure we have ROR IDs for affiliations and funders where possible. We use Software Heritage to archive author-generated code, and include their persistent ID (SWHID) in software references.

All our published content is captured as JATS XML (the industry standard format for journal articles), which our metadata generation library uses as its input.

What impact of good metadata can you see for your organisation? Is it supporting the business and/or editorial side of your work?

Persistent identifiers are very useful for reporting. Creating a report that, for example, includes publication volumes from a particular institution is trivial when content is enriched with persistent identifiers. It’s more complex when all you have are messy author-supplied strings of text. They’re also useful for content validation. For example, when we have a persistent ID and a method to retrieve the related metadata, we can confirm that the information we’ve been provided is complete and correct.

There are, of course, many other benefits, some of which are “unknown unknowns.” Having complete and rich metadata puts you in the best position to fulfil future, as-yet-undetermined requirements.

Have you encountered any challenges in curating or improving your metadata? If so, what were they, and how did you address those?

In 2024, we started introducing persistent grant IDs for our content. While we updated our submission system to collect these from authors, it’s apparent that many authors aren’t aware when/if these have been registered by funders, and they still provide us with the (internal) grant numbers instead.

Our workaround was to pull grant data from Crossref and then replace the grant numbers with the persistent IDs when we’re confident of a match. Since the grant number registered at Crossref might not exactly match the grant number the authors have given us, potential matches are confirmed by a team member or our production vendors. Since many organisations do a great job of creating informative landing pages (for example, EuropePMC for Wellcome funding), this is feasible, but we’re investigating ways we can make this less manual while remaining careful that we don’t introduce false positives.

Have your efforts around metadata led to real benefits for your community? Is this something your editors, authors, or readers are aware of and appreciate? If so, why?

Yes, I think this is something that is becoming increasingly visible. Authors are very mindful of the benefits that good metadata can bring for discoverability and promotion. And much is lost without the increased interoperability it brings, both for publishers themselves but also the wider ecosystem. For example, we’ve had some great feedback from numerous organisations that appreciate that the outputs we publish directly link to the preprints they are based on.

In recent years, there’s been an increased focus on research integrity, and this is likely to remain the case. Metadata has an obvious and key role in providing trust and transparency, whether that’s through the presence of trust markers like ORCID IDs or through the inclusion of complete post-publication metadata such as correction, retraction, or withdrawal information.

Looking ahead, how are you planning to build on your metadata quality? Are there new elements or practices you’re exploring? And what advice would you give to others just starting to strengthen their metadata?

Several years ago, we introduced a “publish, review, curate” model of publishing, where we publish ‘Reviewed preprints’ following each stage of review. We don’t collect the same level of structured information from authors at submission for these as we do for Versions of Record. This presents a challenge for retrieving and disseminating complete metadata for Reviewed preprints. We aim to start moving this forward so that comprehensive metadata is available at earlier stages of the publication process. For example, we recently started depositing (some) funding metadata for these.

We’re also keen to explore the ways in which we can make our eLife Assessments more discoverable. Our Editors use a common vocabulary to describe the significance of the findings and strength of evidence in a paper. Other publishers moving beyond accept/reject publication models use different rubrics and taxonomies, so having one restrictive field in a schema for the entire corpus of research won’t cut it. But nevertheless making these terms more discoverable and interoperable would be preferential.

We’ve found that the integration of public APIs/data within systems (such as ROR’s, Crossref’s, PubMed’s, and OpenAlex’s) to be really helpful in validating the correctness and completeness of content/metadata. The effort in adding these integrations will pay dividends in the future.

Time to enjoy Fred’s acceptance video.

Metadata Awards video - eLife

Mejorando la visibilidad a través de los metadatos: una mirada desde Editorial CSIC

Nacho Pérez Alcalde — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click here for the version in English

Hablamos con Nacho Pérez Alcalde, Vicedirector Técnico de Editorial CSIC, la editorial al mando de ´Boletín Geológico y Minero’, ganadora del Crossref Metadata Award en la categoría de Metadata Enrichment. Miembro de Crossref desde 2008, Editorial CSIC publica 41 revistas en acceso abierto Diamante, y juega un papel esencial en la diseminación del conocimiento científico a nivel internacional. Exploramos lo que este premio ha significado para Editorial CSIC y qué planes para el futuro tienen para seguir mejorando la calidad y uso de sus metadatos.

El ‘Boletín Geológico y Minero’ ha recibido el primer premio de Crossref al enriquecimiento de vuestros metadatos ya que en tan solo dos años, ha visto la cobertura de los metadatos pasar del 1 al 40%. ¿Cuáles han sido las motivaciones que han llevado a esta revista a ver una mejora tan grande en sus metadatos?

Editorial CSIC publica 41 revistas científicas, todas ellas presentes en los principales indexadores. Son revistas de prestigio que ofrecen, desde hace muchos años, contenidos revisados de alta calidad. Sin embargo, hoy en día, no es ya suficiente para una revista científica ofrecer contenidos de calidad, hoy en día es necesario ofrecer también una alta calidad en los metadatos generados por esas publicaciones. Algo que hace no muchos años veíamos como un servicio de valor añadido se ha convertido en algo imprescindible.

En un entorno de trabajo electrónico y en Internet, los metadatos son claves para la difusión de los contenidos, la identificación de revistas, autores/as, instituciones editoras, entidades financiadoras… Para un editor es fundamental poder transmitir esa información según unos procedimientos técnicos y unos protocolos estandarizados para garantizar su compatibilidad con las máquinas que cosechan, almacenan y distribuyen datos favoreciendo la visibilidad y la descubribilidad de nuestras revistas.

¿Seguis alguna estrategia? ¿Cómo decidís qué elementos priorizar?

Llevamos años trabajando con metadatos y, de forma periódica, vamos revisando y ampliando el número de elementos que convertimos en metadatos. Damos prioridad siempre a lo que es ya un estándar claramente identificado (por ejemplo el ORCID) y también a aquellos metadatos alineados con las políticas editoriales que consideramos prioritarias (por ejemplo la licencia CC by que aplicamos).

El flujo de trabajo requiere como primer paso la identificación, por parte del editor, de los datos que se quieren obtener y de cómo se van a pedir. Una vez se integran todos ellos en la política de envío de originales a la revista, es imprescindible la colaboración de los autores que son los que aportan los datos que, en una fase posterior son revisados por un editor técnico especializado en metadatos (diferente al revisor de texto). Por último, es imprescindible contar con una herramienta que permita automatizar la transferencia de metadatos y aquí es muy importante contar con personal técnico especializado. Nosotros trabajamos con la plataforma OJS, yo he pasado años depositando metadatos en Crossref con los archivos XML que generábamos, uno a uno. Con 1.000 artículos publicados de media al año, la creación del Módulo de exportación CrossRef XML de OJS para el depósito automatizado desde la plataforma fue de gran ayuda para nosotros porque aligera bastante el trabajo, asegura una mayor fiabilidad y nos permite dedicar nuestro tiempo a mejorar otras cosas.

También nos da una mayor flexibilidad a la hora de revisar nuestras políticas de datos, por ejemplo, nos ha permitido abordar un depósito masivo para actualizar todas nuestras referencias para corregir errores recurrentes.

¿Cómo habéis integrado esto en vuestra estrategia de metadatos?

El Crossref Metadata Enrichment Award ha sido concedido en concreto a la revista Boletín Geológico y Minero por haber experimentado una gran mejora en sus metadatos en los últimos años. Esta revista era editada por otra institución y cuando Editorial CSIC se hizo cargo de ella le aplicamos los mismos estándares que venimos utilizando en el resto de nuestras revistas desde hace años. Nos sentimos por ello especialmente orgullosos, porque entendemos este premio como el aval a una política de metadatos que llevamos años desarrollando y que ha permitido una mejora importante para esta revista en un tiempo relativamente corto.

Para ello fue clave la colaboración de la dirección científica de la revista, nosotros explicamos primero qué datos deben ser solicitados a los autores, por qué y para qué, y luego nos ocupamos de confirmar que se han ido integrando en los artículos y de implementarlos en la plataforma OJS para proceder después a su depósito en Crossref pero también a su integración en otras vías de difusión de metadatos.

A nivel de impacto, ¿cómo veis que una buena cobertura de los metadatos afecta a vuestra organización? ¿Beneficia de alguna manera vuestro trabajo editorial? O cualquier otro aspecto de vuestra actividad?

Más allá de sus beneficios obvios como potenciar la visibilidad de nuestras publicaciones y contribuir a manejar una información controlada y de calidad, en última instancia deberían ayudarnos a posicionarnos como grupo profesional. Nuestra función esencial es publicar contenido científico revisado y de calidad y transmitirlo a la comunidad científica y, cada vez más, a toda la sociedad. Sin embargo, hoy en día, deberíamos aspirar a ser identificados también como proveedores de datos. Y eso, en “la era del dato”, es mucho decir. Debemos ser capaces de extraer los metadatos de nuestras publicaciones aportados por los autores (palabras claves, filiación, bibliografías…) pero también debemos ser capaces de generar nosotros otros metadatos y de transmitirlos y difundirlos.

Las revistas científicas deben seguir contando con un editor que haga una revisión ortotipografía y de pruebas, pero también deben contar con un editor de metadatos, alguien que sepa qué es FundRef y sepa dónde y cómo hay que introducir los datos en la plataforma para garantizar que se conservan y transfieren de manera correcta y eficiente.

Por ello, quiero aprovechar esta ocasión para reivindicar el papel del editor como generador y proveedor de datos. Los editores somos la fuente de datos, hay agentes como las bibliotecas e indexadores que los cosechan, archivan, transmiten y procesan para, por ejemplo, generar nuevos contenidos o servicios, pero solo nosotros tenemos la capacidad de generarlos.

¿Habéis encontrado dificultades a la hora de mejorar y manejar vuestros metadatos? En ocasiones los autores se quejan de que se les piden muchos datos, por ejemplo, el uso de ORCID es obligatorio en nuestras publicaciones y muchos autores, sobre todo de ámbitos no europeos, se han quejado porque no saben qué es y para qué sirve o, por motivos personales, no quieren registrar ese identificador personal. Son motivos respetables, por supuesto, pero para nosotros prima la necesidad de identificar correctamente a cada autor y creemos que el ORCID ayuda a ello.

Otro problema habitual es que muchos autores, al citar una fuente de financiación, utilizan el nombre de la entidad financiadora pero a veces no lo ponen completo, o no incluyen el acrónimo o lo que es peor, ponen el nombre pero no el código de la institución o del proyecto. Los autores están acostumbrados a escribir pensando en los lectores “humanos” y no en las máquinas que van a procesar después toda esa información. Nuestro papel, como editores de metadatos, pasa por informarles, de forma didáctica, de la importancia de aportar esos códigos y pedírselos si vemos que no los han incluido en su manuscrito.

Y con respecto a vuestra comunidad, ¿se ha visto beneficiada de vuestro esfuerzo para tener unos metadatos completos y de alta calidad? ¿Están los autores, editores o lectores al tanto de estos esfuerzos o lo valoran?

Para el editor técnico es más sencillo valorarlo, nosotros sabemos cómo funciona el entorno, lo importante que es la interoperabilidad de las plataformas, la rapidez y amplitud de transmisión que puede alcanzar un dato y lo importante que es que esté correcto desde su origen porque luego puede ser muy, muy difícil corregirlo y controlarlo. Somos conscientes también de su posible impacto porque sabemos cómo los sistemas de información se alimentan unos de otros y comparten información, una información que generamos nosotros.

Los editores científicos, autores y lectores suelen valorarlo menos y no siempre son conscientes de su relevancia, aunque no se puede generalizar. Y de hecho, aunque creo que todos deberían tener al menos unas nociones básicas de cómo funciona, creo que los autores ya están bastante saturados con todos los requerimientos que les pedimos para entregar sus manuscritos como para que les pidamos, además, formación específica en metadatos. Para eso (entre otras cosas) estamos los editores, para indicarles qué datos y cómo los deben aportar.

No obstante, hoy en día todo el mundo está familiarizado con lo que son y lo que se puede hacer con los datos, todos consumimos productos muy diversos a través de internet y tenemos al menos nociones de lo que son los metadatos, los datos personales, los algoritmos… Hace años era mucho más complejo hacer didáctica de esto, pero hoy en día cualquiera lo entiende fácilmente y más en un ámbito científico y tecnológico como el de nuestras publicaciones.

Con la vista puesta en el futuro, tenéis algún plan para seguir construyendo sobre lo ya creado? ¿Algún elemento que queráis seguir implementando o prácticas que queráis incorporar en vuestra manera de trabajar?

En editorial CSIC, desde que comenzamos a publicar en formato electrónico y a distribuir nuestras revistas electrónicas en línea, hace ya casi 20 años, siempre estamos tratando de innovar en diseños, plataformas de gestión, formatos de archivo… Hablando de cosas concretas, hemos ampliado el uso obligatorio de ORCID y DOI a las contribuciones que no son puramente artículos científicos (hasta ahora nuestras reseñas, obituarios y textos similares no los tenían) y estamos valorando la implementación de identificadores ROR para organizaciones de investigación.

¿Qué consejos darías a aquellas organizaciones que están comenzando a mejorar la calidad de sus metadatos?

Para aquellos editores que están empezando a reforzar sus metadatos me atrevería a indicar algo aparentemente lógico y sencillo pero que creo que no siempre se hace: que planifiquen con calma y en detalle una política editorial de datos basada en identificar y seleccionar los datos que consideren prioritarios e implementar, después, protocolos para solicitarlos a sus autores e integrarlos en las plataformas editoriales y, por último, configurar correctamente dichas plataformas para asegurar una correcta exportación.

El metadato requiere de una cadena en la que trabajan diversas personas con distintos perfiles, hay que tener recursos para afianzar esa cadena y hay que tener en cuenta que no basta con pedir los datos a los autores, hay que seguir el recorrido de los datos desde su origen hasta donde podamos y eso no termina cuando los depositamos en Crossref: podemos depositarlos de manera adicional en otros sitios, podemos darles otras salidas y, además, debemos volver sobre ellos si detectamos algún error sistemático que podamos corregir.

Los Metadata Excellence Awards fueron entregados en mayo de 2025, en el contexto del encuentro anual de Crossref con su comunidad. Os dejamos el vídeo de aceptación del premio por parte de la revista Boletín Geológico y Minero, editada por Editorial CSIC.

Y ahora disfruta de este vídeo de aceptación.

Version in English

Improving visibility through metadata: a look from CSIC Editorial

We spoke with Nacho Pérez Alcalde, Technical Deputy Director of Editorial CSIC, the publisher behind ‘Boletín Geológico y Minero’, recipient of the Crossref Metadata Award in the Metadata Enrichment category. A Crossref member since 2008, Editorial CSIC publishes 41 Diamond Open Access journals and plays a key role in scholarly communication at the international level. We explore what this award has meant for Editorial CSIC and what plans they have for the future to continue improving the quality and use of their metadata.

What motivates your team to work towards high-quality metadata? What objectives does it support for your organisation?

Editorial CSIC publishes 41 scientific journals, all of which are included in major indexing databases. These are prestigious journals that have offered high-quality, peer-reviewed content for many years. However, today, it is no longer enough for a scientific journal to provide quality content alone; it is now also essential to deliver high-quality metadata associated with those publications. What just a few years ago was considered a value-added service has now become indispensable.

In an electronic and internet-based working environment, metadata is key to content dissemination and to the identification of journals, authors, publishing institutions, and funding organizations. For a publisher, it is crucial to be able to transmit this information through technical procedures and standardised protocols to ensure compatibility with the systems that harvest, store, and distribute data, enhancing the visibility and discoverability of our journals.

Do you have a strategy for complete metadata?

We’ve been working with metadata for years and, periodically, we review and expand the number of elements we convert into metadata. We always prioritise what is already a clearly established standard (for example, ORCID), as well as metadata aligned with editorial policies we consider a priority (such as the CC BY license we apply).

The workflow begins with the editor identifying the data to be collected and how it will be requested. Once this is integrated into the journal’s submission guidelines, the collaboration of authors becomes essential, as they are the ones who provide the data. In a later phase, the data is reviewed by a technical editor specialising in metadata (different from the content reviewer). Finally, it’s crucial to have a tool that enables the automated transfer of metadata, and here, having specialised technical staff is very important.

We work with the OJS platform; I spent years depositing metadata in Crossref using XML files that we generated manually, one by one. With an average of 1,000 articles published per year, the creation of the Crossref XML export module in OJS for automated deposit from the platform was a huge help for us – it significantly lightened the workload, ensured greater reliability, and allowed us to focus our time on improving other aspects.

It also gives us more flexibility when reviewing our data policies. For example, it allowed us to carry out a bulk deposit to update all our references in order to correct a recurring error.

How have you integrated these into your metadata processes?

The Crossref Metadata Enrichment Award was specifically granted to the journal Boletín Geológico y Minero for having shown significant improvement in its metadata in recent years. This journal was previously published by another institution, and when Editorial CSIC took over, we applied the same standards we have been using for our other journals for many years. We are especially proud of this because we see the award as recognition of a metadata policy we’ve been developing over the years, one that has led to significant improvements for this journal in a relatively short time.

The collaboration of the journal’s scientific leadership was key to achieving this. We first explained which data should be requested from authors, why, and for what purpose. Then we ensured that the data was being properly integrated into the articles and implemented it within the OJS platform. From there, we proceeded with depositing the metadata in Crossref and also integrating it into other metadata dissemination channels.

What impact of good metadata can you see for your organisation? Is it supporting the business and/or editorial side of your work?

Beyond their obvious benefits, such as increasing the visibility of our publications and contributing to the management of controlled, high-quality information, they should ultimately help us position ourselves as a professional group. Our essential role is to publish peer-reviewed, high-quality scientific content and deliver it to the scientific community and, increasingly, to society at large. However, today, we should also aim to be recognised as data providers. And that, in the “age of data,” is a significant shift. We must be able to extract metadata from our publications-supplied by authors (keywords, affiliations, bibliographies…). We also need to generate other metadata ourselves, and transmit and disseminate those effectively. Scientific journals must still have editors who perform copy editing and proofreading, but they must also have metadata editors, people who understand what FundRef is, and know where and how to input data into the platform to ensure it is preserved and transferred correctly and efficiently.

That’s why I want to take this opportunity to highlight the role of the editor as a generator and provider of data. Editors are the source of data. There are other actors-like libraries and indexers-who harvest, archive, transmit, and process that data to, for example, create new content or services. But only we have the capacity to generate it.

Have you encountered any challenges in curating or improving your metadata?

Sometimes authors complain about being asked for too much information. For example, the use of ORCID is mandatory in our publications, and many authors, especially those from non-European regions, have complained because they don’t know what it is or what it’s for, or – for personal reasons – they don’t want to register for a personal identifier. These reasons are, of course, valid and understandable, but for us, the priority is to correctly identify each author, and we believe ORCID helps achieve that. Another common issue is that when authors cite a funding source, they often include the name of the funding body, but sometimes don’t write it in full, or they omit the acronym, or worse – they include the name but not the institution or project code. Authors are used to writing with “human” readers in mind, not the machines that will later process all that information. Our role, as metadata editors, involves educating them about the importance of providing these codes and requesting them when we see they’ve been left out of the manuscript.

Have your efforts around metadata led to real benefits for your community? Is this something your editors, authors, or readers are aware of and appreciate? If so, why?

For the technical editor, it’s easier to assess the value of metadata. We understand how the ecosystem works, how important platform interoperability is, how quickly and widely data can be transmitted, and how crucial it is for data to be correct from the very beginning. Once it’s out there, it can be very, very difficult to correct or control. We’re also aware of its potential impact because we know how information systems feed off each other and share information – information that we generate.

Scientific editors, authors, and readers tend to value it less and aren’t always aware of its importance, though of course there are exceptions. While I believe everyone should at least have a basic understanding of how it works, I also think authors are already overwhelmed with all the requirements we ask of them when submitting manuscripts. Editors are here to guide them on what data to provide and how to provide it.

That said, today, everyone is at least somewhat familiar with what data is and what can be done with it. We all consume a wide variety of digital content online and have at least a basic idea of what metadata, personal data, and algorithms are. A few years ago, explaining all this was much more difficult, but nowadays, it’s much easier for people to grasp, especially within the scientific and technological environment in which we publish.

Looking ahead, how are you planning to build on your metadata quality? Are there new elements or practices you’re exploring? And what advice would you give to others just starting to strengthen their metadata?

At Editorial CSIC, ever since we began publishing in electronic format and distributing our journals online, almost 20 years ago, we have consistently sought to innovate in design, management platforms, and file formats. Speaking of specific actions, we have extended the mandatory use of ORCID and DOI to contributions that are not strictly scientific articles (until now, our book reviews, obituaries, and similar texts didn’t have them), and we are currently considering the implementation of ROR identifiers for research organizations.

Do you have any advice for organisations that are making an effort to improve the quality of their metadata?

For editors who are just beginning to strengthen their metadata, I would suggest something that seems logical and simple, but is not always put into practice: take the time to calmly and thoroughly plan a data policy. This should be based on identifying and selecting which data elements are most important, then implementing protocols to request them from authors and integrate them into editorial platforms, and finally, configuring those platforms correctly to ensure proper export.

Metadata involves a chain of tasks carried out by people with different profiles. You need to have resources to strengthen that chain. It’s good to remember that it’s not enough to simply ask authors for data – you have to follow the data along its entire path from the source as far as possible. That journey doesn’t end when we deposit it in Crossref: we can also deposit it in other repositories, find additional ways to disseminate it, and we must revisit it if we detect any recurring errors that can be corrected.

And now enjoy this acceptance video.

From storage closet to metadata champions: ASM's journey toward a smarter scholarly infrastructure

David Haber — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has earned recognition in Crossref’s Participation Reports for its exceptional metadata coverage among large publishing members––an achievement built on intentional change, technical investment, and collaborative work. In this Q&A, the ASM team shares what that journey looked like, the challenges they’ve tackled, and how centering metadata has helped them better connect research with the global scientific community.

A key lesson we learned is that meaningful progress doesn’t require perfection from day one. Start small, find manageable wins, refine as you go, and build a shared understanding across all your teams.

– David Haber, ASM

Since we first featured your metadata efforts in 2022, what developments or improvements have you made—and how does this new recognition reflect the journey so far?

Once we completed our initial metadata cleanup of our backfile and made sure that we were producing good, clean, and consistent Crossref metadata (no small feat), we realized that each new policy, process, or even style change should be viewed through a metadata capture lens. By looking at our publishing goals through that lens, we are better able to see the right time and method to help enrich and “grow” both our article metadata breadth and depth. Much of the metadata work is invisible or an afterthought. But the recognition of ASM’s coverage in the participation reports has affirmed that our change in perspective — shifting from viewing Crossref metadata as something produced as an afterthought to centering our processes around the creation of that metadata — has put us on the right path.

Have any of your goals around metadata changed or grown since then? What feels different about your work now compared to when you were first featured?

When we first started on our various metadata cleanup projects, it felt like there were just a few of us, arguing, agreeing, and arguing some more about obscure tagging structures and proper XML modeling in a closet––literally… My office actually was an old storage closet, and my pre-pandemic whiteboard still has that ghostly blue haze of angle brackets scribbled with dry-erase markers.

Since then, our goals have shifted significantly. Early on, we just wanted all our content mapped to DOIs; then we thought, “Oh wait. Let’s include as many abstracts as possible. And references. If we have the data, let’s send it.” Now that we have a strong metadata foundation, we can think proactively about what to capture and transmit, how we want to prioritize our efforts, and how to make research we publish more discoverable to those who need it.

Looking back, were there any changes in internal collaboration or external partnerships that influenced your progress?

Over the past three to four years, we have made some significant changes to our partnerships. We migrated to a new online platform (Atypon), a new production partner (Kriyadocs), a new submission platform (Chronoshub), and a new billing system (RLSC). Each of these partnerships allowed us to evaluate how we were capturing metadata, when that capture occurred, and how best to improve the QC process to ensure accuracy and quality. These partnerships accelerated all our efforts to improve hidden metadata and finally brought them out of the storage closet into the light.

Have you adopted any new tools, standards, or technologies since your last blog?

Our production software (Kriyadocs) has centered metadata capture as a core function. We have processes and procedures that match all affiliations to Ringgold and ROR IDs. We have invested heavily in partnerships with organizations like Chronoshub to utilize natural language processing, automating the identification of authors and affiliations, so that users no longer have to fill out tedious forms. We embraced ORCID and strongly encourage all authors to register for one if they don’t already have it. We have also adopted the CRediT taxonomy as a contributor framework and have built processes to make it easy for authors to stay within that taxonomy.

Have you encountered any challenges in curating or improving your metadata? If so – what were they and how did you address those?

The core problem (from our perspective) has always been the difference between author profile information and what is actually submitted in manuscripts. Auto-extraction of manuscript data into submission forms is one small step toward unifying author identity with manuscript data. One of our biggest pain points now is reconciling the chaotic data on author affiliations in manuscripts with institutional identifiers. Over the next year, this will be one of our main initiatives.

The capture of ORCID IDs has improved our ability to match papers to editors and identify hidden conflicts of interest. ORCID IDs have also helped us expand our reviewer pool, as they enable us to better disambiguate individuals with similar names.

Because we now capture CRediT roles in a controlled manner (rather than as loose text in the acknowledgments section), we are better able to identify when authors are contributing equally and how authors determine author order in the byline when this occurs. This analysis was undertaken by one of our Editors-in-Chief to study gender bias when authors contributed equally to a work. Now that we capture CRediT roles as structured data, we can build on his research.

In the last two years, we have also begun capturing Data Availability Statements and Ethics Statements in unique metadata fields (rather than as unstructured text in the body of an article or in the acknowledgments sections) because some of our editors are curious about open data policy compliance and whether there is higher uptake of open science initiatives in certain microbiology fields.

RC: These are very interesting and quite profound results, especially for integrity and equality in the publishing process! Good to see how useful you find this information as we’re approaching our schema updates to include contributor roles, among other things. I see that editors are already on board and taking advantage of high quality metadata. Are authors more engaged with metadata now than before?

Our authors likely are engaged too––though we have tried to build author metadata QC into our proofing and typesetting process in such a way that they wouldn’t even notice.

What challenges have you encountered while sustaining or scaling your metadata work?

In the realm of metadata, there are two standard solutions: 1) hire vendors to clean data at the end (the throw-people-at-the-problem philosophy); or 2) trust a black-box technical solution. The problem with the first method is that it is inefficient and can become expensive. The issue with the second is that, in my experience, most technical solutions have an 80% success rate. That may be acceptable for certain types of data, but it can fail spectacularly at the worst possible moment.

For example, let’s say you find a technical solution that parses affiliation data in such a way as to assign a PID. Great, wonderful. Let’s say your parser is the best natural language processor in the world and makes matches 90% of the time (if you have one that does this, I’m all ears). You announce that you are including these IDs. Everyone cheers. It is great, right? Now, imagine you want to use those IDs to identify subscribing institutions to offer discounts or fee-less publishing for authors. You also want to use those IDs to send alerts to institutional admins of publishing activity. In both situations, achieving 90% accuracy simply won’t work. What we’ve learned is that black-box technology and ’throw people at it’ philosophies cannot work alone. Metadata curation must be a collaborative effort among authors, publishers, funders, and institutions, where the information grows throughout the research process.

What’s next? Are you exploring any new metadata elements or areas (e.g., funding data, peer review metadata, preprints)?

Over the next year, we will focus on CRediT identifiers and pass them to Crossref, along with institutional PIDs (ROR, Ringgold, and ISNI). We are also exploring various ways to capture peer reviewer activity and contributions, which will inevitably lead us down new and interesting paths.

Here’s the thing about metadata that I wish I’d known when I started: it’s not a project with a finish line. It’s more like tending a garden that keeps growing in unexpected directions. Every time you think you’ve got it figured out, someone invents a new identifier, or your authors start doing something creative with their affiliations, or a funder changes their requirements, and suddenly you’re back to the drawing board.

But what I’ve also learned from our journey out of that metaphorical (and literal) storage closet: the best metadata work happens when you start thinking of it as infrastructure. Good metadata is like good plumbing; when it’s working, nobody notices it, but when it’s not, everything backs up and gets messy fast.

If you’re just starting this journey, my advice is this: don’t try to boil the ocean (gosh, I still need to remember that one). Pick one thing. Perhaps it could be ORCID IDs or institutional identifiers. Do it really, really well. Then build on that success. And please, for the love of all that is holy, invest in good partnerships. We couldn’t have done any of this without partners who understood that metadata isn’t just data entry; it’s the connective tissue of scholarly communication.

Of course, even with the best partners and aligned teams, there will still be moments when you’ll sit dumbfounded in front of a screen where an author’s affiliation that was listed as “Bloomberg School of Public Health” matched to the identifier linked to the “Escuela Nacional de Sanidad.” On those days, just remember: at least you’re not still working in a storage closet with a haunted whiteboard.

Good metadata is more than just a technical specification, and it’s not just for those XML wonks and nerds. It’s a service to science, and its core mission is to help us understand the world around us.

– David Haber, ASM

ASM’s story is a reminder that building a strong metadata infrastructure isn’t just about meeting technical requirements—it’s about aligning people, tools, and values around the idea that clean, connected, and consistent metadata is foundational to open and discoverable research. Whether you’re starting small or overhauling major systems, their experience shows what’s possible when you treat metadata not as a checkbox, but as a core part of scholarly publishing.

Thank you, David, for taking the time to share your insights. Again, congratulations!

Metadata excellence among new members: La Salle University, Perú

Yasiel Pérez Vera — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click here for the version in English

En 2025, lanzamos los Premios Crossref a los Metadatos, con el objetivo de destacar el rol de nuestra comunidad en la gestión y el enriquecimiento del registro académico. En esta publicación, destacamos a la Universidad La Salle, Perú, ganadora del premio a la excelencia entre los nuevos miembros, y contamos con la participación de Yasiel Pérez, Responsable Técnico y Editor de la Revista, quien comparte sus ideas:

Por qué los metadatos importan para nosotros

La Universidad La Salle se convirtió en miembro de Crossref hace relativamente poco tiempo, en 2023. Gestionamos nuestras revistas usando Open Journal Systems (OJS), y una vez que nos unimos a esta comunidad, los diferentes Consejos Editoriales compartimos la motivación de lograr una mayor visibilidad global, y vimos una oportunidad de mejora al proporcionar más metadatos y más completos.

El lado técnico de subsanar las deficiencias

Nuestras revistas, que llevan activas entre dos y cuatro años, han comenzado a enriquecer sus metadatos faltantes a niveles aceptables (¡creemos que aún podemos mejorar a niveles excelentes!). Gracias a mi formación como ingeniero de software, adaptamos el plugin de OJS para que admita campos de metadatos adicionales que no están disponibles en las versiones anteriores. El plugin requiere actualizaciones, por lo que realizamos modificaciones personalizadas para que sea compatible con los esquemas Crossref más recientes. Debido a limitaciones de tiempo, recursos humanos y financieros, consideramos más eficiente adaptar el plugin en lugar de adaptar nuestras instalaciones de OJS a las últimas versiones. Con estas modificaciones, depositamos los ROR ID, las licencias, las páginas de políticas y las actualizaciones de las revistas en Crossmark.

Por otro lado, hemos probado la versión con Soporte a Largo Plazo actual y la versión 3.5 de OJS, y recomiendo encarecidamente a cualquier usuario que actualice a cualquiera de estas versiones más recientes. Incluyen importantes parches de seguridad y, además, los plugins de Crossref son compatibles con los esquemas más recientes. Desafortunadamente, para nosotros, actualizar los sistemas desde una versión anterior a la 3.3 requiere tiempo adicional y soporte técnico, dada la importancia de los cambios de la v3.2 a la v3.3.

Haciendo las políticas sobre metadatos una prioridad

Tenemos un compromiso institucional con la provisión de metadatos enriquecidos. Contamos con políticas que exigen metadatos lo más completos posible como parte de nuestros flujos de trabajo, y lo convertimos en un requisito estricto. Naturalmente, existen algunos desafíos. Los metadatos abiertos y transparentes aún están relativamente poco valorados. A veces, los editores no comprenden completamente las implicaciones de proporcionar metadatos enriquecidos; mostrar su nombre en el sitio web no es lo mismo que tenerlo en los metadatos, por lo que la conexión entre la versión de registro y su visibilidad no siempre es evidente para autores y editores. Los apoyamos proporcionando directrices y capacitación a los consejos editoriales y equipos de las revistas. Por ejemplo, si una afiliación no está disponible en ROR, animamos a los autores a solicitar su inclusión en el registro.

Por otro lado, esto también nos motiva. Nos estamos preparando para empezar a incluir metadatos de subvenciones y financiación en nuestros flujos de trabajo. También apuntamos a utilizar estos datos para estudiar el impacto de nuestras políticas editoriales en la visibilidad, el uso, las citas, la indexación y otras métricas institucionales. La Universidad La Salle es una organización interesante porque formamos una red de universidades de todo el mundo, lo que provoca errores en la identificación adecuada.

Creemos que ciertamente otras organizaciones pueden lograr altos niveles de enriquecimiento de metadatos. Esto tiene dos aspectos fundamentales: uno técnico y otro organizativo. Desde nuestra perspectiva, el primer paso es obtener el apoyo de la organización y establecer políticas a nivel de toda la organización. Las soluciones técnicas pueden seguir después y no son fundamentalmente difíciles en comparación con conseguir que la comunidad proporcione metadatos buenos y completos.

Una vez que se consigue la asignación de recursos, se planifica la hoja de ruta para recopilar más metadatos. Es mejor tenerlos y no usarlos que necesitarlos y no tenerlos. Por ejemplo, ya estamos recopilando los roles de autor utilizando la taxonomía CRediT, por lo que una vez que sea totalmente compatible con el esquema de Crossref, queremos estar preparados para enviarlos. Idealmente, nos gustaría ver compatibilidad con identificadores alternativos y más tipos de fechas. Recopilamos las fechas de envío y aceptación a través de Crossmark y asignamos simultáneamente DOI, PURL y ARK. Con el tiempo suficiente, también planeamos implementar la revisión por pares abierta en nuestras revistas.

Lo que el reconocimiento nos ayudó a lograr

Recibir este premio ha tenido un profundo impacto en nuestra organización; nos ayuda a reforzar el mensaje que intentamos transmitir a nuestra comunidad. Abrió los ojos de las autoridades y los gestores de presupuesto, y también está aumentando la visibilidad de la organización en la región. Queremos ser vistos como un ejemplo en la comunidad local y regional: «Si una institución provincial puede hacerlo, otras también». Hemos comenzado a recibir llamadas solicitando capacitación para otras organizaciones. Por lo tanto, este premio ha sido sin duda fundamental para nosotros.

Version in English

In 2025, we launched the Crossref Metadata Awards, aiming to highlight our community’s role in stewarding and enriching the scholarly record. In this post, we put the spotlight on La Salle University, Perú, winner of the award for excellence among new members, and have Yasiel Pérez, Technical Head and Journal Editor, sharing his insights:

Why metadata matters to us

La Salle University became a Crossref member relatively recently, in 2023. We manage our journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS), and once we became part of this community, the different Editorial Boards had as a common motivation achieving more global visibility, and we saw an opportunity for improvement by providing more and richer metadata.

Technical side of filling the gaps

Our journals that have been active for two to four years started enriching their missing metadata to acceptable levels (we still think we can improve to excellent levels!). Because of my background as a software engineer, we adapted the OJS plugin to support additional metadata fields not yet available in the older versions. The plugin requires updates, so we made custom modifications to support the latest Crossref schemas. Because of time, human, and financial constraints, we found it most efficient to adapt the plugin rather than to adapt our OJS installations to the latest versions. With these modifications, we deposit ROR IDs, licences, and the journals’ policy pages and updates to Crossmark.

On the other hand, we have tested the current Long-term support and the 3.5 versions of OJS and I fully recommend to any user to upgrade to any of these more recent versions, there are important security patches and also the Crossref plugins are compatible with the latest schemas. Unfortunately, for us, upgrading the systems from a version older than 3.3 requires additional time and technical support, given the importance of changes from v3.2 to v3.3.

Making metadata a policy priority

We have an institutional commitment to the provision of rich metadata. We have policies in place to require metadata as complete as possible as part of our workflows and we make this a strict requirement. Naturally, there are some challenges. Open and transparent metadata is still relatively underappreciated. Sometimes editors don’t fully understand the implications of providing rich metadata; displaying your name in the website is not the same as having it on the metadata so the connection between the version of record and its visibility is not always evident for authors and editors. We support them by providing guidelines and training to the editorial boards and journal teams. E.g. if an affiliation is not available in ROR we encourage authors to request their inclusion in the registry.

On the other hand, this is also a motivational push for us. We are preparing to start including grant and funding metadata in our workflows. We also aim to use this data to study the impact of our editorial policies on the visibility, use, citations, indexation, and other institutional metrics. La Salle University is an interesting organization because we are a network of universities across the world, leading to mistakes in proper identification.

We certainly think that other organizations can achieve high levels of metadata enrichment. There are two fundamental aspects to it: A technical aspect and an organizational aspect. From our point of view, the first step is gaining organizational support, establishing organization-wide policies. The technical solutions can follow and are not fundamentally difficult compared with having the community provide good and complete metadata.

Once you manage to secure the assignment of resources, then you plan the roadmap for collecting more metadata. It’s better to have it and not use it than to need it and not have it. For example, we already collect author roles using the CRediT taxonomy, so once it is fully supported by Crossref’s schema, we want to be prepared to submit them. Ideally, we would like to see support for alternative identifiers and more types of dates. We collect submission and acceptance dates via Crossmark and we simultaneously assign DOI, PURL, and ARK. Given enough time, we are also planning to implement open peer review in our journals.

What the recognition helped us achieve

Receiving this award has been profoundly impactful for our organization; it helps us reinforce the message that we are trying to deliver to our community. It opened the eyes of the authorities and budget managers, and it is also increasing the organization’s visibility in the region. We want to be seen as an example in the local and regional community—“if a provincial institution can do it, others can too.” We have started receiving calls requesting training for other organizations. So, this award has certainly become pivotal for us.

Crossref at Beijing International Book Fair 2025

Johanssen Obanda — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This June, we presented at the Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) and connected directly with our growing community in China. With a surge of interest from Chinese publishers and partners, it was clear: there’s a strong and rising curiosity around how metadata plays a vital role in maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record.

And we were not alone: our incredible Crossref Ambassadors based in the region joined us at the booth, and together we hosted visitors and answered questions. Throughout the fair, we engaged in passionate conversations, provided metadata guidance, and shared our knowledge as part of a panel session focused on how metadata supports scholarship. Ms. Ran Dang, Editorial Director at Atlantis Press (Springer Nature), supports Crossref outreach and advocates for Open Access and Open Science. Ms. Xiaofeng Guo, Director at Sin-Chn Scientific Press, leads DOI infrastructure efforts in China and supports Crossref members across the region. Mr. Gantulga Lkhagva, Founder and CEO of Mongolian Digital Knowledge Solutions and MongoliaJOL, works to strengthen local scholarly publishing and promote metadata best practices.

Photo: Crossref Ambassadors and Staff

This was the first time some of us had met in person after years of online collaboration, and the sense of connection and shared purpose was energising. Our Ambassadors also contributed to this post, sharing their favourite moments, key takeaways, and stories from the fair.

A snapshot from the panel discussion

During BIBF, we hosted a panel session focused on the role of metadata in supporting scholarship. Ms. Alicia Wang, Vice President - CNPIEC Kexin Technology Co., Ltd, Robbykha Rosalien, Membership Support Specialist - Crossref, Johanssen Obanda - Community Engagement Manager - Crossref, and our Ambassadors joined the panel, and we were glad to have a mix of Crossref members, Metadata Plus users, and curious participants join the discussion.

Photo: Panel session - Ms. Alicia Wang, Mr. Gantulga Lkhagva, Ms. Robbykha Rosalien, Mr. Johanssen Obanda, Ms. Xiaofeng Guo, Ms. Ran Dang.

Ms Xiaofeng Guo making a presentation about how metadata supports scholarship

Key questions from the session included the status of open abstracts in Crossref, how retracted articles affect citation tracking and research integrity, and what happens when DOIs no longer resolve due to unmaintained landing pages.

Robbykha explained our DOI resolution and archival systems, clarifying that DOIs are designed to always resolve, even when the original content moves or becomes unavailable. We also touched on the work Crossref is doing to support transparency around retractions, and the goals of The Initiative for Open Abstracts, which aims to make research summaries more accessible.

Metadata Plus use cases from China

Two of our Metadata Plus users were present during the panel and generously shared how they are leveraging Crossref metadata in their work.

Jie He from ScienceRiver described how their team translates Crossref metadata from English into Chinese, making it possible for users in China to search for relevant academic literature originally published outside the mainland. Their efforts open up global research to local audiences, bridging language and accessibility gaps. This conversation also led to broader discussions about multilingual metadata and the work our Metadata Advisory Group hopes to support in this area.

Eurasia Academic Publishing Group, based in Hong Kong, talked about using Crossref metadata coupled with AI approaches to develop a tool for readers, editors, and institutions to help assess the integrity of research articles and detect paper mills.

Reflections from our Ambassadors and the community

One common thread throughout our time at BIBF was the recognition that many of our resources, documentation, and support materials are still primarily in English. For Chinese-speaking community members who are new to Crossref or metadata concepts, this creates a pretty steep learning curve. We heard this clearly, and we know there’s work to do in making our services more accessible across languages.

From personal highlights to fascinating conversations, here’s what some of our Ambassadors had to say:

I am very happy to have met with colleagues from Crossref and several Ambassadors from Asia! We have met many times online, but this was the first time we met face-to-face and worked together to engage with our members and host events! I learned a great deal from our face-to-face exchanges, including updates on Crossref’s latest use cases, industry development trends, and even information about my colleagues’ hometowns. We built friendships and successfully participated in the first BIBF event for Crossref, which was the biggest takeaway!

我非常高兴，能够与Crossref的同事和亚洲的几位大使见面！我们曾经多次在网络会议中见面，但是这是第一次面对面，并且共同面对用户、举办活动！在我们面对面的交流中我也学到了很多，包括Crossref的最新应用案例，行业发展情况，甚至同事们自己家乡的情况！我们建立了友谊，成功举办了第一次BIBF活动，这是最大的收获！

At the BIBF exhibition and events, we had good conversations with our Chinese partners and some members, and learned about actual application needs and use cases, which was very helpful to me. Most of the people I met spoke Chinese, but their publishers or institutions may have come from countries and regions outside mainland China, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

在此次BIBF展览和活动中，我们与中国的合作伙伴以及很多用户面对面交流，了解到实际的应用需求和应用案例，这对我帮助很大。我接触的客户多半讲华语，但是他们的出版社或机构可能来自新加坡、香港、台湾等中国大陆以外的国家和地区。

I also participated in the BIBF Forum events held before the exhibition, including the PubTech Conference, the first STM Asia-Pacific Conference, and the networking dinner. These three events were jointly organised by China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Corporation (CNPIEC), STM, and the Chinese Society of China University Journals (SCUJ). During the events, I heard about the latest developments in the publishing industry and gained valuable insights into hot topics. I also met many new and old friends and partners, some from China and others from around the world. Interacting with them not only allowed me to reminisce about the past but also provided me with new perspectives and expanded my professional network.

我这次也参加了在展览之前举办的BIBF论坛活动，包括的PubTech论坛，以及首界STM亚太会议和交流晚宴。这三个活动是由中国图书进出口公司（CNPIEC）、STM和中国高校科技期刊研究会（SCUJ）联合举办的。在活动中我听到了很多出版行业的最新发展以及针对热点问题的真知灼见，见到了很多新老朋友和伙伴，他们部分来自中国，部分来自世界各地。与他们交流不仅让我重温旧时光，也获得了新的见解、新的人脉。

Discussion with Ms. Bo Li from China Education Publication Import & Export Corporation (CEPIEC) on matching papers with their funding grants from China. This is an excellent use case for Crossref’s Grant Linking System (GLS) service and related metadata. We introduced the GLS service and Crossref metadata to Ms. Bo Li and will follow up with her and her colleagues to help them use Crossref’s metadata to complete this task more easily.

与中国教育图书进出口公司的李博女士讨论为科研基金匹配项目资助的论文元数据。这是一个非常好的应用案例，可以利用Crossref的GLS服务以及相关元数据。我们向李博介绍了GLS服务以及元数据的相关情况，之后还将与她和她的同事进行深入讨论，帮助他们利用Crossref的元数据更快捷地完成此项工作。

Discussion with Dr. Zhu Xuefeng. Their team has developed an application that identifies research integrity issues in journals and articles. They primarily utilise Crossref metadata (including article metadata and retraction observation data), withdrarXiv, ORCID and Research Organization Registry (ROR) data, among others. By linking and integrating these data, they calculate the research integrity risk of relevant journals and articles, providing a reference for authors submitting manuscripts, editors reviewing manuscripts, and institutions monitoring research integrity issues.

与朱学峰博士的讨论。他们的团队开发了一款应用程序，识别期刊/文章的科研诚信问题。他们主要利用了Crossref元数据（包括文章元数据和撤稿观察数据），arXiv的撤回数据集，以及ORCID和ROR数据等，通过关联、集成这些数据计算相关期刊/文章的科研诚信风险，为作者投稿、编辑审稿、机构监测科研诚信问题等提供参考。

At the Crossref BIBF event, Ms. Wang Xuan, Vice President of CNPIEC Kexin Technology Co., Ltd, a Crossref sponsor in China, discussed the strong demand for reliable data sources when applying AI in the field of scientific research, as well as how Crossref metadata can provide strong support. She proposed that all AI products focusing on scientific research should show the original DOIs for the academic resources they cite in the results they provide to users, to enhance the reliability and traceability of data sources. She committed that her company, Ke Xin, as a provider of research AI assistants, will implement this functionality in its products and hopes to promote this as a best practice to all research AI application developers and providers. This reflects that, as cutting-edge technology advances and requirements for research integrity and compliance continue to rise, Crossref metadata continues to play an important role in scholarship and will become increasingly extensive and indispensable.

在Crossref BIBF活动上，中图科信公司（Crossref中国赞助机构）副总经理王轩女士在讨论中阐述了关于AI在科研领域应用时对于可信数据来源的强烈需求，以及Crossref元数据如何能提供有力支撑的想法。她倡议所有的科研AI产品在为用户提供结果时，应对引用的学术资源提供原始的DOI标识，以增强数据来源的可信度和可追踪性。她承诺中图科信公司作为科研AI助手的提供者将在其产品中实现这一功能，并希望能将此作为最佳实践向所有科研AI应用的开发者、提供者进行推广。这反映了随着前沿科技发展以及科研诚信与合规要求不断提升，Crossref元数据对于学术研究提供的支撑作用将越来越广泛、越来越重要。

Connecting the dots: FWFs transition to linked grant metadata to support a thriving culture of openness

Rocío Gaudioso Pedraza — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click here for the version in German

As a new Community Engagement Manager at Crossref, dedicated to working with the funders community, I frequently hear requests for examples and case studies of adopting Crossref’s Grant Linking System (GLS) by ‘funders like us’. This has spurred me to start a series of blog posts presenting funders’ perspectives on joining Crossref and using our system – to demonstrate how it’s done.

In the first case study of a series, I speak with Katharina Rieck, Open Science Manager at the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Austria’s national funding agency for basic research, about the agency’s approach to research metadata, transparency and openness, and the role that the Grant Linking System plays in it.

With a strong track record in Open Access and Open Science, the FWF’s decision to implement grant IDs represents more than a mere technical upgrade. What began as an initiative to enhance the openness and interoperability of grant information illustrates that truly open research infrastructure is not solely a matter of systems, but about people, policies and collaboration.

Katharina was also elected to the Crossref Board at our November 2024 Annual Meeting, and started her three-year term in January 2025.

Could you introduce your organisation? And what is your role?

The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) is Austria’s national funding agency for basic research. The FWF funds all disciplines, from Social Sciences and Humanities to Life Sciences and Natural Sciences and Technology. As Open Science Manager, I am responsible for developing the FWF’s Open Science strategy, including the development of the Open Access Policy for Peer-Reviewed Publications, the Open Access Policy for Research Data as well as the FWF Research Data Management Policy. I am also responsible for the development and implementation of funding instruments such as the FWF Open-Access Block Grant and support for Open Science infrastructures.

What motivated you to join Crossref?

For more than two decades, the FWF has actively promoted and supported various aspects of Open Science. In 2004, it published its first Open Access Policy, making it one of the first funding organizations worldwide to adopt an Open Access policy for publications. In line with the commitment to open research information as a core pillar of Open Science, the FWF has taken further steps to strengthen openness and transparency: it joined Crossref to register grant DOIs and became a signatory of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information and joined Crossref to register grant DOIs.

While funding metadata––information about projects funded by the FWF––has long been freely available on our website, the launch of the Research Radar in 2023 marked a significant step forward. Our goal was not only to maintain accessibility but to ensure that the data published in the Research Radar is interoperable and aligned with the FAIR principles. By implementing the Grant Linking System from Crossref, we assign each FWF funded project a unique, persistent identifier with associated metadata, helping to make FWF grant information open, interoperable and sustainable.

Can you tell us about your experience using the Grant Linking System?

We have been using the Grant Linking System since November 2023. With the launch of the FWF’s new website and the introduction of the Research Radar, we began registering Crossref grant IDs (DOIs) for all grants included in the Research Radar database. As a result, all FWF-funded projects dating back to 1995 are now uniquely identifiable. The process of registering grant metadata with Crossref is straightforward, and we have set up a smooth internal workflow that enables the registration of DOIs after the FWF’s funding decision.

It is important to note that implementing Crossref grant IDs involved more than just a technical setup––it required the development of new internal processes and coordination through a dedicated Crossref grant DOI implementation group. The implementation process also resulted in a revised structure for grant numbers (DOI suffixes) for FWF-funded projects, establishing a sustainable and future-proof system.

How was your journey to socialise the Grant Linking System within your research community? How did you communicate the importance of identifiers and grant metadata to your grant holders?

The introduction of grant DOIs was supported by a comprehensive communication strategy, including dedicated online resources (e.g., New Identification Numbers for FWF Projects –– FWF), updates across multiple pages of the FWF website (such as Carrying out Your Project –– FWF), and presentations at various events. This communication strategy aimed to explain the purpose and value of the “new numbers” ensuring that researchers and stakeholders understood how this contributes to greater visibility, traceability, and openness of funded research.

As a funding organisation, we require grant recipients to acknowledge FWF support in all research outputs resulting from their projects. With the integration of grant DOIs into FWF’s metadata, the standardised acknowledgment text was updated to ensure that the DOIs are now included in outputs. The new required wording is: ‘This research was funded in whole or in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [grant DOI],’ and is now a requirement in the FWF funding agreement. Including the grant DOI both in the output metadata and the acknowledgment text enhances traceability and supports more effective analysis of FWF-funded outputs.

What do you find useful about registering grant metadata with Crossref?

One of the key benefits of registering grant metadata is the enhanced interconnectivity and the unique identification of FWF’s grant information. By registering our grants with Crossref, funding information becomes more than just information on the FWF website––it becomes interoperable data that is accessible and reusable. This not only increases visibility but also enables us to better analyse the outcomes of funded projects and ensures that the data is accessible as well as (re)usable by the broader research community.

In addition to assigning Crossref Grant IDs and registering grant metadata, the FWF has required ORCID IDs for researchers since 2016 and mandates the use of ROR IDs for institutions. The consistent use of persistent identifiers in metadata ensures the interoperability of FWF grant information and facilitates seamless integration with external data sources.

What are your hopes for the GLS and greater transparency in funding metadata in general?

The FAIRness and openness of research information––including metadata on funding information, research outputs, researchers, and institutions––are fundamental to a well-functioning research ecosystem. I hope to see a broader adoption of persistent identifiers in metadata, particularly in grant information, as well as a broader commitment to openly sharing research information as expressed in the Barcelona Declaration. Moreover, a key objective should be to ensure the highest possible accuracy of metadata at the point of entry. This entails, for instance, that publication metadata accurately includes funding metadata.

What were the key challenges you encountered when embracing the GLS, and how did you overcome them?

One of the key challenges we encountered when adopting the GLS was ensuring seamless integration in our existing IT infrastructure and workflows. Integrating the new number across different systems required considerable coordination. We overcame this challenge by establishing a dedicated implementation team that included IT experts.

Another challenge involved communicating and disseminating information regarding the grant DOI, ensuring that researchers and other relevant stakeholders were adequately informed. This was successfully managed through targeted and comprehensive communication efforts.

Based on your experience, what would be your advice for colleagues from other research funders?

It is important to recognise that registering grant identifers and metadata goes beyond a mere technical implementation. This is an opportunity to engage with diverse stakeholders, rethink processes and highlight the value of open funding metadata for the entire research community.

We are grateful to Katharina Rieck and FWF for generously sharing their insights and know-how. Their experience highlights the importance of seeing metadata not just as information, but as a shared resource that connects and empowers the research community.

Version in German

The title has been changed slightly from the original version. Translation by Lena Stoll.

Connecting the Dots: Wie der FWF durch die Umstellung auf vernetzte Fördermetadaten eine Kultur der Offenheit fördert

Als neue Community-Engagement-Managerin bei Crossref, die sich der Zusammenarbeit mit Fördergebern widmet, werde ich häufig gefragt, ob ich Beispiele und Fallstudien von „Förderern wie uns“ geben kann, die Crossrefs Grant Linking System (GLS) bereits eingeführt haben. Dies hat mich dazu veranlasst, eine Blogreihe zu starten, in der ich die Perspektiven von Fördergebern auf eine Crossref-Mitgliedschaft und die Nutzung unseres Systems vorstelle – um zu zeigen, wie es funktioniert.

In der ersten Fallstudie dieser Reihe spreche ich mit Katharina Rieck, Open-Science-Managerin beim Österreichischen Wissenschaftsfonds FWF, Österreichs nationaler Förderagentur für Grundlagenforschung, über den Ansatz des FWF zu Forschungsmetadaten, Transparenz und Offenheit sowie über die Rolle, die das Grant Linking System dabei spielt.

Mit seiner langjährigen Erfahrung im Bereich Open Access und Open Science stellt die Entscheidung des FWF, Grant-IDs (DOIs für Fördermittel) einzuführen, mehr als nur eine technische Verbesserung dar. Die Initiative begann mit dem Ziel, die Offenheit und Interoperabilität von Förderinformationen zu verbessern, aber schon bald wurde klar, dass eine wirklich offene Forschungsinfrastruktur nicht nur eine Frage der Systeme ist, sondern auch Menschen, Regelwerke, Abläufe und die Zusammenarbeit betrifft.

Katharina Rieck wurde auf unserer Jahresversammlung im November 2024 außerdem in Crossrefs Board of Directors gewählt und ist im Januar 2025 ihre dreijährige Amtszeit angetreten.

Bitte stellen Sie den FWF kurz vor und erklären Sie unseren Leser:innen, was Ihre Rolle dort ist.

Der Österreichische Wissenschaftsfonds FWF ist Österreichs nationale Förderorganisation für Grundlagenforschung. Der FWF fördert alle Disziplinen, von den Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften über die Lebenswissenschaften bis hin zu Naturwissenschaften und Technik. Als Open-Science-Managerin bin ich für die Entwicklung der Open-Science-Strategie des FWF verantwortlich, einschließlich der Entwicklung der Open-Access-Policy für begutachtete Publikationen, der Open-Access-Policy für Forschungsdaten sowie der FWF-Richtlinie zum Forschungsdatenmanagement. Darüber hinaus bin ich verantwortlich für die Entwicklung und Umsetzung von Förderinstrumenten wie der Open-Access-Pauschale des FWF sowie die Unterstützung von Open-Science-Infrastrukturen.

Was hat Sie dazu bewogen, Crossref beizutreten?

Der FWF fördert und unterstützt seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten aktiv verschiedene Aspekte von Open Science. 2004 veröffentlichte er seine erste Open-Access-Policy und war damit eine der ersten Förderorganisationen weltweit, die eine Open-Access-Policy für Publikationen eingeführt haben. Im Einklang mit seinem Engagement für offene Forschungsinformationen als zentrale Säule von Open Science hat der FWF weitere Schritte unternommen, um Offenheit und Transparenz zu stärken: Der FWF ist Crossref beigetreten, um Grant-DOIs zu registrieren, und ist Unterzeichner der Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information.

Zwar sind Metadaten zur Forschungsförderung – also Informationen über FWF-geförderte Projekte – schon seit Langem über unsere Website frei verfügbar. Doch die Einführung des Research Radar im Jahr 2023 war nochmal ein bedeutender Fortschritt. Unser Ziel war es nicht nur, den offenen Zugang zu den Metadaten aufrechtzuerhalten, sondern auch sicherzustellen, dass die im Forschungsradar veröffentlichten Daten interoperabel und mit den FAIR-Prinzipien vereinbar sind. Durch die Anwendung von Crossrefs Grant Linking System bekommt jetzt jedes vom FWF geförderte Projekt eine eindeutige, unveränderliche ID mit dazugehörigen Metadaten – und die Informationen zu FWF-Fördermitteln sind somit offen, interoperabel und nachhaltig verfügbar.

Können Sie uns mehr über Ihre Erfahrungen mit dem Grant Linking System erzählen?

Wir nutzen das Grant Linking System seit November 2023. Mit dem Launch der neuen FWF-Website und des Research Radar begannen wir damit, Crossref-Grant-IDs (DOIs) für alle in der Forschungsradar-Datenbank enthaltenen Förderungen zu registrieren. Dadurch sind nun alle FWF-geförderten Projekte seit 1995 eindeutig identifizierbar. Die Registrierung von Grant-Metadaten bei Crossref ist unkompliziert, und wir haben einen reibungslosen internen Workflow entwickelt, um DOIs nach der Förderentscheidung des FWF zu registrieren.

Es ist wichtig zu erwähnen, dass es für die Einführung von Crossref-Grant-IDs mehr als nur den Aufbau technischer Prozesse brauchte – wir haben auch neue interne Abläufe entwickelt und eine eigene Arbeitsgruppe für die Koordination von Crossref-Grant-DOIs gebildet. Im Zuge dieses Prozesses haben wir auch die Struktur der Projektnummern für FWF-geförderte Projekte (also der DOI-Suffixe) überarbeitet und somit ein nachhaltiges und zukunftssicheres System aufgebaut.

Welche Erfahrungen haben Sie damit gemacht, das Grant Linking System in Ihrer Forschungscommunity zu bewerben? Wie haben Sie Ihren Fördernehmer:innen die Wichtigkeit von Identifiern und Metadaten vermittelt?

Wir haben die Einführung der Grant-DOIs mit einer umfassenden Kommunikationsstrategie unterstützt, inklusive spezieller Online-Ressourcen (z. B. Neue Identifikationsnummern für FWF-Projekte), der Aktualisierung mehrerer Seiten auf der FWF-Website (z. B. Projekt durchführen) sowie Vorträgen bei diversen Veranstaltungen. Ziel dieser Kommunikationsstrategie war es, Zweck und Nutzen der „neuen Nummern“ zu erläutern und sicherzustellen, dass Forschende und Stakeholder verstehen, wie diese zu mehr Sichtbarkeit, Nachvollziehbarkeit und Offenheit der geförderten Forschung beitragen.

Als Förderorganisation verlangen wir von unseren Fördernehmer:innen, die Unterstützung durch den FWF in allen Forschungsergebnissen zu erwähnen, die aus dem Projekt resultieren. Mit der Integration der Grant-DOIs in die Metadaten des FWF haben wir den standardisierten Acknowledgement-Text aktualisiert, um sicherzustellen, dass die DOIs in den Ergebnissen erwähnt werden. Der neue erforderliche Wortlaut ist: „Diese Forschung wurde gänzlich oder teilweise durch den Wissenschaftsfonds FWF finanziert [Grant-DOI].“ und ist in jedem FWF-Fördervertrag festgeschrieben. Die Angabe von Grant-DOIs sowohl in den Metadaten als auch im Acknowledgement-Text von wissenschaftlichem Output verbessert die Rückverfolgbarkeit und ermöglicht eine genauere Analyse der vom FWF geförderten Ergebnisse.

Was finden Sie an der Registrierung von Fördermetadaten bei Crossref am hilfreichsten?

Einer der Hauptvorteile der Registrierung von Fördermetadaten ist die verbesserte Vernetzung und die eindeutige Identifizierung der Förderinformationen des FWF. Durch die Registrierung unserer Projekte bei Crossref werden Förderinformationen zu mehr als nur Informationen auf unserer Website – sie werden zu interoperablen Daten, die abrufbar und wiederverwendbar sind. Dies erhöht nicht nur die Sichtbarkeit, sondern ermöglicht uns auch eine bessere Analyse der Ergebnisse geförderter Projekte und stellt sicher, dass die Daten für die allgemeine Forschungsgemeinschaft zugänglich und (wieder-)verwendbar sind.

Neben der Vergabe von Crossref-Grant-IDs und der Registrierung von Fördermetadaten schreibt der FWF seit 2016 ORCID für Forschende sowie die Verwendung von ROR IDs für Institutionen vor. Die konsequente Verwendung persistenter IDs in den Metadaten gewährleistet die Interoperabilität der FWF-Förderinformationen und erleichtert die nahtlose Integration mit externen Datenquellen.

Was erhoffen Sie sich vom GLS und von mehr Transparenz bei Fördermetadaten im Allgemeinen?

Die FAIRness und Offenheit von Forschungsinformationen – einschließlich der Metadaten zu Förderinformationen, Forschungsergebnissen, Forschenden und Institutionen – sind für ein gut funktionierendes Forschungsökosystem wesentlich. Ich hoffe auf eine weiterreichende Anwendung von persistenten IDs in Metadaten, insbesondere in Förderinformationen, und auf ein größeres Engagement für den offenen Austausch von Forschungsinformationen, wie es zum Beispiel in der Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information gefordert wird. Darüber hinaus sollte sichergestellt werden, dass die Metadaten bereits bei der Eingabe und damit bei ihrer Generierung möglichst korrekt sind. Das bedeutet unter anderem, dass die Metadaten von Publikationen die korrekten Fördermetadaten enthalten sollten.

Welche Herausforderungen sind bei der Einführung des GLS aufgetreten und wie haben Sie diese gemeistert?

Eine der größten Herausforderungen bestand darin, das Grant Linking System nahtlos in unsere bestehende IT-Infrastruktur und Arbeitsabläufe zu integrieren. Die „neue Nummer“ in die unterschiedlichen Systeme zu integrieren, bedeutete einen hohen Koordinationsaufwand. Gemeistert haben wir diese Herausforderung durch die Bildung einer eigenen Arbeitsgruppe für die Anwendung von Crossref-Grant-DOIs, in der auch IT-Expert:innen vertreten waren.

Eine weitere Herausforderung bestand in der Kommunikation und Verbreitung von Informationen zu Grant-DOIs, um Forschende und andere Stakeholder angemessen zu informieren. Das haben wir durch gezielte und umfassende Kommunikationsmaßnahmen erreicht.

Basierend auf Ihrer eigenen Erfahrung, welchen Ratschlag würden Sie Kolleg:innen bei anderen Fördergebern mitgeben?

Es ist wichtig zu verstehen, dass die Registrierung von Grant-IDs und Metadaten über eine bloße technische Umsetzung hinausgeht. Der Prozess bietet die Gelegenheit, mit verschiedenen Stakeholdern in Kontakt zu treten, Abläufe zu überdenken und den Wert offener Fördermetadaten für die gesamte Forschungsgemeinschaft zu unterstreichen.

Wir danken Katharina Rieck und dem FWF für ihre Bereitschaft, ihre Erkenntnisse und ihr Know-how so großzügig zu teilen. Ihr Erfahrungsbericht hat uns gezeigt, wie wichtig es ist, Metadaten nicht nur als Informationen zu betrachten, sondern als eine gemeinsame Ressource, die die gesamte Forschungsgemeinschaft vernetzen und stärken kann.

Sprinting to Progress: Behind the scenes of our first metadata sprint

Luis Montilla — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you take a peek at our blog, you’ll notice that metadata and community are the most frequently used categories. This is not a coincidence – community is central to everything we do at Crossref. Our first-ever Metadata Sprint was a natural step in strengthening both. Cue fanfare!. And what better way of celebrating 25 years of Crossref?

We designed the Crossref Metadata Sprint as a relatively short event where people can form teams and tackle short problems. What kind of problems? While we expected many to involve coding, teams also explored documenting, translating, researching—anything that taps into our open, member-curated metadata. Our motivation behind this format was to create a space for networking, collaboration, and feedback, centered on co-creation using the scholarly metadata from our REST API, the Public Data File, and other sources.

What have we learned in planning

The journey towards the event was filled with valuable lessons and learnings from our community. Our initial call received submissions from 71 people, which was exciting but presented the first challenge: we felt our event would work better with a relatively smaller group. An additional challenge we faced was the enthusiasm from people from different regions of the world who were eager to join, but needed support to attend in person. It reminded us how global our community is, and how important it is to think about different ways of making participation possible, especially in future events.

We also wanted to make sure that participation wasn’t limited by technical background. The selection process included a preliminary review by several members of our team to bring in a mix of perspectives and reduce bias. The event welcomed participants from all kinds of expertise levels, including colleagues who had never worked with APIs before. We sought to provide common ground for all with several group calls, where we presented introductions to our tools and used the opportunity to collect requests about tools, specific data, and questions from the participants that could enhance their preparation during the sprint.

At the Crossref Metadata Sprint

I’ve recently stumbled upon the following quote from a recognized data scientist:

Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice. (Stephen Few) ¹

It made me think that we can replace numbers for metadata and the idea still holds. Surrounded by the paleontological collections of the National Museum of Natural History, on 8th of April in Madrid, 21 participants and 5 Crossref staff came together to work on twelve different projects. These ranged from improvements to our Public Data file formats and exploring metadata completeness, to tackling multilingual metadata challenges, understanding citation impact for retracted works, and connecting Retraction Watch metadata with other knowledge graphs metadata.

The different teams that participated in the first Crossref Metadata Sprint.
The initial hours were the most energetic (but not chaotic!) as most of the participants had the chance to interact in person for the first time, ideas were exchanged, and pre-formed groups became more stable (however, one of the advantages of the format is that teams don't have to be rigid). Twelve coffee- and tea-powered projects started taking shape, a few of which are part of larger ideas under development. By the end of the second day, we saw:

Author changes between preprints and published articles.
Coverage of funding information by publisher.
Enriching citations with Crossref metadata.
Funding metadata completeness.
Improvement to the Public Data File.
Interoperability between Crossref DOIs and hash-based identifiers.
University of Tetova’s metadata coverage.
Retraction Watch data mash-up.
Perspective about AI-driven multilingual metadata.
Public Data File in Google Big Query.
Visibility of retractions across citations.
Visualising Crossref geographic member data.

Our team worked as part of some of these projects, providing valuable insights and feedback to the participants. We ended the first session with a group dinner and re-energised for the second day, which started with everybody fully immersed in their tasks. As we approached the conclusion, the groups started preparing some quick slides for a short presentation (that you can find here).

Our team and the participants left excited and looking forward to the next opportunity to collaborate. We certainly see the potential of recreating these spaces, and we’ll work on future editions in a different location. All of the project summaries and notes will remain stored in our metadata sprint Gitlab repo. Would you like to know more about any of these ideas? Let us know in the comments.

The first Crossref Metadata Sprint in a nutshell

Participants

None of this would’ve been possible without our enthusiastic participants. Huge thanks to everyone! Here is the full list of those who attended our inaugural Sprint:

Name
Blessing Abumere
Ana Bermejo
Robert Bianchi
Adam Buttrick
María de la Paz
Nicoleta Roxana Dinu
Jack Ekinsmyth
Castedo Ellerman
Álvaro Hontanar
Bianca Kramer
Anne L’Hôte
Cyril Labbe
Alexandra Malaga
Agon Memeti
Kaitlin Newson
Yağmur Öztürk
Dietrich Rordorf
Mohamed Selim
Sajad Sepehri
Ramazan Turgut
Iñaki Úcar

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentdykes/2016/03/31/data-storytelling-the-essential-data-science-skill-everyone-needs/ ↩︎

Destacando nuestra comunidad en Colombia

Susan Collins — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

English version

Dado que Crossref celebra su 25º aniversario este año, nos gustaría destacar algunas de las regiones activas y comprometidas en nuestra comunidad global.

Durante los primeros 25 años, la composición de los miembros de Crossref ha evolucionado significativamente. De un puñado de grandes editoriales fundadoras, ahora tenemos más de 22.000 miembros de 160 países. Casi dos tercios de ellos se identifican como universidades, bibliotecas, entidades gubernamentales, fundaciones, editoriales académicas, e institutos de investigación.

Una de las regiones de mayor crecimiento es Latinoamérica, con más de 3.200 miembros, la mitad de los cuales se unió en los pasados cinco años. Colombia fue uno de los primeros miembros de Crossref en Latinoamérica y continua siendo uno de los países más activos con 242 organizaciones.

“Creo que las organizaciones en Colombia siempre están abiertas a nuevos cambios, y a implementar nuevas estrategias que permitan mejorar o generar vínculos entre diversos actores, el programa Nexo podría verse de gran utilidad puesto que Colombia está uno de los grandes generadores de investigación en la región, y el poder conectar de una manera ágil y rápida toda una red de investigación va a representar grandes ventajas en los procesos”, – dice nuestro Embajador Juan Felipe Vargas Martínez, Cofundador y Director de Journals & Authors, en Medellín.

Una de las razones del aumento en la participación en Colombia es nuestro programa de patrocinadores. Los patrocinadores proveen apoyo a organizaciones más pequeñas que a menudo enfrentan barreras financieras, técnicas, y linguísticas que les dificultan convertirse en miembros de Crossref. Uno de los primeros patrocinadores en Colombia, Journals & Authors, se unió en 2016, siendo de los primeros en Latinoamérica. Ahora tenemos cinco patrocinadores ubicados en Colombia, apoyando 114 miembros.

Nuestros patrocinadores también han sido aliados clave en ayudarnos a interactuar con la comunidad, facilitando numerosos webinars y apoyando nuestras reuniones presenciales en Colombia en 2019 y 2024. Su conocimiento de la comunidad editorial a lo largo del país y sus extensas redes ayudan a las organizaciones nuevas a aprender más sobre Crossref de manera accesible, y a crecer continuamente la participación con nosotros.

También tenemos embajadores altamente dedicados ubicados en Colombia que son fuertes promotores de la misión de Crossref: Nicolás Mejía Torres y Juan Felipe Vargas Martínez. A lo largo de los años, ellos han sido instrumentales en ayudar a organizar eventos presenciales y webinarios para miembros, así como también en representar a Crossref en eventos a en Latinoamérica. Puedes aprender sobre nuestras discusiones en el resumen de los eventos más recientes en nuestro Foro Comunitario. Recientemente Juan Felipe y Nicolás participaron en la Feria Internacional del Libro en Bogotá donde presentaron una charla sobre los beneficios de los metadatos académicos abiertos.

Nuestra membresía en Colombia está conformada fundamentalmente por universidades, sociedades, e instituciones públicas. Casi todas las revistas dejan su contenido disponible abiertamente. La mayoría del contenido de revistas se publica usando la plataforma de publicación OJS de PKP - Colombia es el 8vo mayor usuario de OJS globalmente, y el segundo mayor en Latinoamérica.

“Entendemos que hay todavía mucho margen de uso de editoriales colombianas de Crossref.” Jaime Iván Hurtado, CEO & Fundador de Hipertexto-Netizen, un patrocinador de Crossref, reporta que “algunas hacen uso del DOI pero centradas en revistas tímidamente en los libros y poco en los capítulos de libros,” Hipertexto ha estado contribuyendo al incremento en el uso de identificadores persistentes para libros y capítulos de libros a través de sus herramientas y manejo estadarizado de metadatos.

Los miembros de Crossref a menudo conocen la importancia de los identificadores persistentes para su contenido, pero hay una necesidad de incrementar la conciencia sobre los beneficios y la importancia de incluír metadatos adicionales. Estamos concientes que muchos editores ofrecen su tiempo de manera voluntaria lo cual puede limitar su disponibilidad para entrenamiento adicional y participación en eventos relacionados con la edición y las buenas practicas para el manejo de metadatos. Queremos aumentar las oportunidades para el entrenamiento tanto presencial como remotamente, y nuestros patrocinadores y embajadores han sido aliados clave en la facilitación de estos eventos. En febrero de 2024 nos aliamos con nuestro patrocinador Biteca en un evento de dos días en Bogotá, en el que participaron más de 100 miembro. Hubo diuscusiones activas sobre los fundamentos de Crossref y el rol de los metadatos de calidad en la visibilidad de contenido, así como también presentaciones sobre la integridad y ética en la investigación y la publicación, con compañeros clave como COPE, PKP, Scielo, y DOAJ.

En Colombia no hay un requerimiento de usar identificadores persistentes (o no específicamente el DOI). Cada institución decide si usarlos de manera independiente, así que vemos con agrado tantos miembros de Crossref activos, registrando su contenido, y cada mes se unen más. Ellos reconocen el beneficio de los metadatos, así como también el ser parte de la comunidad de Crossref en general: “En Colombia, Crossref es un referente gracias al uso del DOI. Si bien en sus inicios este identificador se veía como otro requisito más que complicaba el trabajo de las editoriales, hoy es reconocido como una herramienta clave para mejorar la visibilidad y el impacto de las publicaciones. Asimismo, Crossref, a través de sus encuentros y recursos, brinda apoyo a los equipos editoriales al ofrecer pautas, herramientas e información valiosa que facilita la adopción de buenas prácticas y el cumplimiento de estándares de calidad” reporta Luz Ayda Becerra, Consultora de Innovación con nuestro patrocinador Biteca.

Las organizaciones tienen varias razones para convertirse en miembros de Crossref - la principal motivación es incrementar la visbilidad global de su contenido y, por lo tanto, incrementar el impacto de sus publicaciones. Los metadatos de Crossref son accesibles de manera abierta para todos en la comunidad. Cada mes tenemos millones de búsquedas en nuestra base de datos por parte de investigadores, bibñiotecas, herramientas que perfilan autores, servicios de búsqueda, y muchos más. Otras partes usan estos metadatos para crear herramientas y servicios que incrementan la visibilidad y la recuperabilidad del contenido de los miembros.

Sin embargo, existen desafíos que los miembros aún enfrentan cuando trabajan con nosotros. El obstáculo más frecuentemente mencionado al trabajar con Crossref es el lenguaje. La mayoría de nuestros correos electrónicos, documentación y herramientas están en inglés, y a los miembros les gustaría tener la oportunidad de recibir soporte, recursos y correspondencia en español. Aquellos que trabajan con patrocinadores se benefician de soporte de esta manera. Estamos aumentando el número de oportunidades de entrenamiento remoto y webinarios en español, y nuestros embajadores han estado interactuando con la comunidad local para proveer recursos adicionales. A principios de este año, el primer miembro de nuestro equipo ubicado en un país de Latinoamérica se unió a nuestro equipo de soporte técnico, y ahora podemos proveer soporte en español (recursos como este aparecerán más frecuentemente ahora). Reconocemos que aun tenemos trabajo por hacer para que Crossref sea más accesible a las comunidades globalmente.

Nuestros miembros han sugerido que más eventos locales y presenciales serian beneficiosos. Y estamos de acuerdo que las interacciones cara a cara son una manera clave para nosotros construir relaciones e incrementar la representación y visibilidad en las comunidades, y aspiramos a crear oportunidades de interacturas con nuestros miembros en todos los rincones del mundo.

Mostrar como se utilizan los metadatos puede resaltar los beneficios y la importancia de incluir metadatos adicionales. Varios de nuestros miembros y Patrocinadores han solicitado entrenamiento adicional en español sobre el uso de nuestras APIs, lo cual les permitiría obtener y analizar elementos clave de los metadatos.

“Al especializarse en este tipo de tecnologías, puedo analizar y estructurar la información de manera efectiva, generando informes útiles para los editores. Esto facilita la toma de decisiones informadas sobre sus publicaciones, optimizando la gestión editorial y asegurando una mejor visibilidad e impacto de los contenidos académicos.” (Luz Ayda Becerra)

En años anteriores Crossref ha sido invitado a participar en webinars y eventos presenciales en Colombia, dado el interés en crecimiento y la conciencia de la importancia de los metadatos para la comunidad de investigadores y la visibilidad de las publicaciones.

Gran parte de la información en este reporte proviene de encuestas enviadas a nuestros miembros, patrocinadores, y embajadores en Colombia. Apreciamos toda la retroalimentación, comentarios y sugerencias que hemos recibido, y queremos continuar la colaboración e incrementar la interacción con la comunidad.

English version

A spotlight on our community in Colombia

As Crossref celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, we would like to highlight some of the active and engaged regions in our global community.

Over the past 25 years, the makeup of Crossref membership has evolved significantly; from a handful of founding large publishers, we now have more than 22,000 members from 160 countries. Nearly two-thirds of them self-identify as universities, libraries, government agencies, foundations, scholar publishers, and research institutions.

One of our fastest-growing regions is Latin America, with over 3,200 members, half of whom joined us in the past five years. Colombia was one of the early adopters of Crossref from Latin America and remains one of our most active countries with 242 organisations.

“I believe that organisations in Colombia are always open to new changes and to implementing new strategies that allow for improvement or the creation of connections between diverse actors. The Research Nexus program could be very useful since Colombia is one of the largest producers of research in the region, and being able to connect an entire research network quickly and efficiently will represent significant advantages in the processes”, – says our Ambassador Juan Felipe Vargas Martínez, Co-founder and Director, Journals & Authors, in Medellín.

One of the reasons for increased participation in Colombia is our sponsor program. Sponsors provide support for smaller organisations that often face financial, technical, and language barriers that make becoming a member difficult. Our first sponsor in Colombia, Journals & Authors, joined in 2016, one of our first in Latin America. We now have five sponsors based in Colombia, supporting 114 members.

Our sponsors have also been key partners in helping us engage with the community, facilitating numerous webinars and supporting our in-person meetings in Colombia in 2019 and 2024. Their knowledge of the publishing community across the country and extensive networks help new organisations learn more about Crossref in an accessible way, and continuously grow participation with us.

We also have very dedicated ambassadors based in Colombia who are strong advocates for Crossref’s mission: Nicolás Mejía Torres and Juan Felipe Vargas Martínez. Over the years, they have been instrumental in helping to organise in-person events and webinars for members, as well as representing Crossref at events throughout Latin America. You can learn more about our discussions from the summary of the latest event on our Community Forum. Most recently, Juan Felipe and Nicolás attended the Bogotá International Book Fair, where they gave a presentation on the benefits of open academic metadata.

Our membership in Colombia is made up primarily of universities, societies, and public institutions. Almost all journals make their content openly available. Most of the journal content is published using the OJS publishing platform from PKP. Colombia is the eighth-largest user of OJS globally and the second-largest in Latin America.

“There is still considerable scope for Colombian publishers to utilise Crossref” Jaime Iván Hurtado, CEO & Founder of Hipertexto-Netizen, a Crossref sponsor, reports that “while organisations use DOIs most commonly for journals, there’s potential for greater use for books and chapters.” Hipertexto has been contributing to the increased use of persistent identifiers for books and book chapters through their tools and standardised metadata management.

Members often know the importance of persistent identifiers for their content, but there is a need to increase awareness of the benefits and importance of including additional metadata. We’re aware that many editors volunteer their time, which can limit their availability for additional training and participation in events related to publishing and metadata best practices. We aim to increase opportunities for training, both in-person and online, and our sponsors and ambassadors have been key partners in facilitating these events. In February 2024, we partnered with our Sponsor, Biteca, on a two-day event in Bogotá, attended by over 100 members. There were lively discussions on the fundamentals of Crossref and the role of quality metadata for content discovery, as well as additional presentations on research integrity and publication ethics, with key partners including COPE, PKP, Scielo, and DOAJ.

There is no requirement to use persistent identifiers (or specifically DOIs) in Colombia. Each institution decides whether to use them independently, so we’re delighted to see so many are active Crossref members, registering their content, and more are joining every month. They recognise the benefit of metadata, as well as being part of the Crossref community at large: “In Colombia, Crossref is a benchmark thanks to its use of the DOI. While initially viewed as yet another requirement that complicated the work of publishers, this identifier (and related metadata) is now recognised as a key tool for improving the visibility and impact of publications. Furthermore, through its meetings and resources, Crossref supports editorial teams by offering guidelines, tools, and valuable information that facilitate the adoption of best practices and compliance with quality standards,” reports Luz Ayda Becerra, Innovation Advisor with our sponsor, Biteca.

Organisations have various reasons for becoming members with Crossref – the main motivation is to increase the global visibility of their content and, therefore, to increase the impact of their publications. Crossref’s metadata is openly accessible and free for everyone in the community. Each month, we have millions of queries to our database from researchers, libraries, author profiling tools, discovery services and many more. Third parties use this metadata to create tools and services that increase visibility and discoverability of members’ content.

There are, however, challenges that members still face when working with us. The most frequently listed obstacle in working with Crossref is language. Most of our emails, documentation and tools are in English, and members would like the opportunity for support, resources, and correspondence in Spanish. Those working with sponsors benefit from their support in this way. For all, we are increasing the number of Spanish language online training opportunities and webinars, and our ambassadors have been engaging with the local community to provide additional resources. Earlier this year, the first staff member based in Latin America joined our technical support team, and we can now provide Spanish language support (resources like this will appear more frequently now). We recognise that we still have work to do to make Crossref more accessible to global communities.

Members have suggested that more local in-person events would be beneficial. And we agree - face-to-face interactions are a key way for us to build relationships and increase representation and visibility in communities, and we aspire to create opportunities to engage with members in all corners of the world.

Showing how metadata is utilised can show the benefits and importance of including additional metadata. Several of our members and sponsors have requested additional Spanish language training on using our APIs, which would enable them to obtain and analyse key metadata elements.

“By specialising in these technologies, I can effectively analyse and structure information, generating useful reports for editors. This facilitates informed decision-making regarding their publications, optimising editorial management, and ensuring greater visibility and impact of scholarly content.” (Luz Ayda Becerra)

Over the past several years, Crossref has been invited to participate in webinars and in-person events in Colombia, as there is an increased interest and awareness of the importance of metadata for the research community and the visibility of publications.

Much of the information in this report is taken from a survey sent to our members, sponsors, and ambassadors in Colombia. We appreciate all the feedback, comments, and suggestions we received, and we look forward to continuing our collaborations and increasing our engagement with the community.

Meet six winners of the first ever Crossref Metadata Awards

Kornelia Korzec — Wed, 07 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Marking our 25th anniversary, we launch the Crossref Metadata Awards to emphasise our community’s role in stewarding and enriching the scholarly record.

We are pleased to recognise Noyam Publishers, GigaScience Press, eLife, American Society for Microbiology, and Universidad La Salle Arequipa Perú with the Crossref Metadata Excellence Awards, and Instituto Geologico y Minero de España wins the Crossref Metadata Enrichment Award. These inaugural awards highlight the leadership of members who show dedication to the best metadata practices.

Crossref exists to make scholarly communications better by making research objects easy to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse. Our members weave the research nexus: a rich and reusable open network of connections between works resulting from the scholarly process and the people and institutions engaged in it.

Rich metadata improves discoverability of and trust in published works. Many institutions now strive to turn towards open research information in their reporting, assessment and evaluation. And so we believe it’s time to give credit to members that are doing the best work in supporting others across the scholarly ecosystem with their metadata.

The awards presented today will be followed by a series of blog interviews, where the winners will share how they achieved their high level of metadata completeness.

Starting in 2025, we will hold the awards every other year.

Read on to get more acquainted with the winners, learn about other high performing organisations and overall trends in metadata practices we see at Crossref.

Recognising Metadata Excellence

Noyam Publishers is based in Ghana. Colleagues had the pleasure of meeting them in person, during the Crossref Accra event this March. Striving for visibility motivates Noyam’s high performance when it comes to metadata. With 57% coverage of key metadata elements across their records, they are a leader among the members in our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program.

Among other GEM members who show high participation in the research nexus, we see more than 40% coverage of key metadata elements for the records registered by University of Sierra Leone Teaching Hospitals Complex in Sierra Leone, Queen Arwa University in Yemen, Kathmandu University School of Education in Nepal, and International Journal for Innovation Education and Research in Bangladesh.

GigaScience Press, based in Hong Kong, is the leader among small members (organisations of less than USD 1 mln of publishing revenue or expenses). Discoverability drives their high metadata standards, and GigaSciencePress sees those having advantages in terms of service integrations and development too. They are quick to credit the expertise of their technology partner, River Valley Technologies as the strategic contributor to them achieving 82% coverage of key metadata elements across their records.

It’s worth highlighting that the competition among our small members was much closer than in any other category! Stichting SciPost (Netherlands) also show more than 80% coverage across their records, followed by Life Science Alliance, LLC (United States), National Institute for Health and Care Research (United Kingdom), and Universidad La Salle Arequipa (Peru), each of which achieved more than 70% metadata coverage across their registered works.

eLife leads among our medium members (organisations between USD 1 mln and 10 mln of publishing revenue or expenses) with 85% coverage of key metadata elements. They have shown dedication to metadata quality and consistently high performance over the years. They are also the first publisher to include Crossref grant IDs in their records, adopting the Grant Linking System.

Other medium-sized organisations to note are MDPI AG in Switzerland, and XMLink in South Korea – while there’s a significant gap to the leader, each of these organisations has more than 50% coverage of key metadata elements across their records.

It appears that large members (organisations with more than USD 10 mln of publishing revenue or expenses) struggle to achieve consistency in metadata quality across all of their records. Yet, we are delighted to recognise the American Society for Microbiology in the United States, who have embarked on a large metadata quality improvement project several years ago, and it continues to bear fruit as we see 56% of metadata coverage across ASM’s records. They’ve shared their experience on our blog already, so this time we’ll invite them to follow up with the latest updates on their metadata practices.

American Geophysical Union (AGU), Public Library of Science (PLOS), SAGE Publications, and Wiley, all based in the United States, are ASM’s closest runners up. While the gap is significant – still each of these organisations has more than 40% of metadata coverage across their records. PLOS has an impressive proportion of Crossmark-enabled works (99%), and American Geophysical Union and Wiley are registering a significant proportion of abstracts for their records (87% and 59% respectively).

It often takes time to hone new processes and learn about metadata practices, so we decided to recognise metadata excellence among our new members: organisations that joined Crossref within the past two years. Our inaugural award for excellence among new members goes to Universidad La Salle Arequipa Perú, who joined Crossref in May 2023, and have 71% metadata coverage across their records.

Rewarding Metadata Enrichment

Our members don’t just register their records with us – they also steward and maintain their metadata over time. As new technical capabilities and metadata elements become available, members have the ability to update their metadata. We decided to recognise the member who achieved the biggest transformation to their records in the past two years: Instituto Geologico y Minero de España, based in Spain, jumped from just over 1% to more than 40% metadata coverage for their records in the space of the past two years.

Others who made more than 30% jump in their metadata completeness in the past two years are Cabrera Research Lab (United States), Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas (Spain), Bon View Publishing PTE (Singapore), Asociacion Colombiana de Neurologia (Colombia), Instituto Superior Tecnológico Almirante Illingworth (Ecuador), and Tashkent State University of Economics (Uzbekistan).

How did we select the winners?

Our Metadata Excellence Awardees have been selected on the basis of the overall highest coverage of metadata elements included in Participation Reports as of March 2025, and the Metadata Enrichment Award was based on the comparison between performance on the same criteria between March 2023 and March 2025. Participation Reports are openly available and provide information about the proportion of a given member’s records that include the following high-value metadata elements:

References
Abstracts
ORCID iDs
Affiliations
ROR IDs
Funder Registry IDs
Funding award numbers
Crossmark enabled
Text mining URLs
License URLs

The report also includes Similarity Check URLs. However, since Similarity Check is an optional service that attracts a separate fee – it wouldn’t be equitable to include it in our analysis.

We encourage all members to periodically monitor their participation reports, and we offer frequent drop-in metadata health-check sessions, where we review the reports together and offer advice on making improvements in areas where our members experience challenges.

In a membership of more than 22,000 organisations, it’s difficult to recognise just one organisation as a model of best practices. There are many nuances that influence the performance and we would like to be transparent about some considerations we made in our awarding process.

First of all, we considered volume of publishing as a key variable, and decided to qualify organisations with a minimum of 20 items of registered content.

We also recognise that size matters – and decided to award our Metadata Excellence Awards in four categories corresponding with organisational size and resourcing.

Beyond the winners – overview of good metadata practice across different types of works

The scholarly communications landscape is always evolving, and new types of content arise all the time. Crossref schema enables rich metadata collection about journal articles, books, book chapters, preprints, conference proceedings, technical reports, as well as grants, and more.

At this point, the most prolific way of sharing scholarship - at least judging by the number of records registered with Crossref – is a journal article. There are 112,982,290 journal articles in the Crossref database, and in 2024 alone our members created 6,747,031 journal articles records with us.

When it comes to books (2,212,221 total records) and book chapters (22,892,785 total records), publishers with the richest metadata records include Universitatsbibliothek Kiel (Germany) with more than 50% coverage of key metadata elements across their book records, and 70% for their book chapters. RTI Press (US) also has strong metadata for books (52%), while Firenze University Press (Italy) has 56% of metadata coverage across their book chapters. Incidentally, Universitatsbibliothek Kiel (Germany) are also leaders in metadata for conference proceedings (53% metadata coverage of those records).

Preprints and posted content (including preprints, eprints, working papers, reports) are relatively new on the scene and growing rapidly – Crossref has 1,683,351 preprint records (413,742 registered in 2024). The richest metadata records for preprints belong to eLife (UK) - they cover more than 50% of key metadata elements across their preprints records in Crossref. Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Netherlands) have 48% metadata coverage for their preprints, American Chemical Society (ACS; United States) with 46%, and UNISA Press (South Africa) and PeerJ (US) follow with 44% coverage.

The newest of record types that can be registered with us are grants. At present this is an early adopters domain, with 152,810 registered grants so far. The European Union (represented in Crossref by the Publications Office of the European Union) registered the most grants to date.

Beyond the winners – overview of coverage in key metadata elements

When speaking about key metadata elements reflected in our Participation Report, the coverage varies widely. For example, overall 21% of records in Crossref have abstract metadata; 2,000 members have a full coverage of their records with abstracts, while 1,000 don’t include any. Deposition of ORCID iDs is growing but still very low, with only 10% of records including ORCID iDs.

Affiliation metadata, broadly sought after by many stakeholders in the scholarly ecosystem - not least because of its role as a key marker of trust - is growing steadily but slowly: only 16% of records included it at the end of March 2025. With recent improvements in our helper tools (especially the latest version of the record registration form), and the upcoming developments in other publishing software (notably the upcoming 3.5 version of OJS), which support affiliation metadata better – we’re expecting a significant improvement in the coming months.

As with affiliations, when research integrity judgements are concerned, another key element is the funding information. The growing interest in metadata among funders further strengthens the case for increasing inclusion of funder information in this way, ideally including Crossref grant DOIs that funders are registering in the hope of using the Grant Linking System to help their assessment and evaluation work. At the moment the space for improvement is vast, with only 6% of Crossref metadata including funder IDs and award numbers.

We support ROR IDs in both affiliation and funding metadata, but adoption among our members is slow. So far the top five contributors of ROR IDs to Crossref are Fonds de recherche du Québec, eLife, American Physical Society (APS), Optica Publishing Group, and Wellcome.

Licence metadata is currently included for 43% of records in Crossref, and we see that thousands of members don’t include it. Not all members realise that this is a practical challenge for their authors, as it hinders institutions and funders who seek to monitor compliance with their openness mandates.

Finally, references metadata is the lifeblood of the research nexus, supporting transparency and discoverability of scholarship. We’ve got 44% coverage of reference metadata across records registered in Crossref. While reference linking is a member obligation, including references in the metadata is a recommended best practice. The way references are recognised and included in works varies by publication type and discipline, which makes it harder for some members to provide it.

There’s an ongoing need to raise awareness about the role of metadata among the wider community, including editors and researchers. We have collaborated with practitioners, supporters, and users of metadata to develop relevant resources as part of the Metadata 20/20 initiative.

We make efforts to educate our members about best practices when it comes to registering their metadata with us and offer a range of support options, including technical support on our Community Forum. Recognising the leaders in metadata participation is part of that process too. With the upcoming blog series from our awardees, we hope to spur peer-to-peer learning to facilitate widespread improvements and to raise the profile of metadata quality among the community.

Metadata Advisory Group call for applications

Patricia Feeney — Fri, 02 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been accelerating our metadata development efforts and recently released version 5.4 of our metadata schema, and are planning to release version 5.5 (including support for multiple contributor roles and the CRediT taxonomy) this summer. We will also extend our grants schema based on the Funders Advisory Group work, and make progress on other changes as set out on our new metadata development roadmap.

As we work towards the vision of the rich and reusable open network of relationships connecting research organisations, people, things, and actions, dubbed the Research Nexus, our schemas need to change to accommodate the evolving landscape of research processes and communications.

In the past we convened the Metadata Interest Group that helped shape the current set of updates we’re now working through, including changes to names, expansion of support for abstracts, dates, and multilingual metadata. As we’ll soon move into new territory (support for subjects, keywords, and other metadata essential to developing a robust research nexus), we want to further enlist the support of our community to help shape the metadata we collect and the metadata best practices we promote.

We are inviting Crossref members, metadata users, and others with an interest in shaping metadata development at Crossref to apply to join our new Metadata Advisory Group.

The purpose of the group is to contribute your advice and insight to help shape our metadata development as we broaden the metadata we collect and outputs we support to better align with the Research Nexus. Group participants will help shape metadata development at Crossref, and will discuss potential new metadata to adopt, best practices, and the overall needs of metadata providers and users.

We’re looking for participants with experience with XML, JSON, and other metadata formats. We’ll cover a range of topics but we would particularly like to engage with those of you with an interest in emerging content types.

The Metadata Advisory Group will meet quarterly and we’ll accommodate multiple time zones as needed as we want participation to reflect the regional diversity of our membership.

If you’re interested, please submit an application!

Reflections from Crossref Accra 2025 - Strengthening open science and partnerships in Ghana

Johanssen Obanda — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref is a membership organisation, and it’s the global community of members that creates the Research Nexus together. Meeting our community locally is a highlight and an important learning experience. This year, we started by connecting with a growing community in Accra, Ghana - our first in-person event in the country included in our GEM program. From 14 members in 2023 to 31 in 2025, our community in Ghana is blooming.

At its core, Crossref Accra 2025 was about showing up for the community in Ghana - listening, learning, and building together. On the 20th of March, we welcomed 66 participants: journal editors, university staff, librarians, and researchers. People who are doing the real work of making scholarly publishing happen in the region.

Photo: Participants from across Ghana’s research and publishing landscape.

We started the day with a walkthrough of Crossref’s services, then shifted into more tailored conversations - talking metadata quality, improving discoverability, and making Crossref tools work for the local context. The panel featuring AJOL, WACREN, and CARLIGH was a key moment. We heard honest reflections about journal sustainability, the barriers to indexing, and how Open Access can grow if local infrastructure is supported. Each organisation shared how they’re working to strengthen research communities and where they see Crossref fitting into that bigger picture.

Photo: Crossref Ambassador Richard Lamptey moderates a panel with WACREN’s Effah Amponsah, CARLIGH’s Mac Anthony Cobblah, and AJOL’s Kylie van Zyl on sustaining journals and advancing Open Access in the region.

During the dedicated listening session, participants spoke candidly about the cost burden of APCs, the over-reliance on foreign journals for recognition, and the uphill battle local journals face, from limited resources to slow workflows. There was a clear push for stronger local publishing platforms and more training around tools like OJS. People want technical clarity: How does Crossref fit into their workflows? What’s involved in registering metadata and DOIs? What’s the actual value? Many also voiced interest in strengthening relationships with indexing services, and connecting university presses more directly with Crossref. The afternoon breakout sessions were hands-on. One group explored how to use the Participation Reports to check metadata completeness, while the other dove into using the Crossref API. People started swapping tips, asking questions, and brainstorming ways to improve how their institutions handle metadata. Several wanted to know how to automate more of their workflows through OJS, boost reference linking, and pull better reports from the Crossref system.

Photo: A collage of snapshots capturing activities at the Crossref Accra event.

Outside the main event, we also visited some of our members and stopped by the Association of African Universities. These visits gave us more time for deeper conversations about publishing workflows, ORCID uptake, metadata visibility, and the bigger picture of Open Access in Ghana. We heard a lot about the potential for more equitable partnerships and stronger local ownership of publishing infrastructure.

Post-event feedback made one thing clear: people want more opportunities to learn - more practical workshops, more guidance on using Crossref tools, and more support navigating the technical side of things. There’s growing interest in forming a local user group, a space to keep sharing, troubleshooting, and moving forward together. And the desire to improve indexing and visibility was a recurring theme. People see registering identifiers for content as an essential step on that journey. There’s also a broader concern about long-term sustainability and ethical publishing practices. Many journals are doing their best in tough conditions, and there’s a real appetite for honest conversations about quality, trust, and resilience.

Photo: Crossref staff and ambassadors with member Amy Asimah from Regional Maritime University. Pictured: Johanssen Obanda, Oumy Ndiaye, Evans Atoni, Patience Mbum, Audrey Kenni Nganmeni, Ginny Hendricks, and Richard Lamptey.

Crossref Accra 2025 reminded us how valuable these local gatherings are - not just for sharing tools and workflows, but for building lasting connections. We’re grateful to our Ambassadors and team who helped make it happen, and we’re committed to deepening our support across the region. There’s so much potential in Ghana’s scholarly community, and in West Africa more broadly, as we’ve seen again at WACREN in Senegal a couple of weeks later. We’re committed to working with local partners to help it grow.

Supporting Membership through the Sponsor Program

Susan Collins — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sponsors make Crossref membership accessible to organisations that would otherwise face barriers to joining us. They also provide support to facilitate participation, which increases the amount and diversity of metadata in the global Research Nexus. This in turn improves discoverability and transparency of scholarship behind the works.

Growing number of sponsors

Our first sponsors joined in 2008, but the program started to grow rapidly between 2012-2014, with the addition of sponsors in South Korea, Türkiye, Russia, India, and Ukraine. In 2015, we welcomed our first South American sponsor from Brazil, followed by more sponsors in Latin America starting in 2016, and our first sponsor in Indonesia in 2017.

As of December 2024, Crossref works with 124 sponsoring organisations that support 12,195 sponsored members.

In 2021, we updated the criteria for organisations to be accepted as sponsors, raising the bar to ensure that potential sponsors accurately and successfully represent Crossref in the community. We also paused the acceptance of new Sponsors from regions where such organisations are already prolific. By doing so, we can focus on growing the program in areas with the greatest need.

In 2024, we added eight new sponsors to the program; these included our first sponsor in Bangladesh (our first GEM sponsor), as well as sponsors in China, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Türkiye, Tunisia, Iraq, and Kenya.

Our five largest sponsors, based on the number of members they support (as of the end of 2024) are:

Relawan Jurnal Indonesia, Indonesia - 3076 members
Associacao Brasileira de Editores Cientificos do Brasil (ABEC Brasil) - 1312
Tubitak Ulakbim DergiPark, Türkiye - 1248
NEICON ISP, Russia- 713
Kyobobook Center, South Korea - 419

The majority of sponsors are much smaller than this, looking after 25 or fewer Sponsored Members.

Each sponsor has specific criteria for what kind of organisations they work with. Some are dedicated to supporting organisations in a specific country or region, while others may be based on geography, language, subject area, or usage of a specific platform, e.g. OJS.

Our sponsors are distributed across all regions of the world, and we’re continuously working to forge networks with organisations in regions with the least coverage, to ensure scholarly communicators anywhere can join Crossref and contribute to the Research Nexus.

Asia Pacific: 22
Central and Eastern Europe: 29
Central and South Asia: 25
Latin America and the Caribbean: 24
North Africa and the Middle East: 3
Sub-Saharan Africa: 2
US and Canada: 5
Western Europe: 14

Currently, sponsored members represent 115 different countries, with the largest proportions from Latin America, South-eastern Asia, and Eastern Europe. Nearly two-thirds of sponsored members self-identify as universities, libraries, government agencies, foundations, scholar publishers, and research institutions.

To date, sponsored members have contributed 6.5 million works to the Research Nexus.

Importantly, the sponsored members have the ability to fully participate in Crossref – they are stewards of their records (even if some choose to delegate this activity to their sponsor), they can vote, stand in for elections to our Board of Directors, and collaborate with others in the Crossref community, just as any other member.

Sponsors are key partners for us in making participation easier for organisations in their communities. They work with us to provide administrative, billing, technical, and local language support to the members they work with. Depending on the financial model, they may charge members for their services.

Technical support they provide for members makes it more tailored and often quicker than the Crossref team could offer. For example, sponsors can provide service in their local language using their preferred method (helpdesk, WhatsApp, phone, email), which varies widely by region; or, where they charge any fees – they tend to collect those in the local currency. Some sponsors even take care of all the records registration for the members they support.

It’s important to note that sponsors can only support the participation of organisations that would otherwise be in the current $275 fee tier (or up to $500 for funders) if these organisations were to join independently. Regardless of the number of sponsored members, the sponsor pays one membership fee on behalf of them all, and then they also pay all the registration fees that are due on behalf of their sponsored members, which alleviates challenges related to paying in foreign currency. Overall, sponsors make Crossref membership more economical for the organisations that participate this way, and Crossref benefits from billing efficiencies.

In a recent survey of sponsored members (carried out in July 2023, with 204 responses from members working with 53 sponsors), the majority of sponsored members (88%) said that sponsors met their expectations and 85% are likely or very likely to recommend their sponsors to another organisation.

Respondents indicated that the aspects of working with a sponsor that were most valued are technical support (72%), financial assistance/no annual fee (37.3%), ability to pay in local currency (43%), and local language support (44%).

It’s important to note that sponsors often offer many non-Crossref services to members too, including anything from website design, copy editing, typesetting, set up of publishing platform, XML-JATS markup, to assistance with submitting content to third-party databases.

Sponsors represent Crossref in the community. They also assist us in connecting with their communities locally. In 2024, we collaborated with Biteca for an event in Bogotá, and Relawan Jurnal Indonesia for a two-day event in Jakarta. Both sponsors advised on venues, promoted the event to the members they support, coordinated local guest speakers, and provided translation services as needed. We also collaborated with Hipertexto-Netizen on engaging our community at the Guadalajara Book Fair. The success of these events was in part due to our collaboration with each sponsor.

Ensuring quality experience for our members

We try to make sure that every sponsor we work with will be able to commit to helping our members long-term. We offer training too, with an expectation that they can disseminate the learning to their members. The majority of sponsored members report receiving some training from their Sponsors (with 70% in our survey saying they’ve received adequate training on all services, while only 3% haven’t received any so far). Most recently we engaged sponsors with the Participation Reports to help them improve metadata completeness for their members.

In 2024, we’ve been meeting sponsors individually to review how things are going for them and their members – assessing member metadata quality, and additional services, as well as inviting their feedback about the program and suggestions for improvements that Crossref could make.

We’ve learnt a lot about practices related to record registration and training, business models and especially – a whole range of attitudes and approaches related to metadata completeness. Some sponsors register content for all or some of their members, while others provide technical support but do not register the content directly for members.

Members who used OJS often had higher scores because of the ease of use and availability of the plugins. Some sponsors noted that many journal editors are volunteers and don’t have the time or financial resources to collect extra metadata or update existing metadata records; they collect only what is required to register an item. Several sponsors also reported a barrier with authors’ mindset – they don’t tend to see the value of including ORCiDs or ROR IDs in their submissions. Somewhat surprisingly, we learned that not all members see the value in including references in their deposits or don’t wish to take the time to add them – this is a concern, as relationships created by references are a cornerstone of the Research Nexus, and markedly support discoverability of the content.

Sometimes, sponsors are unable to continue to provide services, or they are unable to meet the obligations of being a sponsor and their accounts are closed. In the cases where a sponsor account is closed, we will work with their members to find an alternative sponsor when possible.

Similarity Check is an external service provided in partnership with iThenticate, that’s available to Crossref members at a more competitive price, and it is in demand among the sponsored members too. Currently, 78 Sponsors offer Similarity Check to their members (however, not all sponsored members working with these sponsors have elected to use the service).

Sponsor LIBCOM Piotr Karwasinski was pleased that “All the rules of Crossref are unified. Everything is the same for everyone - the same for big publishers as well as small. Equal for everyone.”

Costs can sometimes be a concern; sponsors in India and Algeria both noted that $1USD is a lot of money for some. We mentioned the fee review being conducted with the RCFS project.

In summary

As we move toward realizing our vision of a connected Research Nexus, building a network for the global community must include input from all of the global community. When Crossref began 25 years ago our first members were mainly from the United States and Western Europe, but today our membership is much more global and diverse. Though our membership has grown to more than 22,000 organisations around the world, we are not seeing significant membership growth from all regions.

In the last few years, almost half of our members came from Southeastern Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America combined. However, there is much slower growth in other regions, mostly notably Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Central Asia, with only 5% of new member applications coming from these regions collectively. We know there are organisations in those areas contributing to the scholarly record, however, many continue to face financial, technical, and administrative barriers to become members.

The Sponsor Program is one of the avenues established to address and reduce barriers and to help facilitate membership and participation to all knowledge-sharing organisations worldwide. Ensuring it remains strong and successful requires collaboration, communication, and comprehensive training.

Request for proposals: Crossref website information architecture review

Lena Stoll — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are looking for an organisation to perform an audit of, and propose changes to, the structure and information architecture underlying our website, with the aim of making it easier for everyone in our community to navigate the website and find the information they need.

UPDATE, August 2025: We are partnering with Cazinc and Cactus AI Solutions on this work. Stay tuned for updates on the progress of this project over the coming months.

About Crossref

Crossref is a nonprofit membership organisation that exists to make scholarly communications better. We run open infrastructure to link research objects, entities, and actions, creating a lasting and reusable scholarly record that underpins open science and makes research outputs easy to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse.

Together with our 22,000 members in 160 countries, we drive metadata exchange and support nearly 2 billion monthly API queries, facilitating global research communication, for the benefit of society. Our members include research institutions, publishers, libraries, funders, government bodies, and other stakeholders in the scholarly communications ecosystem.

About the Crossref website

We launched the current website in 2016. A few years later, we custom-developed the current Documentation section, moving from a separate site (Zendesk, and prior to that HelpIQ). We subsequently launched a Discourse community forum and actively encourage self-service there. Despite these efforts, we still answered about 50,000 support emails in 2024.

We use the Hugo static site generator, and all the content, assets, and code are open in GitLab. We have dedicated staging and sandbox branches, and use staging for editing instead of the usual git merge requests, and sandbox for testing more substantial code or navigation changes.

We share the responsibility for editing across the teams, with a page owner/author denoted for each page. Most staff use VSCode for editing; we don’t have or need a CMS. We deploy changes to the live site around twice a week. Several custom shortcodes are in place, such as for tables and displaying related information based on tags, or for presentation elements like highlight boxes or columns. We host (many) images and files directly in the repository, rather than using a CDN. We use Algolia for site search, which was chosen because it can support multiple languages.

Current website structure

There are currently four main sections of the website:

Get involved: this landing page is the most up-to-date with our current positioning and messaging. The section includes how to join as a member and the ways you can participate, obligations and benefits; a welcome page for new members to get started; events and webinars like our annual meeting; special projects or campaigns that need landing pages; fees; programs such as for service providers and ambassadors; global equitable membership; code of conduct; and working groups (which are different from board committees).
Find a service: listing the purpose and value/benefits for each service, such as content registration, metadata retrieval/APIs/Search, Crossmark, Similarity Check, Grant Linking System, and some other quasi-services that require members to develop or enable something, like reference linking or the Open Funder Registry or ROR.
Documentation: following more-or-less our “managed member journey” pathway, this includes getting set up, how to create DOI suffixes, how to select the right tool for content registration, how to interpret the various reports that members receive, what to expect in terms of invoicing, schema library and best practices for metadata sharing incl. guidance on principles to follow and sample XML files to edit. Each ‘service’ then has it’s own documentation section too.
About: governance, including information about our board, committees, and bylaws. Financial information and annual reports. Staff pages, org chart, jobs, and policies incl. employee handbooks. History of Crossref and mission. Under the sub-heading “Operations & sustainability”, there is also detailed information about membership processes such as revocations, managing legal sanctions, member practices, and member offboarding.

Additionally, the website hosts our blog and allows users to sign up for our newsletter, which are two key ways in which we keep our community informed.

Project overview

End goal

We want to allow our community to self-serve with information about what Crossref does, how to become a member, how to use our tools, and how to participate in our programs and services. The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure are central to how we operate, and we want the information about the how, what, and why of Crossref to not only be openly available, but also easy to discover and reuse.

Visitors to www.crossref.org should be offered the information that they are looking for quickly and intuitively. A reduction in the number of help-desk tickets we receive (in 2024 we answered 50,000 of them) would be an indication of an improved self-service website, as would lower bounce rates.

Scope and deliverables

At the end of this information architecture review project, we expect to have agreed on a set of recommendations for tackling the problem statements laid out in the appendix of this document, as well as a plan for how the recommendations should be implemented. This plan will form the basis for an implementation project in 2026. We encourage applications both from organisations who would also be comfortable taking on the implementation project and from those who feel their expertise is specific to the review project described herein.

Specifically, we expect the following deliverables:

Assessment of key user needs (through analytics and/or user interviews incl. editors)
Audit and analysis of current site structure and how it serves key user pathways
Recommendations for content re-architecture, navigation and search improvements
Strategy for taxonomy and/or tagging system
Strategy for documentation site setup
Strategy for information pathways between website, docs, community forum, ticketing systems
Recommended roadmap for 2026 implementation project
Nice to have: Wireframes or annotated sitemaps for future site layout

Problem statements

It is difficult to find information about our services. Even Crossref staff often use search engines to find a page on our website rather than navigating to it or using the built-in search on the website. It’s often not clear whether the information you are looking for is on the “Find a service” page or the “Documentation” page for a given service, and there is no consistent cross-linking between the two groups of pages. There is a search bar prominently placed on the home page, but the search currently only looks for direct matches between the search terms and page contents (with some declensions, stopwords, and fuzziness to allow for typos). We have limited tracking available in Algolia, but can see that in a 7-day span in March 2025, a large portion of searches (78%) returned no results.
It is difficult to navigate our website. The home page contains some quick links to key pages, but they are not very visible. In order to navigate the website from the home page, users have to expand a hamburger menu which takes up the whole page, and are then presented with an overwhelming amount of options. Once users have left the home page, the way they navigate depends on which section of the website a user finds themselves in: all pages have breadcrumbs going back to Home, while only Documentation pages have a hierarchical sidebar. In order to switch between the basic groups of pages (Get involved, Find a service, Documentation, About us), users have to use the global hamburger menu.
Our home page doesn’t do a very good job of explaining who we are and what we do. A lot of real estate is taken up by images and recent news items without much context. Bounce rates from the home page are high (65% as of March 2025).
Our user interfaces and reports are not easily accessible from our website. While we are not a SaaS organisation, there is an established pattern of being able to access an organisation’s services directly from its website (often via a login button at the top right). This is complicated by the fact that we don’t have one single frontend “platform”. In fact we don’t have a single page linking out to the various frontends and interfaces, nor do we have a consistent pattern of linking out to an interface from the documentation page describing how to use it.
Some of the pages and grouping of pages are outdated and don’t reflect our current priorities or ways of working anymore. For example, the Get involved section still features Special programs and Service providers quite prominently, but the cross-functional programs that shape most of our strategic work now (Co-creation and Community Trends, Contributing to the Research Nexus, Open and Sustainable Operations, Metadata Development) are not represented. Find a service strongly suggests we’re a service provider, whereas most of our services are enabling infrastructure, requiring members to build or act on something. Some more recently created pages don’t fit neatly into any of the current groupings: e.g., API Learning Hub can be found under Get involved and in the home page footer, but doesn’t really belong in either. We also have time-limited, special projects or campaigns like the 25th anniversary of Crossref or the Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability project, for which there isn’t a great home. Lastly, we want to host additional content on our website in future, such as our own staff publications; instructions on how to find our codebases and how to contribute to them; how to build technical integrations; how to report bugs; and general best practices in scholarly communications (e.g. in the context of our work on the integrity of the scholarly record), which is not really part of the documentation of our services.

Project budget and timeline

We have a maximum budget of $20,000 allocated to the information architecture review project. The projected timeline is as follows:

RFP issued: April 17, 2025
Final deadline for proposals: May 15, 2025
Shortlisted applicant interviews: May 2025
Appointment made: June 2025
Project kick-off: July 2025
Final deliverables due: October 2025

If you are interested in applying but don’t think this timeline is deliverable for you, please contact us to suggest what would be realistic for you or your organisation before applying.

Proposal submission requirements

Proposals, as well as any questions, should be submitted to Lena Stoll by 15 May 2025.

Please include the following in your proposal:

Company background and relevant experience with open-source static sites and mission-driven communications
Case studies or examples of comparable work
Your approach to the proposed project and how you would structure it
Team bios and roles incl. typical timezones
Timeline and milestone estimates
Proposed budget, including breakdown
Proposed cadence of check-ins, communications, milestones, and deliverables
Contact information

Proposal evaluation criteria

We will evaluate proposals based on:

Demonstrated understanding of our mission and community needs
Proven experience designing for multilingual and multinational audiences
Expertise in mission-driven business-to-business communications and information architecture
Quality of previous work and case studies
Value for money

We look forward to hearing from you!

The GEM program - Year Two 2024

Susan Collins — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We began our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program to provide greater membership equitability and accessibility to organisations in the world’s least economically advantaged countries. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country; our list of countries is predominantly based on the International Development Association (IDA). Eligible members pay no membership or content registration fees. The list undergoes periodic reviews, as countries may be added or removed over time as economic situations change.

The program began in January 2023 with 214 existing members; and 131 more joined throughout the year. In 2024, we saw 127 organisations joining via the GEM program, bringing the total number of participants to 458. We welcomed our first-ever members from Sierra Leone and Honduras, as well as our first Sponsor in Bangladesh (Sponsors are organisations that work with us to provide administrative, billing, technical, and local language support to the members they work with).

Of 458 organisations participating in the GEM program, 380 are independent members, 77 are sponsored, and there is one sponsoring organisation. To date, these members have contributed over 279,000 works to the Research Nexus, our concept of a fully connected global scholarly ecosystem.

Though we have Sponsors based elsewhere, working with members who are in GEM countries (e.g. PKP), we will continue to consult with our ambassadors and other partners to identify potential new sponsors that are based in GEM countries.

Number of Crossref GEM members by country:

GEM Country (Alphabetically)	Total No. of Members
Afghanistan	17
Bangladesh	120
Benin	5
Bhutan	6
Burkina Faso	4
Burundi	2
Cambodia	8
Central African Republic	1
Congo, Democratic Republic	15
Ethiopia	13
Ghana	27
Guyana	2
Haiti	1
Honduras	1
Kosovo	8
Kyrgyz Republic	23
Lao, People’s Democratic Republic	2
Madagascar	4
Malawi	2

GEM Country (Alphabetically)	Total No. of Members
Maldives	3
Mali	3
Mauritania	1
Mozambique	2
Myanmar	1
Nepal	50
Nicaragua	2
Rwanda	7
Senegal	7
Sierra Leone	1
Somalia	9
Sri Lanka	14
Sudan	19
Tajikistan	4
Tanzania, United Republic of	21
Togo	1
Uganda	17
Yemen	30
Zambia	5

Number of Crossref members in GEM Program Countries

We are excited about our in-person event taking place in a few weeks in Accra, Ghana, as a direct result of the increasing participation and interest in Crossref from the region.

We can see a clear connection between outreach activities conducted by us and our Ambassadors and the increase in awareness and the number of members joining from related countries. These were Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda, and Tanzania in 2023, and Ghana, Zambia, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania in 2024.

From our Ambassadors’ activities in the GEM countries, some recurring questions emerged highlighting barriers to joining Crossref. It’s important to recognise that many institutions struggle with funding and technical expertise. It’s no surprise that they are often concerned with the maintenance of their membership over the long term. We emphasize that GEM is a sustained measure to accommodate knowledge-sharing organisations from the regions of financial strain. Whilst the program addresses the costs of membership and content registration, our Ambassadors can assist further, offering technical support with record registration, metadata best practices, and integrating Crossref services with existing systems, including Open Journal Systems (OJS); and discuss how registering metadata improves research visibility.

We are grateful to our Ambassadors for directly supporting the GEM program within their countries through webinars and presenting in person at conferences: Shaharima Parvin and MD Jahangir in Bangladesh, Richard Bruce Lamptey in Ghana, Niranjan Koirala in Nepal, Oumy Ndiaye in Senegal, Lasith Gunawardena in Sri Lanka, and Baraka Manjale Ngussa in Tanzania.

Crossref at 25: a short film on a quarter-century of open infrastructure

Crossref team — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref at 25

Crossref was incorporated on 19 January 2000 by a small group of publishers who agreed that persistent links between scholarly works were too important to leave to any one of them alone. Twenty-five years on, this short film looks back at what that founding decision made possible — and forward to the next quarter-century of open infrastructure.

Watch the film

Crossref at 25 — a short film marking the organisation's 25th anniversary, 19 January 2025

What the film covers

The founding moment — why eight publishers came together in 2000 to register the first Crossref DOIs and run a shared linking infrastructure
A growing network — how membership expanded from those eight founders to over 25,000 organisations in 167 countries, across every type of scholarly publisher
From DOIs to the Research Nexus — how the work has grown from persistent links to a connected graph of works, people, organisations, funders, and outputs
POSI in practice — what it means to run not-for-profit, community-governed infrastructure for the long term
The next 25 years — what the community is building together: richer metadata, broader participation, and a more equitable scholarly record

Anniversary context

Event	Date
Crossref incorporated	19 January 2000
First DOIs registered	2000
10th anniversary	2010
25th anniversary	2025
Members today	25,000+ across 167 countries

For the Crossref 10 years retrospective publication (2010, English and Japanese), see the parallel anniversary booklet from the 10-year mark.

A summary of our Annual Meeting

Rosa Morais Clark — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Crossref2024 annual meeting gathered our community for a packed agenda of updates, demos, and lively discussions on advancing our shared goals. The day was filled with insights and energy, from practical demos of Crossref’s latest API features to community reflections on the Research Nexus initiative and the Board elections.

Our Board elections are always the focal point of the Annual Meeting. We want to start reflecting on the day by congratulating our newly elected board members: Katharina Rieck from Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Lisa Schiff from California Digital Library, Aaron Wood from American Psychological Association, and Amanda Ward from Taylor and Francis, who will officially join (and re-join) in January 2025. Their diverse expertise and perspectives will undoubtedly bring fresh insights to Crossref’s ongoing mission.

The meeting started with a recap of our mission and priorities. Ed Pentz reiterated the Research Nexus vision of increasing transparency of the connections that make up the scholarly record and underpin the research ecosystem.

Crossref is dedicated to openness, community ownership, and a stable, accessible infrastructure that researchers, publishers, funders, and institutions can rely on for the long term. This is demonstrated by Crossref’s commitment to the the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI), which constitute commitments to building a resilient and transparent infrastructure for research—sustainability, community governance, and openness. Ed emphasized how Crossref is aligning with these principles and collaborates with other adopters to reflect and continuously align these with the needs of the scholarly community, with a public consultation on proposed revisions to POSI forthcoming next year.

Ginny Hendricks highlighted key membership and metadata trends. She noted that as of 2024, half of Crossref members are based in Asia. This year, as always in recent years, we saw many new organisations from Indonesia, Turkey, India, and Brazil join us. Removing those fast-growing countries for the chart’s clarity, we can see that some of the next most active countries are Pakistan, Mexico, Spain, Bangladesh, and Ecuador, among others.

There are now ~163 million open metadata records with Crossref DOIs, and Ginny pointed out increases in the registration of preprints, peer-review reports, and grants. In terms of metadata elements, it’s good to see that more publishers recognize the importance of including abstracts and ROR IDs in their metadata records. Also, in line with the community’s concerns about integrity, our members have been enriching their records with direct assertions of retractions.

Then, Ginny went on to report on the progress towards our strategic goals:

Contribute to an environment where the community identifies and co-creates solutions for broad benefit
A sustainable source of complete, open, and global scholarly metadata and relationships
Manage Crossref openly and sustainably, modernizing and making transparent all operations so that we are accountable to the communities that govern us.
Foster a strong team because reliable infrastructure needs committed people who contribute to and realize the vision and thrive in doing it.

Demos

Lena Stoll and Patrick Vale’s session gave members a practical preview of our latest tools.

Patrick started by reflecting on the challenge of making our identifiers useful for people using screen readers (and other assistive technologies). He thanked all who responded to our past consultation on the topic and presented the Crossref DOI Accessibility Enhancer – the browser plug-in initially available for Firefox (and soon also for Chrome). He shared the Gitlab repo for anyone interested in trying it and invited feedback as we’re hoping to iterate on this.

Patrick then went on to talk about our openness to community contributions to Crossref tools, with an example of the recent contribution from CWTS Leiden to our Participation Reports. Thanks to their work, our members can now see the proportion of works they’ve registered that include affiliation information and ROR IDs, alongside the previously available key metadata such as references, abstracts, ORCID iDs, funding information, or Crossmark.

Finally, Lena demonstrated the latest extension of our record management tool that’s just been made available to make manual registration of metadata records for journal articles easier. The new form is flexible and driven by our metadata schema. Importantly for our members, it simplifies the workflow with input validations and automated ISSN matching, and it enables members to register author affiliations with an integrated ROR look-up. We hope this will support our smaller members, who are relying on our helper tools to register their content.

Throughout the session, members were encouraged to use these tools and explore new resources available through Crossref. We believe that by taking advantage of these resources, you can enhance your research and publishing experience, and contribute to the growth and development of the scholarly community.

The discussion about open scholarly infrastructure

The panel on open scholarly infrastructure brought together experts with a wide range of experience in the field. Moderated by Lucy Ofiesh, Crossref’s Chief Operating Officer, the discussion featured six invited speakers who shared their insights on the opportunities and challenges facing the scholarly ecosystem: Ed Pentz, Crossref; Sarah Lippincott, Dryad; Amélie Church, Sorbonne University; Joanna Ball, DOAJ; Ann Li, Airiti; and Richard Bruce Lamptey, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The panel talked about what openness in scholarly infrastructure means, why it’s important, its sustainability, and how to tackle challenges and gaps across the ecosystem. They highlighted frameworks like the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI), the Barcelona Declaration, and the FOREST Framework as key tools for guiding work on governance, sustainability, and equity. The discussion highlighted the need for more collaboration, inclusivity, and practical ways to ensure open infrastructure remains sustainable in the long run.

They also stressed how openness supports research integrity. How transparent systems allow researchers to question methods, verify findings, and preserve data. Amelie Church expanded on this point, underscoring the important role of open infrastructure in addressing challenges to integrity. She explained that such transparency enables the scholarly community to scrutinize research processes, ensuring the quality of outputs and their impact on society. Without openness, researchers face barriers to maintaining trust in their work, making open infrastructure necessary for research integrity and public confidence in science.

“By focusing on accessibility, transparency, and community engagement, open infrastructure can reshape academic and research ecosystems in transformative ways.” ~Richard Bruce Lamptey

Regarding sustainability, Sarah Lippincott stressed the importance of aligning funding models with community needs while addressing governance challenges. She pointed out that while initial funding can launch infrastructure, long-term sustainability requires consistent community investment and robust governance frameworks. This balance, she explained, is essential to ensure equity and transparency.

Collaboration was another important topic. Joanna Ball and Sarah Lippincott shared examples of how pooling expertise and resources—such as in the global support for ROR—can strengthen systems and make them more sustainable. These initiatives show the power of collective efforts in addressing technical and resource barriers. However, inclusivity remains an ongoing challenge.

The panel discussed the ways in which language barriers, resource limitations, and reliance on proprietary systems continue to exclude researchers from underrepresented regions. Ann Li highlighted how addressing these disparities is critical to ensuring the global accessibility of open infrastructure. By fostering inclusive practices, the scholarly community can mitigate biases and build tools that reflect a broader range of research contributions.

”My hope is that open infrastructure can have the resources that it needs to thrive, not just merely survive, and also that open infrastructure communities and organisations look to the value of frameworks that we’ve talked about today to help align themselves and improve their policies and practices, because there’s always room for growth, even in the best, most well-intentioned communities.” ~Sarah Lippincott, Dryad

The panel wrapped up the discussion by expressing optimism for the future of open scholarly infrastructure and emphasized the importance of continued investment, collaboration across organisations, and transparency in operations. The discussion reinforced the idea that open infrastructure provides a strong foundation for research that is equitable, sustainable, and accessible to all.

Updates from our Community

We enjoyed talks from our community about increasing their participation in the Research Nexus by adopting, using and enhancing metadata in different ways. Robbykha Rosalien hosted talks from the EuropePMC, Dutch Research Council, eLife, and CSIRO featured in Session I, and Amanda French hosted CLOCKSS, Sciety, and Redalyc in Session II.

Michael Parkin talked about preprints in Europe PMC. Europe PMC is a database for life science literature and a platform for content-based innovation. They started indexing preprints via Crossref REST API in 2018. Michael presented their work on discoverability of preprints in their database, including reflections on early challenges, as well as the latest efforts in surfacing available community reviews.

Hans de Jonge talked about the Dutch Research Council’s (NWO) dedication to open science, with policies ensuring that publications and data funded by NWO are openly available. They embrace open science principles for their own metadata and is a signatory of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information. Hans focused on NWO’s recent introduction of Grant IDs through Crossref’s Grant Linking System (GLS). He shared their approach, the motivations behind introducing Grant IDs, and some challenges they faced.

Frederick Atherden explained how eLife, a nonprofit led by scientists, use Crossref’s Grant Linking System to include grant DOIs in their publication metadata. It allows authors to add grant DOIs during submission, and they developed a tool to match grant numbers with DOIs during the proofing process to improve accuracy. Their goal is to follow best practices for metadata, making content easier to find and link to.

Brietta Pike covered how CSIRO is working to improve metadata quality for its journals, making research more discoverable and trustworthy. CSIRO faced challenges like inconsistent XML tagging, outdated systems, and data loss. To address these, they formed a project team, created a clear XML stylesheet, and updated their workflows. Recent progress includes better funding data, clearer license information, and more complete affiliation tagging. These efforts aim to support a more transparent and accessible research environment.

Alicia Wise of CLOCKSS talked about recent collaborations seeking to safeguard our cultural and scholarly heritage over the long term. CLOCKSS, a community-run archive, is dedicated to preserving scholarly content to remain accessible and unchanged for future generations. True preservation requires securely storing content in trusted archives that are actively maintained. A group of librarians and publishers developed a guide to help publishers preserve content, they also established an archival standard for EPUB formats to ensure ebooks can be stored effectively, and launched a pilot project to track preserved books, helping libraries and scholars identify safely stored titles.

Mark Williams from Sciety talked about how Sciety uses Crossref metadata to create detailed preprint histories. By partnering with organisations and communities worldwide, Sciety platform gathers public reviews, highlights, and recommendations on preprinted research, helping researchers evaluate the quality and relevance of new studies. Through linking related preprints and journal articles, Sciety builds a connected view of each research work. Although challenges like inconsistent terminology and identifier gaps persist, these efforts enhance the visibility and credibility of preprints.

Arianna Becerril-García of AmeliCA/Redalyc shared insights on diamond open-access journals in Latin America. Redalyc is an open-access infrastructure that supports journals by providing free services like visibility and production tools. Redalyc has a role in sustaining Latin America’s unique approach to open-access publishing, where most journals are backed by academic institutions and public funds, allowing free access for both readers and authors. Arianna stressed the need to treat these journals as digital public goods and urged the communities they serve to help ensure their long-term sustainability. Despite limited resources and global under-recognition, these journals serve an international research audience, including authors from Europe, Africa, and Asia. Redalyc and other open infrastructures play a key role by offering tools that reduce production co-sts and improve discoverability, all without financial barriers. Noted was how this approach aligns with UNESCO’s open science framework, which promotes inclusivity and addresses long-standing inequalities in scholarly publishing.

Afternoon of more resources and updates from Crossref

After a mid-day break (in Europe), Luis Montilla kicked off the second session with a practical tutorial of Crossref’s REST API. Following his last year’s intro to the Crossref API, this time he offered a step-by-step guide to help attendees maximize the API’s capabilities for metadata retrieval with advice on:

Managing large data requests with pagination and iterations
Incorporating safety mechanisms - to avoid hitting rate limits, Luis recommended adding pauses between requests and sharing example scripts to streamline this.

For those interested in learning more, look at the new Crossref API Learning Hub— a new resource offering guides, scripts, and training materials to simplify complex queries. Please share questions about things you’re not sure about in our community forum, to help guide development of future demos.

Patricia Feeney followed with updates on metadata schema changes. She introduced our recent shift to integrate the Funder Registry with ROR, which allows members to use a single identifier system, simplifying data management by reducing redundancy. Patricia explained that, for now, the current identifiers remain valid, so members won’t need to make immediate changes. She also outlined planned support for version metadata, typed citations, and future plans to expand support for contributor role vocabularies, and invited community participation in a planned multilingual metadata working group.

Next, Kora Korzec offered an update on the progress in our research on Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability and opened up a discussion about the best ways of assessing our members’ size and ability to pay. In light of our ambition to streamline discounts, we also invited suggestions for discounts to support accessibility and fuller participation in the Research Nexus.

As part of the discussion, we’ve learned who was in attendance during the session:

We’ve heard a lot of support for our current GEM program. While it was clear from our poll that publishing revenue is not the most relevant measure of size or capacity for all those present – establishing a good alternative proved challenging. The idea of considering the size of the organisation as its largest entity has been discussed, and important points were raised about budgets in different types of distributed organisations (e.g., on the position of libraries within large universities).

The official Annual Meeting part commenced after the discussion, with a report on the State of Crossref from Lucy Ofiesh, and commenced with our Board election. Lucy highlighted some of the key accomplishments of the year so far, including:

Research for Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability (RCFS)
Integrity of the Scholarly Record (ISR)
Grant Linking System (GLS) reached 5 years
Automated some very manual membership processes
Released new form for journal article record registration
Upgraded Participation Reports to include Affiliations and ROR IDs
Launched a new API Learning Hub
Paused further development of a Relationships API
Migrated to a new open-source database
Schema development - ROR as Funder identifiers
REST API bug fixes and metadata consistency fixes.

Then she reflected on the membership growth––Crossref is now made up of 21,000 organisations from 160 countries. We reviewed our 2024 year-end financial forecast. As we’re bouncing back from COVID-19, our travel expenses have grown this year, and so have the fees for cloud services hosting. These are all as planned and happen in the context of healthy growth, including that from adoption and increased usage of paid services. We’re in a healthy financial position as membership revenue and usage fees, like content registration and Similarity Check document checking fees, continue to grow from the previous year.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Crossref2024. This year’s meeting showcased our collective dedication to advancing open, accessible research infrastructure and underscored the power of collaboration in building a stronger scholarly community. As we reflect on the rich discussions and insights shared during the event, it’s clear our community is committed to advancing open and sustainable scholarly infrastructure.

Looking ahead, we’ll continue collaborating with members and partners to tackle challenges, expand accessibility, and foster collaboration. A key focus will be enhancing tools and metadata standards to serve the community better. Through innovative solutions and strategic initiatives like the Research Nexus, our collective efforts will make research more connected and accessible for all.

For anyone who couldn’t attend live, recordings are now available on our website. We’re excited to see how the ideas exchanged during this meeting spark progress across the scholarly ecosystem in the coming months.

Metadata beyond discoverability

Ginny Hendricks — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Metadata is one of the most important tools needed to communicate with each other about science and scholarship. It tells the story of research that travels throughout systems and subjects and even to future generations. We have metadata for organising and describing content, metadata for provenance and ownership information, and metadata is increasingly used as signals of trust.

Following our panel discussion on the same subject at the ALPSP University Press Redux conference in May 2024, in this post we explore the idea that metadata, once considered important mostly for discoverability, is now a vital element used for evidence and the integrity of the scholarly record. We share our experiences and views on the metadata significance and workflows from the perspective of academic and university presses – thus we primarily concentrate on the context of books and journal articles.

The communication of knowledge is facilitated by tiny elements of metadata flitting around between thousands of systems telling minuscule parts of the story about a research work. And it isn’t just titles and authors and abstracts – what we think of as metadata has really evolved as more nuance is needed in the assessment and absorption of information. Who paid for this research and how much, how exactly did everyone contribute, what data was produced and is it available for me to reuse it, as well as, increasingly, things like post-publication comments, assertions from “readers like me”, who has reproduced this research or refuted these conclusions.

Different types of published works are described by different types of metadata – journal articles, book chapters, preprints, dissertations. And those metadata elements can be of varying importance for different users. In this article, we will talk about metadata from the perspectives of four personas highlighted by the Metadata 20/20:

Metadata Creators, who provide descriptive information (metadata) about research and scholarly outputs.
Metadata Curators, who classify, normalise and standardise this descriptive information to increase its value as a resource.
Metadata Custodians, who store and maintain this descriptive information and make it available for consumers.
Metadata Consumers, who knowingly or unknowingly use the descriptive information to find, discover, connect, and cite research and scholarly outputs.

Our approach delineates the metadata lifecycle, from authorship, through production, discovery and through continuous curation. Though some of the metadata is generated outside of that linear process, and much happens before the authorship step, we see it as a clear and useful breakdown of how metadata contributes to a new piece of content.

Authorship

The first stage in the metadata lifecycle, authorship, is just the beginning of a dynamic process with many collaborators. A formative piece of the puzzle, authorship involves the authors or contributors, the editorial team and/or the marketing team and this is when the shape of the project and its metadata takes form. During this stage, the book or journal’s metadata exists only between the originators and the publisher, allowing the most opportunity for creativity and enhancement. Once the metadata reaches the next checkpoint along the lifecycle and is sent out externally, it’s more difficult and riskier to make major changes to the key metadata elements. In scholarly monograph publishing especially, we have the advantage of longer production lead times during which to amend and manipulate metadata during this stage.

At this stage, authors may have ideas of titles, subtitles and descriptions and it is up to the editors and other team members at the publisher to think strategically about how this can be optimised. The marketing and sales teams may be thinking about how the abstracts, keywords, and classifications can be best optimised for the web, leading to increased sales. Discoverability and interoperability of metadata for a book or journal, especially the use of persistent identifiers, is beneficial both for the author – in that their book is easily discovered, used, and cited – and for the publisher – increased visibility, sales, and usage.

Current challenges at the authorship stage include changing goalposts for metadata standards and accessibility requirements, which also have knock-on effects in subsequent stages in the metadata lifecycle. One of the key challenges with these is that they require buy-in from multiple players to keep up with and amend, and publishers must think closely about how these changes may affect metadata workflows for books at different stages of publication.

Production

As a book or journal article comes into production, it’s time to update and release the metadata to retailers, libraries, data aggregators and distributors. The metadata should be updated and checked to make sure that it’s still a good reflection of the product or the content that it describes and complete enough to release, including a final cover image in the case of books. This is still very much a collaborative effort with multiple roles involved. Technical details, such as spine width, page extents, and weight, are added, capturing the final specification. The editorial team may update metadata entered into systems earlier in the process. For example reviewing the prices, updating subject classification codes or amending the chapter order. If any of the content is to be published open access, appropriate licensing and access metadata need to be included, so that users of the content are clear about what they can (and can’t!) do with it. Metadata that’s not yet captured upstream can be added or enhanced. For example, vendors already involved in the production process can verify that persistent identifiers (PIDs) are present and correct in funding metadata.

More and more metadata elements are being requested by supply chain partners. For example, new requirements being introduced to provide commodity codes, spine width, carton quantities, gratis copy value and country of manufacture. There may be differences in metadata depending on the methods of production. For example, country of manufacture will be supplied differently when using traditional print methods where the whole print run is carried out at a location, or where a title is manufactured print on demand and the location of printing is determined by the delivery address.

In an XML-first workflow, metadata can be captured with the content files to aid with discovery. This usually requires multiple systems, both internal and external. These systems need to be able to work together to ensure that only up-to-date metadata is used. Metadata will change throughout the production process, whether it’s the publication of an accepted manuscript through to the final version of record, or pre-order information to the published version, so updates need to feed out regularly.

The right metadata needs to go to the right recipient. Some is not useful or cannot be processed by certain recipients. For example, a printer, retailer, librarian or data aggregator each have their own needs and use cases and may receive and process metadata in different formats or require different fields.

Discovery

Discovery is the series of actions taken by an end user to retrieve and access relevant content they do not know about. Discovery can happen everywhere: Google (a search engine), a library catalog, a publisher platform, etc. However, Discovery is associated with using Discovery systems in the academic sector.

The technological landscape of libraries has developed in the last 15 years. Discovery systems are tools libraries subscribe to in order to allow their end users to have one search experience within their library holdings. It is paramount for librarians that library collections are used; hence, it is very important for them that the discovery system of their choice contains all the relevant metadata. Libraries expect their discovery service to include their content coverage as comprehensively as possible. Content items not represented or misrepresented in a discovery system create challenges to libraries in how they might otherwise ensure that these materials are discovered and accessed.

Libraries’ adoption and usage of discovery systems are surrounded by the belief that the great benefits of this technology are the one search box and the configuration flexibility, which are the most important benefits. Libraries invest a significant amount of money in discovery services. The increase in usage is the success indicator of this adoption and a positive return on investment.

The backbone of discovery systems is formed by three crucial elements: a user interface, a metadata index, and a link resolver or Knowledge Base. These elements, along with a back-end control panel for librarian configuration, are the key components that enable the discovery process.

The discovery index, a database storing descriptive data from various content providers, data sets, and content types, is a testament to the collaborative efforts of content providers and discovery systems vendors. Their work under the Discovery Metadata Sharing partnership agreements, which establish the format, scope, frequency, and support of the collaboration, is instrumental in meeting librarians’ expectations.

Format

The discovery metadata integration processes have settled down for most cases in these two metadata delivery workflows.

Metadata for the index of discovery: Discovery systems have traditionally made efforts to work with various metadata formats like MARC, proprietary templates, etc., but the preferred format is XML. This metadata could include all the bibliographic information data, including index terms and full text at the article and chapter level.

Metadata for link resolvers and Knowledge bases: Knowledge bases are tools that contain information about what is included in a product, packages, and/or databases. KBART is the preferred format in this area. It includes a set of basic bibliographic descriptions at the publication level and linking information for direct and OpenURL syntaxes.

Frequency

The delivery channels vary, and the frequency could vary daily to yearly, depending on the publication schedule.

Scope

Library collections include various content types, including archival materials, open access, and multimedia alongside the more traditional books and periodicals. Different content types will require different metadata elements to make a comprehensive discovery-friendly description, and the metadata elements will impact the formats in use.

Discovery services will receive this data and prioritise uploading. They will select and manipulate the required metadata elements according to their system requirements. These metadata tweaks and selections are not always communicated to the content providers and/or libraries. Ultimately, librarians decide which metadata will be visible on their discovery tool and the linking methods of their choice.

As described, Discovery is a complex area where the activities of its main stakeholders are interconnected. The success of the end users’ discovery journey from search to access depends on the successful integration, implementation, and maintenance of the discovery systems. This necessitates a combined effort from the three discovery stakeholders: content providers, discovery system providers, and libraries. Their collaborative work is not just crucial, but integral to supporting discovery and fulfilment in the most efficient manner possible. Your active involvement in this process is what makes it successful.

How do we ensure discoverability?

Electronic resources do not exist in isolation but are assessed and used depending on their level of integration in the discovery landscape where libraries and patrons are active. From a content provider’s perspective, discoverability is about the number and efficiency of entry points to our products created in third-party discovery products.

The level of discovery integration has a direct impact on sales and upsell opportunities. Products that are not discoverable are difficult to work with, and the opposite is true for products that are considered discoverable. Your role in ensuring discoverability directly influences the user experience and sales, making your work crucial and impactful. The term ‘Discoverability’ is critical in discovery library systems. It refers to the extent to which eResources are searchable in a discovery system, and it directly influences the ease with which users can find the information they need, thereby enhancing their overall experience. In practical terms, the degree of discoverability will be impacted by the quality of the metadata supplied, the transformations the metadata suffers in the integration process to discovery systems, and the configuration’s maintenance.

The general principles of metadata quality also apply in this area: accuracy, completeness, and timely delivery. Your attention to these principles is crucial to contributing to the effectiveness of the discovery process. Metadata enrichment practices like identifiers and standards are also applicable. Your meticulous attention to detail in maintaining metadata quality ensures the effectiveness of the discovery process.

Discovery as a mindset in the publishing process will increase discoverability, as it will be influenced by product designs (whether the content is linkable) and which metadata outputs are possible. For example, author-generated index terms will be more effective for meeting research search terms, and detailed article titles will probably be more discoverable than general titles. Finally, all the integration, descriptive metadata, configurations, etc., leave much room for errors. The flow is complex; on occasion, the products and content are more complicated to describe than tools can handle, and there are millions of holdings per library to manage. Constant maintenance and troubleshooting are crucial elements to maintaining and increasing discoverability.

Metadata beyond publication

In the lead-up to publication, finalising rich complete metadata can seem like establishing a fixed set of information. Post-publication, however, the metadata workflow should be dynamic, able to evolve to keep pace with new demands and opportunities. Think of metadata as a journey rather than a one-time destination, and look at ways to futureproof your metadata by actively adapting to some of the following types of change.

Changing Publisher Goals and Product Needs

Metadata should align with changing priorities for a publisher. Developing new formats, shifts in commissioning focus or building new distribution partnerships may require metadata updates. For instance, re-releasing content in audiobook form or digitising a backlist title warrants a metadata review to ensure current and prospective readers find accurate, relevant information.

Changing Technology and Metadata Standards

Advances in technology, from artificial intelligence to emerging metadata standards, offer enhanced possibilities for capturing and updating metadata. AI, for example, can help enrich metadata with more precise subject tagging, while new metadata formats may offer greater compatibility across platforms and discovery services. Staying current with these tools can help publishers manage metadata more efficiently and enhance discoverability.

Changing Societal Values

As society evolves, so do expectations for inclusive and socially responsible metadata. Utilising new categorisation codes, such as those for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, can align metadata with emerging social goals. Similarly, publishers may need to revisit keywords and category codes to reflect language changes, balancing the integrity of historic records with the need for current, appropriate terminology.

Changing Industry Priorities

Commitments to accessibility and sustainability have prompted developments in metadata. Increasingly, publishers need to be able to use metadata to build a record of sustainable production methods, such as paper sources, printing methods or ink types. New metadata fields for accessibility specifications will also support more inclusive reader experiences going forward. Metadata will play an increasingly vital role in meeting industry standards for accessibility, EUDR and EAA compliance, and environmental transparency.

Changing Customer and Librarian Expectations

Finally, as the metadata expectations of customers grow and the nature of roles and responsibilities in library and collection management professions develops, teamwork and making good use of available resources are essential. Publishers don’t have to tackle this alone. Working with organisations such as Crossref or Book Industry Communication (BIC), signing up to newsletters and webinars, and forming an in-house discovery group are all great ideas for sharing ideas and best practice, and ensuring your metadata workflow is adaptable and responsive. Be part of the conversation now rather than struggling to keep up down the line!

What are some challenges and opportunities with metadata?

JM: Metadata that establishes permanence is a real opportunity in a digital landscape where content can move or be taken down, links can rot, website certificates can expire. Persistent identifiers like ORCiDs for people and DOIs for content are key examples of metadata that establish enduring routes to, and provenance of, published digital content.

KM: Metadata creation, maintenance and change has long been seen as a manual process. AI tools offer a real opportunity for metadata creation and review, especially for keywords and classification codes, at a scale and speed that has the potential to transform metadata workflows. Especially for backlist transformation, AI could offer real opportunities in this area. A challenge we face for monograph metadata more specifically is that much of the scholarly metadata infrastructure is built around the journal article, and it can be difficult to fit longer form content into these systems of discovery.

MT: Metadata is crucial. Good metadata (complete, accurate, and timely) is the base for smooth integrations and easy discovery interactions with eResources. Bad metadata (inaccurate, incomplete, late) will be the main reason for undiscovered content. At this point, the eResources industry is still based on different versions of the same metadata, which is the leading cause of problems. It is probably time to start considering a unique record approach. This unique record, which will be complete and accurate, could be used by different systems for different purposes. I know there are many details to define here, but if you think about it, it is not impossible and could solve the many known issues.

How do you ensure the quality and completeness of your metadata? Do you have ways of auditing it?

SP: Validation of data is really important, so choosing or building a system that’s set up to do this is an important foundation. It’s straightforward to check for completeness of fields and I run daily checks on our book metadata to make sure there’s nothing missing in the files feeding out. Quality can be more challenging to monitor. Feedback from data recipients is key, and accreditation schemes such as the BIC Metadata Excellence Award are a great way to benchmark progress. Good training and clear documentation help to make sure that everyone involved in creating and updating metadata understands exactly what they need to do and the standards they need to meet.

KM: Earlier this year we completed a year-long data cleansing project as part of our move to a new title management database. This gave us the time to address gaps in backlist metadata as well as to identify any inconsistencies across records for the same book, and enrich key metadata fields like classification codes, keywords and PIDs. For frontlist titles, each person owns a number of fields to ensure they are complete before a book’s metadata is distributed – some of these have validation tools which will prevent a book’s metadata from being sent out unless it is complete.

MT: Strict and consistent internal processes are essential to ensure quality and completeness. Following the different standards and industry recommendations helps to keep the quality at high standards. Random manual checks and system-based checks help to ensure everything is good. We carry out projects where we work with specific aspects of the metadata. This building-blocks approach ensures the different data layers are as good as possible. As with any project, metadata projects should have specific goals, outcomes, resources, and documentation.

How do you know if (and how much) metadata helps achieve your goals?

JM: Take any available opportunities to find out what people think of your metadata – via library conferences, institutional customer feedback, and by working with the library team at our home institution, we’ve had some really useful and interesting conversations about MUP’s metadata and where we can improve it to make it as relevant as possible for different stakeholder needs.

MT: Customers and Discovery partners will inform us if something is incorrect. Usage data is also a good indicator of how healthy our metadata is. Following industry standards is another good reference point for assessing the metadata. Finally, the metadata is only good when we know what we want to use it for. So, always considering what we are trying to achieve helps us understand how effective the metadata is.

KM: As the others have noted here, and we represent a range of different types and sizes of publishers, measuring the direct impact of metadata is an ongoing challenge. We think about the different end users who might encounter our metadata further down the supply chain – retail customers searching on Amazon, librarians filtering results on purchasing platforms, researchers finding our books and journals through citations on popular online search engines – and consider what elements of our metadata might help reach those people in the right ways.

JM: Ideally, you’ll see an uplift in sales or usage for every metadata element that you add, review or expand, although it can be challenging to quantify and prove a direct correlation between richer metadata and higher revenue or discoverability, as there are will be other factors involved. For my Operations team, what is certain is that richer, more comprehensive metadata means fewer errors are thrown up by the distribution systems and feeds we use, which means colleagues save time and gain productivity by not having to resolve and rerun failed jobs, chase missing information from other teams, or manually send information to third parties. My job is also made easier because things like size and weight of every printed product are recorded in our bibliographic database as standard, easy to report on and analyse, which helps with forecasting costs for inventory storage or shipping. Metadata can be powerful.

Crossmark community consultation: What did we learn?

Martyn Rittman — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the first half of this year we’ve been talking to our community about post-publication changes and Crossmark. When a piece of research is published it isn’t the end of the journey—it is read, reused, and sometimes modified. That’s why we run Crossmark, as a way to provide notifications of important changes to research made after publication. Readers can see if the research they are looking at has updates by clicking the Crossmark logo. They also see useful information about the editorial process, and links to things like funding and registered clinical trials. All of this contributes to what we call the integrity of the scholarly record.

Crossmark has been around a long time and the context around it is constantly changing. It last had a major update in 2016 and in 2020 we removed fees for its use.

The past few years have seen a more intense focus on research integrity among the scholarly communications community, leading to more retractions and calling out large-scale manipulation of editorial processes. At the same time, we haven’t seen an increase in the uptake of Crossmark, which is still used by only a minority of our members. We would like to know why the uptake is low and whether there is more we can do in this area. To dig into this, in the first part of 2024 we reached out to members of our community.

What did we do?

We wanted to learn about attitudes towards Crossmark and related aspects of research integrity. This was done in several ways:

Structured interviews with eight of our members.
Round tables at Crossref LIVE events in Bogota and Nairobi
Surveying a selection of our members, which led to 94 responses.

The topics we asked about were related to how post-publication updates are made and communicated, and which metadata demonstrates good practice.

We are extremely grateful to the members who contributed. They provided valuable feedback and have helped to shape the future of Crossmark and our approach to the integrity of the scholarly record.

What did we find?

Across the various groups there were a few common themes, which fell into several areas.

Communication of updates is highly valued, and seen as the most important role that Crossmark can play. Some of those we spoke to would like readers to see if there is an update as soon as a page opens, without having to open a popup. This could be done by having a logo that changes colour, shape, or size.
Conversely, not as much enthusiasm was shown for the metadata assertions. These are additional fields that can be displayed to readers in the Crossmark popup. There wasn’t a strong consensus on which commonly-made assertions are the most important for research integrity.
There is diversity in attitudes towards making updates to published works, what research integrity means, and approaches to workflows for updates. Even within a single organisation, a number of different workflows and multiple staff members might be called on to update published research. This makes things complex and means that it can be difficult to fit Crossmark in.
There are technical challenges to getting started with Crossmark. Those responsible for implementing Crossmark are often technical staff who struggle with the documentation we provide in English. There is also no plugin for OJS, a widely-used open source editorial software. It is more difficult to deposit Crossmark metadata for books than journal articles, and many article types don’t permit Crossmark metadata at all. On the other hand, those who successfully installed Crossmark found it easy to use and low-maintenance.

Overall, it seems that Crossmark still has an important role to play but there are changes and improvements we can make.

What’s next?

Here are the main areas we intend to follow up on in the coming months.

Implementation

We need to look at how to make implementation more straight-forward. Can we provide multilingual documentation, plugins, run workshops or webinars, or make changes to Crossmark to lower the barrier to entry?

Understanding workflows

Can we collaborate with our members and other organisations to reach a better understanding of how to update published works? Are there alternative workflows we need to support? Have we made it too difficult to understand and implement the options we currently have?

While updates are always likely to be rare, we want to help members understand the benefits of making them. We talked to some members who were proud of never having published a retraction or correction, which left us wondering whether they are missing legitimate opportunities to correct the scholarly record. We also know that for some members and many work types (preprints, for example), updates are made without a separate published notification. Can we better understand the role that the published updates play and communicate updates even if there isn’t a published notice?

Ongoing feedback

Clearly one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to implementing and communicating updates. We need to find ways of keeping in touch with the community to test new solutions with as broad a range of members as possible. We want to avoid catering to a minority and leaving others struggling to find ways to implement a solution.

Custom metadata?

Is there an ongoing need for metadata assertions? Many of the assertions currently made are possible as standard metadata and others could be included in our deposit schema. We want to consider removing the option to add assertions. This needs more feedback from the community, especially those who currently make use of assertions.

Redesign the UI

Crossmark doesn’t have the recognition with readers we would like. Is there a way we can redesign it to make it more associated with Crossref and accurate metadata? We intend to explore different designs, and test them with members and readers.

Common views and questions about metadata across Africa

Johanssen Obanda — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This past year has been a captivating journey of immersion within the Crossref community, a mix of online interactions and meaningful in-person experiences. From the engaging Sustainability Research and Innovation Conference in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to the impactful webinars conducted globally, this has been more than just a professional endeavour; it has been a personal exploration of collaboration, insights, and a shared commitment to pushing the boundaries of scholarly communication.

Working collaboratively with research funders and research organisations

Cocreation activity in smaller groups at the SRI conference.

The adventure began with a significant in-person event, the Sustainability Research and Innovation Conference. In the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, I had the honour of hosting a parallel co-creation session titled “Connecting Science to Society: A Network Approach to Improving Science Communication in the Global South.” The co-creation session addressed research discoverability and accessibility among early-career researchers. Apart from some immediate feedback from the researchers in the room about how they might use co-creation beyond the conference to improve their research experience and outcome, I also had conversations with research funders from the Belmont Forum, Future Earth, and National Research Foundation - South Africa and the National Research Foundation - Mozambique about connecting their grants and grantees with their published outputs referencing Crossref’s Open Funder Registry and research grants registration. A different side conversation was about a community organisation in Botswana that is interested in registering patents with Crossref for proper referencing and protecting the intellectual property of their research on the indigenous communities’ innovations and the associated published work. These conversations are ongoing, unveiling a new understanding of unique needs and opportunities to pursue with research funders and research organisations working on indigenous knowledge and innovations.

Learning from organisations in GEM-eligible countries

The journey extended globally through a series of webinars conducted in Bangladesh, Tanzania, Nepal, and Ghana. Collaborating with dedicated Ambassadors and my colleagues leading the Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program, we witnessed an increase in Crossref membership from the GEM countries and initial metadata registration. The GEM Program offers relief from both Crossref membership and Crossref content registration fees for organisations in the least economically advantaged countries in the world, based on the World Bank’s IDA list. Susan, in her blog post, “The GEM Program: Year One”, elaborated on the significance of these efforts and their impact on fostering equitable access to scholarly resources and communication through the expansion of Crossref’s membership base in underrepresented regions, such as Bangladesh, Tanzania, Nepal, and Ghana. Specific concerns encountered while presenting the GEM program included feedback expressing reservations about the program’s approach, particularly in deciding on eligible countries, and advocating eligibility for the program to be extended to all the non-GEM countries in Africa. Additionally, a conversation with some organisations brought up concerns regarding the program’s sustainability, with inquiries about whether GEM was merely a free trial or freemium service, and seeking assurances against future fees. The audience found these sessions helpful, acknowledging that joining fees were no longer going to be a barrier, yet questions about the program’s longevity brought out the need for sustained support.

Discussing how The Research Nexus can support the community

My journey then led me to Makerere University in Uganda for the Consortium of Uganda University Libraries (CUUL 2023) conference and the Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM 2023) in Abu Dhabi. In Uganda, I noticed the synergy between university libraries, institutional repositories, and the research and education network service provider formed a consortium that played a crucial role in bridging the digital gap and supporting the adoption of open infrastructure. The event was mainly attended by librarians from different universities in Uganda. Most of those I connected with needed more information about Crossref and had questions about how Crossref DOIs are different from ARKs, which they commonly use in their publishing workflows. At FORM 2023, in my presentation titled, “The Research Nexus: A Rich and Reusable Open Network of Relationships in the Scholarly Record,” I shared Crossref’s vision for a connected research ecosystem with the audience that comprised of researchers, research administrators, and funders, and a good number of big publishers like IEEE and Taylor & Francis. The Research Nexus seeks to reveal relationships beyond persistent identifiers, utilising rich metadata to connect various scholarly components. I also took the opportunity at both events to share about The Publishers Learning And Community Exchange (PLACE), an online forum promoting best practices in scholarly publishing. The goal was to show attendees how they can actively contribute to and benefit from this vision, fostering a robust and interconnected research community through Crossref’s open infrastructure.

Photo with Dr. Salwan Abdulateef, rossref Ambassador - Iraq

I enjoyed the opportunity to join the National Open Science Dialogue by TCC Africa, which provided crucial insights, emphasising the need for assessing awareness, implementing comprehensive policies, and fostering collaboration around Open Science. Higher education institutions were recognized as influencers in the global Open Science movement, while a call for an inclusive research environment was underscored through open access and data sharing. The dialogue emphasized a collective effort involving policymakers, educators, researchers, and institutions, focusing on inclusivity and collaboration to advance Open Science in East Africa.

Exploring how rich metadata can provide trust signals with members in Kenya

Reflecting on the Crossref Nairobi event that happened in February 2024, it was an enriching experience exploring key issues shaping scholarly publishing in Kenya. The discussions also touched on the role of metadata as a trust signal and a tool for the persistence of the scholarly record, particularly in regions where data protection challenges persist. This is exemplified by concerns raised during the event about the fear of data theft, misuse, or loss, especially in places with comparatively weaker data protection laws. The presence of robust metadata, particularly with detailed provenance information, becomes crucial in such contexts, as it enables better identification and handling of potential misuse. Thus, through effective metadata implementation and the persistence facilitated by identifiers, the management of data risks can be significantly improved.

The insights from existing Crossref members pointed out contextual challenges, regional differences, and the importance of effective post-publication processes. The conference served as a valuable platform for dialogue, emphasising the collective commitment to continuous improvement of scholarly communication in the country, and the need for continuous awareness and training on making the most of Crossref services. The roundtable discussions during the Crossmark service consultation brought to light various reflections and considerations regarding post-publication changes in publishing workflows. The Crossmark service was a new discovery for most participants, with potential value recognized in facilitating current updates on articles. However, there are existing barriers such as a lack of awareness and technical expertise, suggesting the need for further education to facilitate adoption. Overall, the consultation provided a platform for introspection and exploration of avenues for improving post-publication practices in scholarly publishing.

Crossref Nairobi group photo

We organised the Crossref Nairobi event with the help of colleagues from the community team and local Ambassadors, Mercury Shitindo of Kenya, Baraka Ngussa of Tanzania and our Board Members in Kenya, Oscar Donde. It was the first time I saw both my colleagues and Ambassadors in action and working closely together - making presentations and accommodating last-minute facilitation changes to the program. Compared to attending or speaking at an event, organising one was a unique experience requiring a lot of planning in advance for logistics and the event program, identifying and keeping in touch with important stakeholders, ushering guests and being on standby for any matters that come up about the event. All of that went very well thanks to the team on the ground and cooperative participants.

Exploring the role of open infrastructure for African universities

Attending the recent WACREN 2024 conference was an eye-opening experience, unfolding the role of open infrastructure in addressing challenges faced by African universities. A focus on open access systems and advocacy for decolonizing knowledge were voiced too, including challenges of affordability of DOIs and questions of local ownership amidst global initiatives. Global persistent identifier providers, including ORCID and DataCite too, had a presence at the conference, alongside passionate advocates for more locally managed, decentralised infrastructure. These are concerns that Crossref needs to understand better, as we seek to find effective ways of supporting equitable participation in the Research Nexus. The conference resonated with a call for continued work in fostering accessibility, sharing, and leveraging resources to accelerate research and innovation in Africa.

Photo with our Ambassadors from West Africa at WACREN 2024 event: Blessing Abumere - Nigeria, Audrey Kenni Nganmeni - Cameroon, Richard Lamptey - Ghana and Oumy Ndiaye - Senegal.

Conversations with Crossref Ambassadors brought about a shared narrative across universities in some African countries. These institutions are actively embracing digital shifts, setting up institutional repositories using platforms like DSpace and OJS. However, challenges persist, particularly in funding and technical capacity. It’s heartening to see how national and regional research and education networks step in to help in internet connectivity, opening up collaboration opportunities with other interoperable infrastructure, setting up repositories, providing hosting services and event managing content identifiers.

Deceptive publishing practices remain a shared concern, and we’ve had requests at these meetings for stricter inclusion criteria for membership of Crossref to ensure quality and trustworthiness of articles accessible through Crossref metadata.

We’ve explained to those we’ve met that Crossref doesn’t (and can’t) assess the quality of content or the integrity of the research process. We don’t have the people or the skills, and it isn’t our mission to be the gatekeepers of research quality. A DOI record is just an indication that something was published, it isn’t an indication of quality.

However, we do still have a vital role in preserving the integrity of the scholarly record. We provide the infrastructure which enables those who produce scholarly outputs to provide metadata (effectively evidence) about how they ensure the quality of content and how the outputs fit into the scholarly record. The scholarly record - that network of published outputs, inputs, relationships and contexts - is captured through the metadata records that our members register with us, and that we then distribute freely and openly through our API. The richer and more comprehensive Crossref records are, the more context there is for our members and for the whole scholarly research ecosystem to make their own decisions around trustworthiness. Blocking access to the infrastructure creates gaps in the scholarly record, but also potentially blocks legitimate newcomers.

“Crossref is focused on enriching metadata to provide more and better trust signals while keeping barriers to membership and participation as low as possible to enable an inclusive scholarly record.” Read more about Crossref’s role in preserving the integrity of the Scholarly record in the blog post by Amanda Bartell.

While the landscape of digital scholarly publication witnesses significant strides, a crucial need persists, the importance of preserving and interconnecting metadata to the global scholarly record. It’s not just about discoverability, a theme resonating strongly within the community, but about enabling reproducibility, upholding research and editorial integrity, and facilitating reporting and assessment.

The path forward

As I reflect on this year of immersing myself within the Crossref community, building awareness in new communities, and learning more about the different perceptions across the region, it feels like a personal progression of growth and discovery. From the captivating in-person moments to the global webinars and collaborative efforts to address challenges in scholarly communication, this journey is not just a professional pursuit; it’s a personal exploration. The path forward involves continued support, intensified awareness-building, and sustained dialogue, ensuring that the scholarly ecosystem continues to thrive, evolve, and leave a lasting impact.

DOAJ and Crossref renew their partnership to support the least-resourced journals

Ginny Hendricks — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref and DOAJ share the aim to encourage the dissemination and use of scholarly research using online technologies and to work with and through regional and international networks, partners, and user communities for the achievement of their aims to build local institutional capacity and sustainability. Both organisations agreed to work together in 2021 in a variety of ways, but primarily to ‘encourage the dissemination and use of scholarly research using online technologies, and regional and international networks, partners and communities, helping to build local institutional capacity and sustainability around the world.’ Some of the fruits of this labour are:

DOAJ added support for Crossref XML to make it easier for publishers to upload metadata
Closer collaboration between customer/member support at both organisations, making it easier for publishers and journal editors to navigate both service’s technologies
the launch of PLACE: ‘a ‘one-stop shop’ for information to support publishers in adopting best practices the industry developed’ (together with other partners)
a pilot gap analysis of the journals in DOAJ with the possibility of helping them start to use and resolve DOIs.

The new agreement, signed earlier this month, will slightly shift focus to build upon existing collaborations, particularly around metadata. One of the primary sections of the MOU is enhancing support for the least-resourced journals by:

Assigning DOIs and depositing the metadata with Crossref
Finding ways to improve their DOAJ application experience to help them become indexed
Collect and ingest their Crossref metadata into DOAJ
Help them to get preserved via JASPER or similar initiatives
Help identify other local partners, such as Crossref Sponsoring Organisations, to support their use of Crossref services

It’s great that we can further underpin what is already a good working relationship. Both Crossref and DOAJ are central to discovery so it’s a natural partnership. Helping journals meet better standards and become indexed to make them more discoverable on a global scale is at the heart of our strategy. This agreement opens up a new avenue that allows the community to really focus on supporting those journals and the research they publish.’

– Joanna Ball, Managing Director of DOAJ

‘The collaborations with DOAJ so far only reconfirmed our shared goal to help make the global scholarly communications system more equitable wherever we can. Our joint projects aim to seek out and devise support for resource-constrained journals in multiple ways. DOAJ’s work is essential in helping journals to develop good practice, while Crossref offers an open infrastructure to ensure all journals can be included and discoverable in the global scholarly record.’

– Ginny Hendricks, Director of Member and Community Outreach at Crossref

——– END ——

About DOAJ

DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer reviewed journals. DOAJ deploys around one hundred carefully selected volunteers from the community of library and other academic disciplines to assist in curating open access journals. This independent database contains over 20,400 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities. DOAJ is financially supported worldwide by libraries, publishers and other like-minded organisations. DOAJ services (including the evaluation of journals) are free for all, and all data provided by DOAJ are harvestable via OAI/PMH and the API. See https://doaj.org/ for more information.

About Crossref

Crossref is a global community-governed open scholarly infrastructure that makes all kinds of research objects easy to find, assess, and reuse through a number of services critical to research communications, including an open metadata API that sees over 1.5 billion queries every month. Crossref’s ~20,000 members come from 155 countries and are made up of universities, publishers, funders, government bodies, libraries, and research groups. Their ~155 million DOI records contribute to the collective vision of a rich and reusable open network of relationships connecting research organisations, people, things, and actions; a scholarly record that the global community can build on forever, for the benefit of society.

For more information please contact: dominic@doaj.org and rclark@crossref.org

The GEM program - year one

Susan Collins — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In January 2023, we began our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program to provide greater membership equitability and accessibility to organisations located in the least economically advantaged countries in the world. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country; our list of countries is predominantly based on the International Development Association (IDA). Eligible members pay no membership or content registration fees.

The list undergoes periodic reviews, as countries may be added or removed over time as economic situations change. Sri Lanka was added to the GEM program in March 2023 as they were recategorised to the IDA classification by the World Bank.

When the program launched, we had 214 existing members eligible for the program who then were no longer charged for membership or content registration. Since the program began, we have welcomed an additional 131 new members into the program, including our first members from Cambodia and Togo.

Country	As of 1/1/2023 (start of GEM)	Additions in 2023 (end of first year of GEM)	Total
Afghanistan	6	4	10
Bangladesh	56	33	89
Benin	1	1	2
Bhutan	4	2	6
Burkina Faso	2	0	2
Burundi	1	0	1
Cambodia	0	2	2
Central African Republic	1	0	1
Congo, Democratic Republic	1	11	12
Ethiopia	4	6	10
Ghana	14	7	21
Guyana	1	1	2
Haiti	1	0	1
Kosovo	2	2	4
Kyrgyz Republic	22	3	25
Laos	1	0	1
Madagascar	1	1	2
Malawi	1	0	1
Maldives	1	0	1
Mali	2	0	2
Mauritania	1	0	1
Myanmar	1	0	1
Nepal	20	18	38
Nicaragua	1	0	1
Rwanda	4	1	5
Senegal	3	3	6
Somalia	2	2	4
Sri Lanka	13	5	18
Sudan	9	2	11
Tajikistan	5	1	6
Tanzania	9	7	16
Togo	0	1	1
Uganda	3	6	9
Yemen	16	12	28
Zambia	5	0	5

With help from our ambassadors based in GEM countries, we organised and co-hosted several webinars to introduce the program, along with an introduction to Crossref, and the benefits of including all kinds of research objects in the Research Nexus.

In April, our team, together with ambassador Binayak Raj Pandey, provided an overview of Crossref for members and organisations in Nepal.
Our team and ambassadors, Dr Md Jahangir Alam and Shaharima Parvin hosted two webinars in May for members and organisations in Bangladesh. The first webinar provided an introduction to Crossref, our services, and the GEM Program. The second webinar focused on the methods to register content and how to add and update metadata.
In September, ambassador Baraka Manjale Ngussa joined us for an introductory webinar aimed at organisations in Tanzania
In November, CARLIGH (the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana), Crossref, and EIFL co-hosted a webinar for librarians and journal editors in Ghana with a discussion on the GEM program and Crossref services.

In 2024, we will continue to collaborate with our ambassadors and other members of the community to offer more opportunities for organisations in GEM-eligible countries to learn about the program and the benefits of membership for content discovery.

The program was initially met with scepticism by some organisations in GEM-eligible countries, who wanted to be certain that it wasn’t a free trial, that there are no hidden fees, or that they would be required to pay later for other services. Others expressed concern that Crossref would introduce fees after a year or two. Though we were able to clarify these aspects of the program, we understand the concerns and are working to ensure we provide clarity and transparency about the program. Additionally, we will be conducting a complete review of our fees in 2024, and we will ensure that GEM-eligible members will have input.

Although the program offers relief from fees, many organisations require technical assistance and language support. The GEM program would benefit from an increase in local Sponsors to facilitate membership and provide support, particularly In countries with the highest growth, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Yemen, Kyrgyz Republic, and Ghana. Though we have Sponsors working with members who are in GEM countries (e.g. PKP), we do not yet have any Sponsors who are based in a GEM country.

We will be working with relevant like-minded organisations, such as PKP, DOAJ, INASP, OASPA, EIFL, and others, to help identify suitable candidates for new Sponsors in underserved regions and engage them proactively. Additionally, we will consult with our ambassadors in GEM countries to help identify potential Sponsors. We are beginning the year by making the most of the momentum created in African countries (Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania) and looking to develop new networks in other parts of the world in Q2-Q4 of this year.

I4OA Hall of Fame - 2023 edition

Bianca Kramer — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) was launched in September 2020 to advocate and promote the unrestricted availability of the abstracts of the world’s scholarly publications, particularly journal articles and book chapters, in trusted repositories where they are open and machine-accessible. I4OA calls on all scholarly publishers to open the abstracts of their published works and, where possible, to submit them to Crossref.

Since the launch of I4OA, we have been tracking the openness of abstracts for all Crossref members over time (for data and code, see this GitHub repository). For a subset of 40+, mostly larger, publishers, the proportion of current journal articles (published in the current year and preceding two years) that have abstracts deposited in Crossref is shown in a chart on the I4OA website, which is updated quarterly (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Proportion of current journal articles from selected publishers that have open abstracts in Crossref. Data collected on January 1, 2024 for publication years 2021-2023. Publishers already supporting I4OA are shown in orange.

These longitudinal data and accompanying visualisations allow us to identify and highlight good examples from 2023: publishers (both large and small) who newly started to make abstracts openly available last year and/or who managed to get the proportion of their articles with open abstracts close to 100%¹.

While we highlight some of these examples below in our ‘Hall of Fame’, it’s important to also acknowledge all the publishers that already were depositing abstracts to Crossref for most or all of their journal articles prior to 2023, thereby contributing to the availability of abstracts as part of a rich ecosystem of open metadata, for others to use and build upon.

Hall of Fame - Part 1: publishers included in I4OA visualisation

For the set of (mostly larger) publishers included in the visualisation on the I4OA website, Figure 2 shows the difference in the proportion of abstracts available in Crossref between January and December 2023 for journal articles published in 2021-2023.

A number of publishers stand out from this figure:

Wiley announced in October 2022 that it was joining I4OA and would be making abstracts available through Crossref. In August 2023, Wiley started to deposit abstracts to Crossref, and at the end of 2023, the proportion of current journal articles with open abstracts was 77%.

This makes Wiley the first of the four largest traditional commercial publishers to deposit abstracts for the majority of journal articles they publish. Springer Nature does this only for their current open access articles, while Elsevier and Taylor & Francis² do not yet provide abstracts to Crossref at all. SAGE, the fifth largest traditional commercial publisher, was a founding member of I4OA and has open abstracts for 85% of current journal articles.
Among society publishers, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) went from 7% to 99% open abstracts for current journal articles last year, which is a great achievement. The publishing arm of the American Institute of Physics (AIP Publishing) joins them in reaching close to 100% open abstracts, going from 41% to 95% in 2023.

¹Depending on the type of journal(s) of a given publisher, the maximal coverage of open abstracts will often be somewhat below 100%, as in Crossref, all journal content is assigned the type ‘journal article’. This includes e.g. editorials, letters to the editor and other publication types that are not always expected to have abstracts.

²The numbers for Wiley and Taylor & Francis do not include Hindawi and F1000 Research, respectively, as these have separate Crossref member IDs. As most full open access publishers, both Hindawi and F1000 Research have high proportions of open abstracts (81% and 98%, respectively).

CAIRN and Project Muse, two publishing platforms in the humanities and social sciences representing a number of individual publishers, both started including abstracts in the metadata they provide to Crossref in 2023. At the end of 2023, CAIRN had abstracts available for 41% of current journal articles, while Project Muse was just starting out at 5%. Both will hopefully increase further this coming year.
Returning to traditional commercial publishers, Wolters Kluwer Health, part of Wolters Kluwer, had seen a slow growth in the proportion of journal articles with open abstracts in the years prior to 2023, going from 2% to 10%. However, they showed a rapid increase in 2023, ending the year with 52% open abstracts.

While it is good to see publishers who have publicly committed their support for I4OA follow through with opening their abstracts (like Wiley and AIP), it is also very encouraging to see publishers who are not (yet) listed as I4OA supporters do so. This shows a growing awareness and action on this issue beyond advocacy through I4OA alone. And of course, we would love to list these publishers on our website as official supporters of I4OA!

Figure 2 also shows some cases where the proportion of open abstracts has gone down during the year. This can be due to temporary technical issues in depositing abstracts (as was the case for Hindawi). Theoretically, the proportion of open abstracts can also go down when publishers stop providing abstracts altogether during the year, but we have not observed that to be the case.

Figure 2: Development in the proportion of open abstracts in 2023 for current journal articles (publication years 2021-2023) from selected publishers. Publishers already supporting I4OA are shown in orange. Light orange/blue dots show the proportion of open abstracts in January 2023, and dark orange/blue dots in December 2023.

Hall of Fame - Part 2: other publishers

Among the many publishers not included in the limited selection shown in the I4OA visualisation, there are also some interesting highlights of publishers either starting out to deposit abstracts (and reaching a sizeable proportion) or having deposited open abstracts for almost all their current journal articles in 2023. The examples below drew our attention in 2023; they include a number of medium-sized publishers as well as a group of smaller publishers that deserve special attention.

The European Molecular Biology organisation (EMBO) went from 0% to 42% open abstracts in 2023. However, from January 2024 onwards, several EMBO journals were transferred to Springer Nature, so EMBO can no longer be tracked at publisher level in Crossref. It will still be possible to look at the development of open abstracts for individual EMBO journals.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), a medium-sized publisher, started to deposit abstracts in 2023, reaching 33% open abstracts for current journal articles at the end of the year.
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) had open abstracts for almost all their current journal articles at the end of 2023, increasing from 50% to 97%.
Finally, in the second quarter of 2023, a group of over 200 smaller Turkish publishers saw large increases in their coverage of open abstracts, resulting in open abstracts for 95%-100% of their current journal articles. Consultation with Crossref pointed to the potential supporting role of DergiPark, one of the largest Crossref sponsors in Turkey. This is a great example of developments in open metadata at smaller publishers.

Looking forward

At the beginning of 2024, the proportion of current journal articles published by Crossref members with open abstracts has reached 49.7%, up from 20.7% when I4OA was launched in September 2020. This is thanks to a growing number of publishers who are depositing abstracts to Crossref, often depositing open abstracts for close to 100% of their journal articles.

This blog post has highlighted a number of publishers who contributed to this growth in the availability of open abstracts in 2023. We hope these examples will inspire other publishers to start doing the same and are looking forward to following the growth in the availability of open abstracts in 2024.

For publishers that started to deposit abstracts in recent years and are doing so for newly published articles only, our data on open abstracts for current journal articles will look better in 2024 than in 2023, as only articles published in the current year and two preceding years are taken into account.

However, the benefits of having abstracts openly available from a central location such as Crossref (both for direct usage and for integration in other open scholarly infrastructures) are not limited to recent publications only. Hopefully, publishers currently depositing abstracts to Crossref will continue to do so both for newly published articles as well as for the backfiles of journal articles already published.

Publishers who would like to be added to the list of I4OA supporters, or who would like more information on how to deposit abstracts for both new and existing journal articles, are very welcome to reach out to I4OA. More information about open abstracts in general, and I4OA in particular, can also be found in the FAQ on the I4OA website.

The author would like to thank Ludo Waltman (CWTS) and Ginny Hendricks (Crossref) for useful feedback on an earlier draft of this post.

This blog post is published under a CC BY 4.0 license. The header image is an adaptation of an image by Adam Jones available from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_02_of_Rock_%26_Roll_Hall_of_Fame_and_Museum,_Cleveland_%28by_Adam_Jones%29.jpg) and is shared under a CC BY-SA license.

Perspectives: Madhura Amdekar on meeting the community and pursuing passion for research integrity

Madhura Amdekar — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The second half of 2023 brought with itself a couple of big life changes for me: not only did I move to the Netherlands from India, I also started a new and exciting job at Crossref as the newest Community Engagement Manager. In this role, I am a part of the Community Engagement and Communications team, and my key responsibility is to engage with the global community of scholarly editors, publishers, and editorial organisations to develop sustained programs that help editors to leverage rich metadata.

This represents an exciting phase in my professional journey, as I now have the chance to learn and develop new skills, broaden my understanding of the publishing landscape, and at the same time be able to leverage the experience I gained so far. I originally trained as an ecologist, obtaining a PhD studying colour change in a tropical agamid lizard in India at the Indian Institute of Science (Bengaluru, India). Having immensely enjoyed the process of writing manuscripts based on the data that resulted from my PhD thesis, I was drawn to working in the scholarly publishing industry. I worked for 3.5 years as a Senior Associate at Wiley, overseeing an editor support service by devising strategic scale-up planning and process improvement initiatives.

I then moved countries as well as jobs and joined Crossref. The world of scholarly communications is a rapidly changing ecosystem, that is ably supported by scholarly infrastructure - the sets of tools and services that support this industry. Being a part of Crossref, a global organisation that provides open scholarly infrastructure, allows me to work with and make an impact on the broad scholarly community that ranges from publishers of all shapes and sizes, funders, to academic institutions, and researchers.

So far, the integrity of the scholarly record (ISR) has been the focus of my work. Now more than ever, the community is cognizant of the need to uphold the integrity of the scholarly output. Metadata and relationships between research outputs can support this endeavour in a substantial manner because information such as who contributed to a research output, who funded it, who cites it, whether it was updated after publication, aids provenance and provides signals about whether the output is trustworthy.

Most of Crossref’s tools and services play a key role here: be it reference linking to allow researchers to increase discoverability of their work, tracking post-publication updates to research outputs via Crossmark, or detecting text plagiarism via Similarity Check. We noticed that not all editors and editorial teams associate metadata as signals of integrity, and might be unaware of the benefits of rich metadata. Therefore, my priority is to utilise opportunities to engage with editors about how metadata can provide trust indicators about a research output. I aim to empower editors to collect and leverage rich metadata.

While I am no stranger to the world of scholarly communications, engaging with the broader Crossref community has been a new experience for me. In my day to day work, I employ a range of different skills such as program design and management, content planning and outreach, networking, and meeting facilitation. I have also been participating in trainings to enhance my skill set – I recently completed a training course on Community Engagement Fundamentals, which has equipped me with a better understanding of the concepts and strategies that I will need as a community manager. Additionally, I also underwent the Group Facilitation Methods training course led by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) where I learnt a couple of effective methods for group facilitation and leading workshops.

Equipped with these skills, I have moderated a few community events already – most prominently the community call about Crossref and Retraction Watch to discuss Crossref’s acquisition and opening up of the Retraction Watch database. It was a valuable experience to contribute to the planning of an online event and host a panel of distinguished guests.

I was also fortunate to be able to meet our community members in-person: I supported the organisation of the Frankfurt roundtable event that was held as part of Crossref’s Integrity of the Scholarly Record (ISR) program, where we engaged with community members to get their perspectives on how to work together towards preserving the integrity of the scholarly record (keep watching this space for a forthcoming blog summarising the outcomes from this event!). Additionally, I attended the Frankfurt Book Fair – the experience of getting to meet our members and to hear from them first-hand about all things Crossref, was unparalleled! I used this opportunity to meet several of our publisher members and discuss their view points about engaging with editors on ISR. The idea was received positively: we heard specific suggestions of metadata that would be of interest to readers of scientific manuscripts, and our members also expressed interest in finding out more about how metadata can act as markers of trust for a research output. I plan to use the insights from these meetings for the development of the ISR editor engagement program.

As I reflect on the past three months, there are a few things that have stood out to me. In terms of work, no two days are the same. My work plan for the day can range from making presentations for outreach activities, creating content such as this blogpost, working on an engagement strategy, to planning events, attending online or offline community meetings, facilitating or moderating some of those events, and networking with community members. This variety in work keeps me motivated to give my best each day. I am also grateful that I have the ability to make an impact with my work in an area that I am passionate about. In my previous job, I had developed a good understanding of research integrity and publication ethics. As a community manager now, I’m looking to work with editorial teams on the integrity of the scholarly record. This role gives me an opportunity to further nurture this interest of mine.

At times, working from home remotely has been a challenge. However, I have enjoyed attending in-person events as they are not just a chance to meet our community members, but also a chance to meet my colleagues and connect with them.

I feel privileged to be able to connect with research communities all over the world and make a meaningful contribution towards supporting the discoverability and impact of their work. I am particularly excited to work at the forefront of shaping the future of preserving the integrity of the scholarly record, in tandem with our community. If this is a topic that excites you as well, I am keen to hear from you. It has been a wonderful three months at Crossref so far and I look forward to future collaborations with our community to develop effective ways of supporting and empowering editors to make the most of metadata for their publications.

What was the talk of #Crossref2023?

Kornelia Korzec — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Have you attended any of our annual meeting sessions this year? Ah, yes – there were many in this conference-style event. I, as many of my colleagues, attended them all because it is so great to connect with our global community, and hear your thoughts on the developments at Crossref, and the stories you share.

Let me offer some highlights from the event and a reflection on some emergent themes of the day. You can browse the recordings and slides archived on our Annual Meeting page.

Ginny Hendricks opened the meeting by reminding everyone about the research nexus vision, and the work that’s underway to bring us closer to it. Ginny went on to highlight progress in metadata and relationships being registered by our members, and mentioned members that have particularly rich metadata records – with the special joint recognition for learned societies of South Korea. Participation statistics can be reviewed in our Labs Member Metadata Metrics Tables.

Since 2018 we’ve seen a 512% increase in the number of abstracts included in the metadata; with Wiley’s recent addition of millions of abstracts to their records largely contributing to this change. On the relationships side, in the same period, we’ve noted a staggering 3004% growth in preprint-to-article links, and we’re pleased to report a growing number of funding relationships being made available thanks to more and more funders registering Crossref DOIs for grants.

For those who couldn’t join us at such an early hour, Ed Penz included some of these highlights in his own strategic update later in the day. However, he focused on our activity and plans towards fulfilling our four strategic goals:

To contribute to an environment where the community identifies and co-creates solutions for broad benefit
To be a sustainable source of complete, open, and global scholarly metadata and relationships
To be publicly accountable to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI) practices of sustainability, insurance, and governance
To foster a strong team—because reliable infrastructure needs committed people who contribute to and realise the vision, and thrive doing it

Speakers from across our global community shared their initiatives too. Most of these talks have been accompanied by posters or abstracts shared on our Community Forum and still available for preview and discussion:

Making data citations available at scale: The Global Open Data Citation Corpus by Iratxe Puebla;
“Who Cares?” Defining Citation Style in Scholarly Journals by Vincas Grigas and Pavla Vizváry;
DOI registration for scholarly blogs by Martin Fenner;
Enhancing Research Connections through Metadata: A Case Study with AGU and CHORUS by Tara Packer, Kristina Vrouwenvelder, Shelley Stall;
Index Crossref, Integrity, Professional And Institutional Development by Engjellushe Zenelaj;
Brazilian retractions in the Retraction Watch Database - RWDB by Edilson Damasio; and
Now that you’ve published, what do you do with Metadata? - by Joann Fogleson.

In addition to these updates, we’ve heard from:

Izabela Szyprowska (OP, European Commission), Nikolaos Mitrakis (RTD, European Commission), and Paola Mazzucchi (mEDRA) talked about the process and rationale of implementing Crossref DOIs for grants at the European Commission; and
Amanda French from ROR/Crossref about the new ‘ROR / Open Funder Registry overlap’ tool.

We also assembled a diverse panel and invited the community to discuss “What we still need to build a robust Research Nexus?” The discussion ranged from how different parts of our community currently use existing metadata, to how we can come together to make improvements, especially in the area of standards and equitability, and touched on metadata priorities. I’ll highlight some of the threads below, but it’s certainly worth engaging with the full recording of the discussion, and offering your own perspective on the Community Forum, commenting below.

Having participated in the whole day of talks, I found that a few themes emerged as popular in the community: data citations, making it easier to register metadata, making better use of metadata, retractions, and equity of participation in the research nexus.

Data citations

With the advances in the Crossref API relationships endpoint, Martyn Rittman demonstrated how we’re now providing more comprehensive support for data citations. You can follow his demonstration in the Collab Notebook he used for the demo and shared for your perusal. He also mentioned that the developments in this feature of our API will soon replace the current service provided via the Events API. Feel free to connect with Martin on the community forum and comment with questions and suggestions.

As mentioned above, DataCite’s Iratxe Puebla mentioned the Make Data Count initiative and the leaky pipeline of data citations we’ve got at the moment in the scholarly literature, obscuring the true picture of data reuse. This prevents the community from recognising and incentivising data creation and reuse appropriately. One way of addressing this is the Global Open Data Citation Corpus. Crossref and DataCite collaborate closely in connecting and making that data available.

Linking datasets, as well as software, was reported as part of the AGU and CHORUS initiative in Enhancing Research Connections through Metadata.

Data sharing and citing is as much a culture as a technology problem. As Iratxe Puebla admitted, there are many norms and processes for capturing and sharing that information,and DataCite is interested to hear about different use cases. As highlighting data’s relationship with works is a growing interest for our community, hopefully more understanding and perhaps even commonality can be built soon.

Making it easier to register metadata

As part of the Demonstrations session, we’ve seen two developments to support members with registering their metadata more easily.

Crossref’s Lena Stoll shared plans for the new version of the Crossref Registration Form, the helper tool for manual registration of metadata, which translates the submission into XML, for inclusion in the Crossref database. At the moment, the form only accepts grant registrations, but it will be bolstered before the end of the year to include journal articles then other record types in time.

Erik Hanson from PKP demonstrated the latest OJS version, commenting on specific changes made in the new version in response to the key pain points reported by users of the previous release.

In addition, we’ve heard of two independent projects by Martin Fenner and Esha Data to enable metadata registration and Crossref DOIs for scholarly blogs.

Making better use of metadata

Supported by the beginner’s demo of our REST API by Luis Montilla, there were many voices about opportunities for making good use of Crossref’s open metadata. Nikolaos Mitrakis of the European Commission talked about the implementation of Crossref IDs for grants as a step towards tracing and connecting the grants with not just academic but also societal outcomes of the awards, and the plans for using those in the evaluation and steering of their funding programmes.

Joann Fogleson of the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a buzzy metaphor of publishers’ role in their work with metadata being comparable with that of a pollinator – collecting the metadata at one end, then registering, displaying and making it available to different services, in order to enable a reacher scholarly environment for discovery.

Many of the major themes have found their way to the discussion of what is still needed to build a robust network of connections between scholarly objects, institutions and individuals. One of the ways Ludo Waltman of CWTS, Leiden University, intends to use our open metadata is as part of the upcoming open-source version of the Laiden rankings and he invited the community to contribute and help optimise this project to provide an alternative to closed and selective databases.

Panellists also spoke of new opportunities in the light of data mining and machine learning. Ran Dang, Atlantis Press, as a publisher shared a concern about the standard of metadata across cultures and disciplines, and the need to digitise past publications – which can then help better leverage multi-lingual scholarship. Matt Buys of DataCite, pointed out to the Global Data Citation Corpus they are developing, which leverages a SciBERT model to pull out data citations, which is brought together with Crossref/DataCite citation metadata.

Opening the data is essential to enabling its wider use, and here Ludo gave the example of the fantastic outcome for references metadata, which has been made open by default for the entire corpus of Crossref-registred works. He hopes that this can inspire us to make similar progress in other areas.

A little on a tangent with regards to metadata use, yet speaking of excellent examples of the community making progress together, Ginny pointed out ROR, how this is becoming a new standard for solving a longstanding problem of standardising affiliations metadata.

Retractions

Perhaps not entirely surprising, given the recent acquisition of the Retraction Watch database by Crossref and making the data openly available, retractions featured in a few different talks at the meeting. First, Lena Stoll and Martin Eve from Crossref, shared how that data can be accessed – that is as the csv file from https://api-labs-crossref-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/data/retractionwatch?[your-email@here](add your email as indicated), and the Crossref Labs API also displays information about retractions in the /works/ route when metadata is available. There are plans for incorporating this information with our REST API in the future.

Ed and Ginny have shown stats for increases in retraction metadata registered in Crossmark but commented on limited participation in Crossmark overall. Recording retraction information in this way is still important, alongside the Retraction Watch data, this allows for multiple assertions of that information, and increases confidence in its accuracy. We’re preparing to consult with the community at large about the future direction of the Crossmark service, to make it easier to implement and more useful for the readers.

Finally, Edilson Damasio from State University of Maringá-UEM, Brazil, and a long-time Crossref Ambassador, presented the analysis of Brazilian records in the Retraction Watch data, and he promises further analysis to come, comparing the situation across geographies.

Equity of participation in the research nexus

Amanda Bartell opened the research nexus discussion with a reminder of what that vision entails and pointing out commonality of goals in the community – “Like others, Crossref has a vision of a rich and reusable open network of relationships connecting research organisations, people, things, and actions; a scholarly record that the global community can build on forever, for the benefit of society. We call this interconnected network the Research Nexus, but others in the community have different names for it, such as knowledge graph or PID graph.”

The richness of this network depends upon the participation of all those who produce and publish scholarship, so naturally the topic of equality emerged in that discussion. In addition to Ran Dang’s concern for multilingualism and digitisation of past publications from all parts of the world, Mercury Shitindo of St Paul’s University, Kenya talked of the need for more education, training and accessible resources for her community, to be able to participate more effectively in this ecosystem. She can see that affiliations and citations are of priority there, as these enable transparency and facilitate collaborations. Matt Buys of DataCite echoed her point, talking about the importance of the role of contributors “It’s important not to lose sight of people and places – to recognise the importance of contributor roles in the PID-graph”.

Earlier in the day, we mentioned the launch of our Global Equitable Membership, or GEM programme. Since January, 110 new organisations from eligible countries have joined Crossref fee-free. Ginny was quick to admit that the need for a fee-waiver programme like this stems from the regular fees schedule not being in tune with our global membership, and she mentioned the upcoming fees review.

Financial barriers are often what get attention, yet reducing barriers to participation with technology is equally important for building a robust research nexus. With the planned changes to our registration form, we’ll make it easier to register works for those who don’t regularly use XML.

Johanssen Obanda took time to show the examples of community activity and events organised by our global network of Ambassadors, and to thank all our advocates and partners for their tireless work. They are also helping tackle barriers, supporting our members to actively participate in the research nexus with their metadata, and help enable the community to make good use of the network of relationships that data denotes.

Showcasing our “One member one vote” truth, the Board election was the focal point of the annual meeting, as always. We closed the ballot and announced the results, with seven members selected to join the Board in 2024.

The event went very smoothly overall. Talks were delivered efficiently, the panellists shared diverse perspectives and we elected our new Board members. Huge thanks to Rosa Clark, our Communications and Events Manager, who orchestrated the event and has been a constant behind-the-scenes presence supervising the entire show. I’m grateful to all colleagues at Crossref, who helped make it an enjoyable experience and an informative event for our community. Finally – it wouldn’t be a real meeting without the active participation of the speakers and panellists, who shared their metadata stories, and even joined us for some relaxed unplugged chats.

Perspectives: Luis Montilla on making science fiction concepts a reality in the scholarly ecosystem

Luis Montilla — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, readers! My name is Luis, and I’ve recently started a new role as the Technical Community Manager at Crossref, where I aim to bridge the gap between some of our services and our community awareness to enhance the Research Nexus. I’m excited to share my thoughts with you.

My journey from research to science communications infrastructure has been a gradual transition. As a Masters student in Biological Sciences, I often felt curious about the behind-the-scenes after a paper is submitted and published. For example, the fate of data being stored in the drawer or copied and forgotten in the hard drive after the paper is online. I come from a university that shares its name with at least three completely different universities in Latin America, and that also is pretty similar to another one with multiple offices across the region, which made me wonder if there was a standard way of identifying our affiliations. And then we have the topic of our names in hispanoamerica. We use two family names, and more often than not, we have a middle name (and then I could tell you stories about multiple-word middle names), which inevitably leads to authors having many combinations of full names and hyphenations.

This curiosity led me to volunteer in the Journal of the Venezuelan Society of Ecology. This role has been a transformative experience because my goal was to learn more about the publishing aspect of science. Still, today I realize that this is a fraction of what the scholarly ecosystem represents. The experience allowed me to grasp the importance of having a community with a sense of belonging, the relevance of multilingualism, and the importance of having access to an open infrastructure that allows smaller communities to be participants in the global dynamics. Moreover, it seemed to me that a research paper is more than the capstone of a building that we place and then move on to the next project or the next experiment; instead, it is a node in the vast network of human knowledge, connected to other papers through references, but also to all the other elements that are produced as part of the research, namely datasets, protocols, code, presentations, posters, preprints, peer-review reports and more. In short, the research metadata extends the life of the research output and makes it visible to the rest of the community.

This brings us to my onboarding to the Crossref team. At Crossref, I became part of a team and a driving force whose idea of the Research Nexus ¹ aligns perfectly with my aspirations. And to explain myself better, I’ll draw an analogy using one of my favorite authors. In Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation, a character shows to another a wall covered to the last millimeter with equations and writings. He describes his contribution to “The Plan” as follows: “…Every red mark you see on the wall is the contribution of a man among us who lived since Seldon”.² This idea sounded fascinating to me and only possible in a sci-fi book; a massive integrated research ecosystem where scientists focused more on how their contributions fit in the big picture. Today I have come to think that metadata helps materialize this idea by interconnecting all knowledge, and more importantly, in stark contrast to Asimov’s plan developed and guarded by a secret society, Crossref’s research nexus is a “reusable open network,” “a scholarly record that the global community can build on forever.” In a world with undeniably unequal access to resources, providing open access and fostering community efforts to contribute to this growing collective effort is a fundamental condition to empower and visualize underrepresented voices.

We make available a series of tools to access and probe this data, including our REST API, but we know its potential is far from being realized. As Technical Community Manager at Crossref, my primary responsibility is to understand the needs of our community members who interact with our REST API. I aim to build and maintain relationships with new and existing metadata users to promote the effective usage of our API. I will also be working closely with organisations such as hosting platforms, manuscript submission systems, and general publisher services. In essence, I want to ensure that our community across the globe is aware of the vast possibilities that imply using and contributing to the Research Nexus.

I am committed to fostering an engaged and collaborative technical community. As we move forward, I look forward to sharing insights, experiences, and knowledge with all of you. Stay tuned for more updates, and let’s explore the world of APIs, metadata, and scholarly communities together!

Crossref (2021) The research nexus. Accessed on 20 October 2023. ↩︎
Asimov, I. (1953) Second Foundation. Gnome Press. ↩︎

Perspectives: Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu on scholarly communications in Cameroon

Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Our Perspectives blog series highlights different members of our diverse, global community at Crossref. We learn more about their lives and how they came to know and work with us, and we hear insights about the scholarly research landscape in their country, the challenges they face, and their plans for the future.

Notre série de blogs Perspectives met en lumière différents membres de la communauté internationale de Crossref. Nous en apprenons davantage sur leur vie et sur la manière dont ils ont appris à nous connaître et à travailler avec nous, et nous entendons parler du paysage de la recherche universitaire dans leur pays, des défis auxquels ils sont confrontés et de leurs projets pour l’avenir.

Today, we meet Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu, Crossref Ambassador in Cameroon and Assistant Editor of the Pan-African Medical Journal (PAMJ). Audrey is excited about engaging Crossref’s community in French West Africa. Please take a moment to read and listen to Audrey’s perspective.

Aujourd’hui, nous rencontrons Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu, ambassadrice Crossref au Cameroun et rédactrice adjointe du Pan-African Medical Journal (PAMJ). Audrey est enthousiaste à l’idée d’impliquer la communauté Crossref en Afrique occidentale française. Veuillez prendre un moment pour lire et écouter le point de vue d’Audrey.

English

Français

Tell us a bit about your organisation, your objectives, and your role
Pouvez-vous nous parler de votre organisation, vos objectifs et votre rôle ?

My name is Audrey Kenni Nganmeni-Nemaleu, assistant editor for the Pan-African Medical Journal. I am specifically responsible for editing the articles in terms of form, ensuring that they meet the journal’s standards. Furthermore, I am the focal point of my journal for Crossref, that is to say I am responsible for managing all the problems that all publishers may encounter with DOIs and the various Crossref services to which our journal has subscribed. My role is also to manage all the conflicts that we may encounter with the DOIs submitted to Crossref. I train our journal staff in using Crossref services. I am also the focal point of my journal for COPE (Committee of Publications Ethics) which is an organisation that helps to regulate ethical publishing practices. It is in this capacity that I participate COPE’s webinars on behalf of our journal.

Je m’appelle Audrey Kenni Nganmeni Nemaleu, éditrice assistante pour le Pan African Medical Journal. Je m’occupe précisément de traiter les articles sur le plan de la forme en m’assurant qu’ils respectent les normes du journal. Par ailleurs je suis point focal de mon journal pour Crossref c’est-à-dire je suis chargée de gérer tous les problèmes que l’ensemble des éditeurs peuvent rencontrer avec les DOIs et les différents services de Crossref auxquels notre journal a souscrit. Mon rôle également c’est de gérer tous les conflits qu’on peut rencontrer avec les DOIs soumis à Crossref. Je forme également le personnel de notre journal à l’utilisation des services de Crossref. Je suis aussi point focal de mon journal pour COPE (Committee of Publications ethics) qui est un organisme qui aide dans la régulation des pratiques éthiques en matière de publication. C’est dans ce cadre que je participe à tous les webinaires de cette organisation afin qu’il y ait toujours au moins une personne qui participe à ces webinaires pour le compte de notre journal.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?
Que doivent savoir les autres sur les activités de recherche dans votre pays ?

In my country, Cameroon, the research activity is still young. There are few scientific journals and we are actually the most influential journal in our country and subregion. There are also few schools or institutions that focus especially on research. For the time being, research activities in my country mainly revolve around congresses and conferences where researchers can exhibit their works. There is very little support for scientific research in my country.

Dans mon pays, le Cameroun, la recherche scientifique est encore jeune. Il existe peu de revues scientifiques et nous sommes en fait le journal le plus influent de notre pays et de notre sous-région. Il existe également peu d’écoles ou d’nstitutions qui spécialisées sur la recherche. Pour l’instant, les activités de recherche dans mon pays s’articulent principalement autour de congrès et de conférences où les chercheurs peuvent exposer leurs travaux. Il y a très peu de soutien à la recherche scientifique dans mon pays.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?
Existe-t-il des tendances particulières en matière de recherche scientifique dans votre région ?

In this part of the world, we do our best to follow the code of ethics of the various organisations in which we are a member: Committee of publication ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). What we have seen emerging recently is the organisation, by professional scientific societies, of small conferences, workshops and meetings to exchange information. These small events are less costly to organize, hence their gain in popularity. We support these activities through sponsorship, and use them as opportunities to strengthen young researchers’ capacities in areas such as scientific writing, publication ethics. We also use those opportunities to introduce to young researchers concepts such as Open Access, Open Science, DOIs and other modern publishing services.

Dans notre pays, nous nous efforçons de suivre le code de déontologie des différentes organisations dont nous sommes membre : Committee of publication ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). Ce que l’on a vu émerger récemment, c’est l’organisation, par des sociétés scientifiques professionnelles, de petits colloques, ateliers et réunions d’échange d’informations. Ces petits événements sont moins coûteux à organiser, d’où leur gain en popularité. Nous soutenons ces activités par le sponsoring et les utilisons comme des opportunités pour renforcer les capacités des jeunes chercheurs dans des domaines tels que l’écriture scientifique, l’éthique de la publication. Nous utilisons également ces opportunités pour leur présenter des concepts tels que le libre accès, la science ouverte, les DOIs et d’autres services d’édition modernes.

What about any political policies, challenges, or mandates that you have to consider in your work?
Quels sont les politiques, défis ou mandats auxquels vous faites face dans votre travail ?

Operating a journal in our context is challenging. The critical challenges are as basic as constant availability of electricity or stable and fast internet connectivity. How to maintain a stable stream revenue to support the journal is also a critical challenge. Most of our authors are young, self-funded and with limited resources. Most cannot afford the amount we charge for article publishing fees, which in comparison, is very limited. So we have to be extremely creative to operate.

Faire fonctionner une revue dans notre contexte est difficile. Les défis critiques sont aussi fondamentaux que la disponibilité constante de l’électricité ou une connexion Internet stable et rapide. Comment maintenir un flux stable des revenus pour soutenir la revue constitue également un défi crucial. La plupart de nos auteurs sont jeunes, autofinancés, avec des ressources limitées et par conséquent n’arrivent pas à payer les frais de publication d’articles pourtant très bas. Nous devons donc être extrêmement créatifs pour gérer nos charges.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?
Comment décririez-vous la valeur de faire partie de la communauté Crossref ? Quel est l’impact de votre participation sur vos objectifs ?

As a Crossref ambassador, I talk about Crossref around me, among my colleagues whether they are in Kenya or Cameroon. I shared the links to participate in Crossref webinars with my colleagues. I invited them to become ambassadors by sharing with them the links to join the community. I participated in several ambassador training webinars on different themes including: how to submit DOI to Crossref, ORCID. I participated in a Crossref event in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a memorable moment where I was able to meet other ambassadors. We were able to have a small meeting on the difficulties we encountered in growing the Crossref community in Africa. We produced a document to this effect which we submitted to Crossref in 2022. For the moment, I have not yet been able to organize an event as an ambassador, but I would like to with the help of Crossref. But being an ambassador is not the easiest thing because sometimes in our context people do not understand the use of Crossref’s services because we are in an environment where the DOI is not yet very well known, and where even publishers know nothing about this. A question I am often asked is whether this work is paid and are discouraged when they learn that it is voluntary work.

Comme ambassadrice de Crossref, je parle autour de moi de Crossref, parmi mes collègues qu’ils soient au Kenya ou au Cameroun. J’ai partagé les liens pour participer à des webinaires de Crossref à mes collègues. Je les ai invités à devenir des ambassadeurs en partageant avec eux les liens pour rejoindre la communauté. J’ai participé à plusieurs webinaires de formation des ambassadeurs sur différents thèmes notamment ORCID. J’ai également participe à un évènement de Crossref à Nairobi au Kenya. C’était un moment mémorable ou j’ai pu rencontrer d’autres ambassadeurs. Nous avons pu faire une petite réunion sur les difficultés que nous rencontrons pour faire grandir la communauté Crossref en Afrique. Nous avons d’ailleurs produit un document à cet effet que nous avons soumis à Crossref en 2022. Pour l’instant, je n’ai pas encore pu organiser d’évènement dans le cadre d’ambassadeur, mais j’aimerais avec l’aide de Crossref voir comment le faire. Etre ambassadrice n’est pas la chose la plus facile car parfois dans notre contexte les gens ne comprennent pas le bien-fondé des services de Crossref car on est dans un environnement ou le DOI n’est pas encore très connu, et où beaucoup de journaux et même d’editeurs ne savent rien de cela. Une question qu’on me pose souvent est celle savoir si ce travail est remunere et se découragent quand ils apprennent que c’est du bénévolat.

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?
Pour vous, quelle serait la chose la plus importante que Crossref pourrait changer (faire plus/faire mieux) ?

Crossref could invest in more capacity building, events, and communications in this part of the world. Why not localize Crossref in the francophone part of Africa? Crossref could offer continuing educational activities to professionals in order to improve their skills or acquire new knowledge in metadata and correlative disciplines. Crossref could also sponsor/support journal publishing and scholarship in Africa.

Crossref pourrait investir dans davantage de renforcement des capacités, d’événements et de communications dans cette partie du monde. Pourquoi ne pas localiser Crossref dans la partie francophone de l’Afrique ? Crossref pourrait proposer des activités de formation continue aux professionnels afin d’améliorer leurs compétences ou d’acquérir de nouvelles connaissances dans les métadonnées et les disciplines corrélatives. Crossref pourrait également sponsoriser/soutenir la publication de revues et les bourses d’études en Afrique.

Which other organisations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open science?
Avec quelles autres organisations collaborez-vous ou alors quelles sont les organismes pivot au cœur de votre travail en science ouverte ?

I collaborate with various institutions such as COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), AJOL African Journals Online, and OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association). I attend webinars of these organisations on behalf of my journal.

Je collabore avec diverses institutions telles que COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), AJOL African Journals Online, et OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association). J’assiste à des webinaires de ceux-ci organisations au nom de ma revue.

What are your plans for the future?
Quels sont vos plans pour l’avenir ?

My plan for the future is to continue working in science communication with different other organisations, and more within my community.

Mon plan pour l’avenir est de continuer à travailler dans le domaine de la communication scientifique avec différentes autres organisations, et davantage au sein de ma communauté.

Thank you, Audrey!

Merci, Audrey !

Metadata connects the global community – summary of our Community update 2023

Kornelia Korzec — Fri, 12 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We were delighted to engage with over 200 community members in our latest Community update calls. We aimed to present a diverse selection of highlights on our progress and discuss your questions about participating in the Research Nexus. For those who didn’t get a chance to join us, I’ll briefly summarise the content of the sessions here and I invite you to join the conversations on the Community Forum.

You can take a look at the slides here and the recordings of the calls are available here.

TL;DR

The membership is growing, including that in the GEM programme countries, and we focus on adding new Sponsors in areas where we have insufficient coverage to support prospective members
The grant registration form is available for funders who don’t use XML, and we’re working to expand to other record types
The preview of the Relationship API endpoint is available – start exploring relationships between different records and record types, from citations to funding, and more
Usefulness of metadata records for inferring integrity of the content or publisher relies on all members of the community contributing to this effort. Crossref will continue to enrich our schema to capture new types of relevant information and to promote the best metadata practices.
Cited-by is now open for everyone to use 🎉 – no need for additional authorisation steps – Registering your references will have even greater impact now!
The Labs participation report is available and it’s been a hit. Please note that this tool is still underdevelopment – new functionalities can be added but there might also be bugs that we are yet to resolve, so don’t hold off with feedback.
We’ve received close to 1,000 responses in our first ever Metadata Priorities Survey. It’s still open until 18th of May and we encourage all members to take it. So far we’ve learnt that majority of our respondents are keen to deposit as much metadata as possible – and some would like to register more than we currently enable.

Metadata completeness and integrity

A key theme of the call was encouraging greater participation in the Research Nexus and the importance of complete metadata. One particular benefit of a rich and transparent metadata network is the opportunity to infer judgments on the integrity of the scholarly record (ISR). Amanda Bartell, Head of Member Experience, highlighted that the community agrees that availability of information about relationships between research outputs, institutions and other elements of the scholarly ecosystem together provide essential context for deciding about trustworthiness of organisations and their published content. Conversely, it can make it harder for parties to pass off information as trustworthy when that context is missing. Amanda summarised community feedback related to Crossref’s role in the integrity of the scholarly record in her recent blog post.

Our members can contribute to that rich network of relationships by curating their metadata and providing contextual information – especially the highly sought for elements highlighted in the presentation.

Our community

Since LIVE22, we have had 1,130 new members join us. That includes 51 organisations from countries included in our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) programme. You can find out more in the latest news about the programme on our Community Forum from Susan Collins, Community Engagement Manager.

We see great opportunities with enriching our metadata corpus with works carried out in some of the least economically-advantaged regions of the world. Registering their content with us will increase its discoverability for the global scholarship, while adding important relationships into the Research Nexus. We’re glad at the new members joining us under the auspices of the Global Equitable Membership (GEM) programme and we’re reaching out to existing and new communities with our Ambassadors, to encourage more metadata registrations.

Our Sponsors and Ambassadors, alongside our Outreach and Membership Team, support members to participate as effectively as possible in the Research Nexus. We’re delighted to see both programmes growing, with eight new Sponsors and seven new Ambassadors having joined us since October.

Simultaneously, we’re working with like-minded organisations to provide useful resources for the growing and changing scholarly communications community. The recent launch of the online forum for new publishers seeking to learn about best practices in the industry, The PLACE, is another way in which we hope to support wider participation in the Research Nexus, and promote open and sustainable practices.

With our growing community, there’s always interest in We have planned a webinar later this month to provide an overview of Crossref – including the members benefits and obligations, and how to use our services.

Service news

References metadata is essential for connecting works with one another. It enables provision of citation information, aids discoverability for researchers, as well as assessment and evaluation for institutions and funders. It’s almost a year since all the references metadata deposited with Crossref has been made openly available. At the moment, 52.0% of journal articles, and 44.5% of all works have references. Martyn Rittman, Product Manager for the Cited-by service says “It’s not bad, but we can do better!”

With three different mechanisms for doing it available to our members, we hope that all have a suitable tool to fit with their needs. You can register references with XML via HTTPS POST (structured or unstructured), with the dedicated OJS Plugin if you’re an OJS user, or with our Simple Text Query (unstructured text) – this is especially relevant to the Web Deposit Form users. We find that journal articles with deposited references seem to be cited more than those without, and by a lot: 21.8 vs. 6.1 incoming citations on average!

We have now made our Cited-by service open to all. To realise its full benefit, it is essential to register your references.

There were concerns in the community about references ‘lost’ as part of supplementary material that may not be registered in its own right. Colleagues advised that if the data has an identifier, such as a DataCite DOI, you can add a relationship to say that it’s supplementary material (see https://www-crossref-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/documentation/schema-library/markup-guide-metadata-segments/relationships/) or add them as a reference. Martyn is curious to hear from others in the community on this topic. There is an increasing focus on data citations and we’d like to see how we can better support them.

Many members have questions related to plans for replacing Metadata Manager. Rachael Lammey, Director of Product, explained that we’re working on broadening our new Grant Registration Form to include more record types over the course of 2023. It has a few advantages over the current Web Deposit Form. It allows you to save a local copy once you first register a piece of content. It makes updating your records easier, as you can drop that file onto the form to add the metadata so that you can update it and redeposit rather than having to fill out the information all over again, and we have started adding automatic lookup fields to help users populate information on affiliations using ROR IDs more accurately. We will keep you posted on the progress with new developments and ask for beta testers for new record types as they are added.

Metadata information about individual work is not as useful as the opportunity to interrogate the relationships between works and within the global scholarly output. [The preview of the Relationship API endpoint](https://community-crossref-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/t/relationships-are-here/3523, modest as it is at this stage – with only 1% of our relationship metadata included (or 10 mln relationships) – offers a powerful demonstration of the way in which metadata contextualises research outputs within the entangled network of ever-progressing scholarship.

We’ve also mentioned the recent transition of our website to GitLab, which allows everyone to contribute by creating merge requests and issues. Through this open collaboration, which supports our commitment to meet the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure, we aim to cultivate a sense of ownership among contributors and make our information and documentation more useful and efficient for everyone.

Labs participation report

For organisations who wish to keep a close eye on their metadata – to understand what they deposit, how that compares with other members, and what could be improved, can start using our Lab participation reports. We encourage you to test this not-yet-finished tool and let us know your feedback. Participants at our updates found it very informative, with the opportunity to preview contents of recent deposits, see the participation breakdowns by a prefix, and improved data visualisation. We had questions about how data citation counts are generated in the report. Martyn Rittman explained that: “This is a prototype and that’s one of the issues we need to tidy up! We know via Event Data and our Scholix endpoint what is a dataset, but that hasn’t yet been incorporated to the Labs Reports”. There was also a suggestion of enabling export of simple lists of all member’s DOIs with respective URLs from the report and the team might look into that. Yet, lists of DOIs missing specific metadata types are already downloadable.

To learn more about the reports, try them out, and to provide feedback, please take a look at the information shared recently by Paul Davis, Tech Support Specialist & R&D Support Analyst.

Metadata priorities

Patricia Feeney, Head of Metadata, shared some updates about the current metadata corpus registered with Crossref, and some recent trends.

She then went on to summarise some preliminary results of our ongoing metadata priorities survey, which all members are encouraged to take part in by 18th of May. So far, we’ve received close to 1,000 responses. We’ve learnt that majority of our respondents are keen to deposit as much metadata as possible – and some would like to register more than we currently enable. Close to a half of the respondents who did not express an interest in sharing all metadata are still interested to learn more about the value of their metadata.

She then went on to summarise some preliminary results of our ongoing metadata priorities survey, which all members are encouraged to take part in by 18th of May. So far, We’ve received close to 1,000 responses. We’ve learnt that majority of our respondents are keen to deposit as much metadata as possible – and some would like to register more than we currently enable. However, close to a half of the respondents are interested to learn more about the value of their metadata.

The survey consults our members about their preferences for developing any of the potential projects under consideration:

Contributor IDs
Contributor roles/ CRediT
Alternate names
Multilingual metadata
Expand abstract support
Citation types (content)
Conference event IDs

It appears that support for citation types is the strongest among our respondents, while very polarised views have been shared about multilingual metadata and expanding support for abstracts. Among other suggestions, we received a lot of comments related to keywords. Overall, support for all projects was strong.

The verdicts are not in yet – still time to respond to the survey and make your metadata priorities known!

Thank you and keep in touch

With much of the content shared ahead of the time through our Community Forum, the sessions were bubbling with questions and valuable comments from the community. We look forward to continuing the conversations asynchronously on the Community Forum. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and ask further questions. We’d also love to hear suggestions for topics of the most interest for our future updates.

The more complete the metadata we collect together, the more connections in the ecosystem become transparent. This creates opportunities for discovery and collaborations, and greater insights about the scholarly process. Our community is growing in numbers, diversity, and technical capacity for building the Research Nexus together. We welcome your questions and suggestions of initiatives that support the fullest participation possible.

We’re hiring! New technical, community, and membership roles at Crossref

Michelle Cancel — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you want to help make research communications better in all corners of the globe? Come and join the world of nonprofit open infrastructure and be part of improving the creation and sharing of knowledge.

We are recruiting for three new staff positions, all new roles and all fully remote and flexible. See below for more about our ethos and what it’s like working at Crossref.

🚀 Technical Community Manager, working with our ‘integrators’ so all repository/publishing platforms and plugins, all API users incl. managing contracts with subscribers, and generally helping a very nice bunch of RESTful API dabblers, both novice and intermediate. The goal is to offer more interactive engagement such as sprints, and more technical consultation to help the community with things like query efficiency, public data dump ingestion, etc. Thousands of users exist, from individual researchers and small academic tools to giant technology companies. Researching and analysing usage and building tools to meet their needs is key, so this role works closely with Product and R&D colleagues and likely needs a developer or developer-advocacy background.

🎯 Member Experience Manager, ramping up to handle the mammoth operation that is… membership, currently 18,000 members from 150 countries, and onboarding the ~180 new joiners we welcome monthly, mostly from Africa and Asia. This role involves lots of education and relationship management, but because of the scale, we also need someone with a real business process/analysis approach, improving how our systems function so that the operation flows seamlessly and isn’t a pain for people (both members and staff). This role manages two full-time Member Support Specialists (UK and Indonesia) and three part-time contractors (USA, France, and one other as yet unknown).

🎈 Community Engagement Manager, working with the global community of scholarly editors at a time when research integrity is top of mind for our entire ecosystem. This is a classic community role for someone keen to cross over from managing or editing journals or books and perhaps make your volunteer work official. Activities will include program and project management, event and working group facilitation, communications and content creation. You’d be interacting with groups like the Asian Council of Science Editors, the European Association of Science Editors, and the Council of Science Editors, plus many more that you’d identify. It’s all about helping editors, who work hand-in-hand with authors, to think about metadata as signals of trust and better use available services, such as those for retraction management or plagiarism checking, and helping to define needs for emerging activity too, such as machine-generated content.

Working at Crossref

We’re a not-for-profit membership organisation that exists to make scholarly communications better. We rally the community; tag and share metadata; run an open infrastructure; play with technology; and make tools and services—all to help put research in context.

Crossref sits at the heart of the global exchange of research information, and our job is to make it possible—and easier—to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse research, from journals and books, to preprints, data, and grants. Through partnerships and collaborations we engage with members in 150 countries (and counting) and it’s very important to us to nurture that community.

We’re about 45 staff and remote-first. This means that we support our teams working asynchronously and with flexible hours. We are dedicated to an open and fair research ecosystem and that’s reflected in our ethos and staff culture. We like to work hard but we have fun too! We take a creative, iterative approach to our projects, and believe that all team members can enrich the culture and performance of our whole organisation. Check out the organisation chart.

We are active supporters of ongoing professional development opportunities and promote self-learning at every opportunity. Crossref has a healthy financial situation and we only continue to grow. While we won’t have a clear hierarchical path for staff to follow, there are always evolving opportunities to progress and be challenged.

We especially encourage applications from people with backgrounds historically under-represented in research and scholarly communications.

Bookmark our jobs page to watch for future opportunities!

The PLACE for new publishers – a one-stop-shop for information and a friendly community

Kornelia Korzec — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Publishers Learning And Community Exchange (PLACE) at theplace.discourse.group is a new online public forum created for organisations interested in adopting best practices in scholarly publishing. New scholarly publishers can access information from multiple agencies in one place, ask questions of the experts and join conversations with each other.

Scholarly publishing is an interesting niche of an industry – it appears at the same time ancillary and necessary to the practice and development of scholarship itself. The sooner and more easily a piece of academic work is shared, the greater the chance that others will find and build upon it. Many practices of the publishing industry have been developed to support discovery and integrity of the scholarship that produces shareable works, and as the landscape of scholarly communications constantly evolves, a number of agencies arose to promote and continuously update the standards and best practices within it.

We realise that the sheer number of agencies involved in regulating and preserving scholarly content is in itself a challenge and can be confusing. Newer publishers may find it difficult to know where to go to find the right information, what policies they need to follow or international criteria they need to meet and how to go about doing so. When time or finances are tight, it’s not easy to try to reinvent the wheel.

Following the long-established practice of signposting organisations between us, we’ve worked together with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) to establish the PLACE. We share values and goals to work more effectively to better support the needs of our communities. Each organisation is taking actions to lower barriers to participation and provide greater support for the organisations that publish scholarly and professional content that we work with.

Hence, we envisaged the PLACE as a ‘one stop shop’ for access to more consolidated and plainly put information, to support publishers in adopting best practices the industry developed. We also hope that by setting the information service as a forum, we will encourage open exchange with publishers who aspire to do things right, as well as between them.

Shooting for the stars – ASM’s journey towards complete metadata

Kornelia Korzec — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At Crossref, we care a lot about the completeness and quality of metadata. Gathering robust metadata from across the global network of scholarly communication is essential for effective co-creation of the research nexus and making the inner workings of academia traceable and transparent. We invest time in community initiatives such as Metadata 20/20 and Better Together webinars. We encourage members to take time to look up their participation reports, and our team can support you if you’re looking to understand and improve any aspects of metadata coverage of your content.

In 2022, we have observed with delight the growth of one of our members from basic coverage of their publications to over 90% in most areas, and no less than 70% of the corpus is covered by all key types of metadata Crossref enables (see their own participation report for details). Here, Deborah Plavin and David Haber share the story of ASM’s success and lessons learnt along the way.

Could you introduce your organisation?

The American Society for Microbiology publishes 16 peer-reviewed journals advancing the microbial sciences, from food microbiology, to genomics and the microbiome, comprising 14% of all microbiology articles. Six of those are open-access journals, and 56% of ASM’s published papers are open access. Together, our journals contribute 25% of all microbiology citations.

Would you tell us a little more about yourselves?

DH: David Haber, Publishing Operations Director at the American Society for Microbiology. I live in a century-old house that is in a perpetual state of renovation due to my inability to stop starting new projects before I complete old ones.

DP: Deborah Plavin, Digital Publishing Manager at the American Society for Microbiology. Following David’s example, my apartment in Washington D.C. is just up the block from one of the homes Duke Ellington lived in https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=142334.

What value do society publishers in general see in metadata in your view?

DP: In my view, robust metadata allows publishers to look at changes over time, do comparative analysis within and across research areas, more easily identify trends, and plan for future analysis (e.g., if we deposit data citation information and we change our processes to make it more straightforward, do we see any change in the percentage of articles that include that information, etc.).

DH: To echo Deborah’s point, to be able to name something distinctly and clearly identify its specific attributes is vital to understanding past research and planning for future possibilities. One of our fundamental roles as a publisher for a non-profit society is to properly lay this metadata foundation so that we can provide services and new venues for our members, authors, and readers that match their needs and track with the trends in research. Without good and robust metadata, it is impossible to truly understand the direction in which our community is pointing us.

Metadata for your own research outputs in the last year has grown rapidly. Why such focus on metadata in 2022?

DP: This is something that ASM has been chipping away at over time. Years ago we found that it wasn’t always easy to take advantage of deposits that included new kinds of metadata. That was either because we needed to work out how and where to capture it in the process or because platform providers weren’t always ready — coming up with ways to process the XML that publishers supply in many different ways takes time. These back-end processes that feed the infrastructure aren’t usually of great interest to stakeholders, and so it allowed us to play around, flounder, fail, refine, and try again.

We looked at having 3rd parties deposit metadata for us, and while that helped expand the kind of metadata we were delivering, it created workflow challenges of its own. What turned out to be most effective was budgeting for content cleanup projects and depositing updated and more robust metadata to Crossref.

We also benefited from a platform migration, which allowed us to take advantage of additional resources during that process.

DH: Coming from a production background, I have always been fascinated with the when and how of capturing key metadata during the publishing process. When are those data good and valuable, and when should they be tossed or cleaned up for downstream deliveries? Because Deborah and ASM directors saw a more complete Crossref metadata set for our corpus as a truly valuable target, we were able to really think hard about what kind of data we were capturing and when, how those requirements may have influenced our various policies and copyediting requirements over the years, and how best to re-engineer our processes with the goal of good metadata capture throughout our publishing workflows. From our perspective, Crossref gave us a target, a “this-is-cool-bit-of-info" that Crossref can collect in a deposit; therefore, how can we capture that during our processes while driving further efficiencies? ASM journals had been so driven by legacy print workflows that such a change in perspective (toward metadata as a publishing object) really allowed us to re-imagine almost everything we do as a publisher.

Has the OSTP memo influenced your effort?

DP: I think that the Nelson memo hasn’t changed our focus; instead, I think it’s been another data point supporting our efforts and work in this area.

DH: Deborah is exactly right. The release of this memo only re-affirmed our commitment to creating complete and rich metadata. The Nelson memo points to many possible paths forward, in terms of both Open Access and Open Science, but we feel our work on improving our metadata outputs positions us well to pick a path that best suits our goals as a non-profit society publisher.

How big was this effort? Could you draw us a picture of how many colleagues or parts of the organisation were involved? Did you involve any external stakeholders, such as authors, editors, or others?

DH: It was simple. Took five minutes… In all seriousness, the key is having the support of the organisation as a whole. To do this properly, it is vitally important to know the end from the beginning, so to speak. It is one thing to say let’s start capturing ORCID IDs and deliver them to Crossref, but it is completely another to create a cohesive process in which those IDs are authenticated and validated throughout the workflow. So something as simple as a statement “ORCID IDs seem cool, let’s try to capture them” could affect how researchers submit files, how reviewers log into various systems (i.e., ORCID as SSO), how data are passed to production vendors, what copyeditors and XML QC people need to be focused on, and what integrations authors may expect at the time of publication. Being part of an organisation that embraced such change allowed us to proceed with care with each improvement to the metadata we made.

But that is more about incremental improvement. The beginning of this process started when we were making upgrades to our online publishing platform, and we were trying to figure out how best to get DOIs registered for our older content. When we started looking at this, we soon realized that, sure, we could do the bare minimum and just assign DOIs to this older content outside the source XML/SGML, but did that make sense? Wouldn’t it make more sense, especially since we were updating the corpus to a new DTD, to populate the source content with these newly assigned DOIs? Once we decided that we were going to revise the older content with DOIs, it made sense for us to create a custom XSL transform routine to generate Crossref deposits that would capture as much metadata as possible. So, working with a vendor to clean and update our content for one project (an online platform update) allowed us also to make massive improvements to our Crossref metadata as a side benefit.

Of course, I do have to apologize to the STM community for the Crossref outages in late 2019. That was just me depositing thousands of records in batches one sleepless night.

What were the key challenges you encountered in this project, and how did you overcome them?

DH: Resources and time are always an issue. Much of the work was done in-house in spare moments captured here and there. But there are great resources in github and at Crossref to help focus on defining what is important and what is possible in such a project. And, honestly, defining what was important and weighing that against the effort to find said important bit in the corpus of articles we have was the most challenging part of this process. In other words, limiting the focus. Once one decides to start looking at the inconsistencies in older content, it is hard not to say: “Oh, look. That semi-important footnote was treated as a generic author note rather than a conflict-of-interest statement; let’s fix that.” Once you start down that path, you can spend years fiddling with stuff. For me, a key mantra was: “We now have access to the content. We can always do another Crossref metadata update if things change or shift over time.”

Have there been any important milestones along the way you were able to celebrate? Or any set-backs you had to resolve in the process?

DP: For as long as I can remember, the importance of good metadata has been among the loudest messages of best practice in the industry. I don’t think that I have been able to really quantify/ demonstrate the value of that work. Looking at the consistent increases in the Crossref monthly resolution reports that we saw between 2015 and 2022 and looking at our participation reports has helped provide some measure of progress. For example, the number of average monthly successful resolutions in that Crossref report in 2015 was ~390,000. The last time I checked, the 2022 numbers were ~ 3.7 million. In 2023, I hope that we will be able to leverage Event Data for this as well.

The setbacks have fallen into two categories: timing and process. Our internal resourcing to get this done within our preferred time frame, to have the content loaded and delivered, and triage problems—it’s a battle between the calendar and competing priorities.

DH: When Deborah first shared those stats with me, I was floored. I don’t think either of us suspected such an increase was possible. For me, the biggest setback was mistakenly sending about ~50,000 DOI records to queue and watching them all fail because I grabbed the wrong batch. Ooops. I never made that mistake again, though.

Was any specific type of metadata or any part of the schema particularly easy or particularly difficult to get right in ASM’s production process?

DH: For us, the most difficult piece of metadata revolves around data availability and how we capture linked data resources (outside of data citation resources). Because of our current editorial style (which had been print-centric for years), we did not do a good job of identifying whether there are data associated with published content in a consistent machine-readable way. We did some experiments with one of our journals to capture this outside of our normal Crossref deposit routine, but that was not as accurate or sustainable as we would have liked. But, in that experiment, we learned a few things about how we treat these data throughout our publishing process and we have plans to create a sustainable integrated workflow for this to capture resource/data linkages in our Crossref deposits.

What were your thoughts on last year’s move to open references metadata? Has that impacted on your project in any way?

DP: We were really excited about this; based on the rather limited approach to sorting out impact at the moment, the more metadata we push out into the ecosystem, the more it appears to be used. In my view, that is at the core of what society publishers want to do—ensure that research is accessible and discoverable wherever our users expect to find it.

DH: 100% agree.

How did you keep motivated and on-course throughout?

DP: These kinds of things are never done; for example, we have placeholders for CRediT roles, and getting ready for that work as part of a DTD migration will be the next big thing. The motivation for that is really meeting our commitment to the community, seeing the impact of the author metadata versus article metadata, and seeing what we can learn.

DH: Metadata at its core is one of the pillars of our service as a publisher. To provide the best service, we need to provide the best metadata possible. Just remembering that this can be incremental, allows us to celebrate the large moments and the small. And whether one is partying with a massive 7 layer cake or a smaller cake pop, both are sweet and motivating.

Now that the project is completed, are you seeing the benefits you were hoping to achieve?

DP: This is a hard one to answer as we are using limited measurements at this time. At a high level, I am pleased. While I am eager to leverage event data in the coming year, it would be really helpful to get feedback from the community on how we can improve as well as other ways to evaluate impact.

DH: I want to take up this idea of metadata as a service once more. I don’t mean in terms of discoverability or searchability, either. Let’s take ORCID deposited into Crossref as an example. When done properly (with the proper authentication and validation occurring in the background), we are able to integrate citation data directly to an author’s ORCID profile. We have found that this small service is really appreciated.

Is there any metadata that you’d like to be able to include with your publishing records in the future that isn’t possible currently? What would it be and why?

DP: CRediT roles would be great because it could give greater insight into collaboration within and across disciplines, it could allow for some automation and integration opportunities in the peer review process, and maybe it would visualize aspects of authors’ careers.

DH: I second capturing CRediT roles. What would be really interesting is also creating a standard that quantifies the accessibility conformance/rating of content and passing that into Crossref.

What was the key lesson you learned from this project?

DP: Incremental change can be just as challenging as a massive overhaul, and so it’s important to reevaluate your goals along the way—things always change. There have been cases where we were able to do things that we hadn’t initially thought were feasible.

DH: Always keep the larger goal in mind and remember that any project can birth a new project. Everything does not happen at once.

What’s your next big challenge for 2023?

DP: There is a lot to contend with in the industry right now, and in addition to that we are going through some serious infrastructure changes in our program. With all that madness comes many opportunities. For that reason, when I take a step back from the tactical implications of all that and what we are interested in doing, I think our biggest challenge in 2023 will be identifying what has made an impact and why.

DH: In the short-term, it is making sure that none of our production process changes has negatively affected the past metadata work we spent so much time honing. Once that settles down, it will be determining the best way forward from a publishing perspective in handling true versioning and capturing accurate event data.

Based on your experience, what would be your advice for colleagues from other scholarly publishing organisations?

DP: It can seem daunting, but the small wins can create momentum and do not have to be expensive. Remembering that your publishing program benefits as much as everyone else’s when you deposit more metadata can help refine your short-term and long-term priorities.

DH: Don’t be afraid of making a mess of things. Messes are okay. They aren’t risky. They just reveal the clutter. And clutter gives one reason to clean things up.

THANK YOU for the interview!

About the American Society for Microbiology

The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of 30,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM’s mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.

ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications and educational opportunities. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to diverse audiences. For more information about ASM visit asm.org.

In the know on workflows: The metadata user working group

Jennifer Kemp — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What’s in the metadata matters because it is So.Heavily.Used.

You might be tired of hearing me say it but that doesn’t make it any less true. Our open APIs now see over 1 billion queries per month. The metadata is ingested, displayed and redistributed by a vast, global array of systems and services that in whole or in part are often designed to point users to relevant content. It’s also heavily used by researchers, who author the content that is described in the metadata they analyze. It’s an interconnected supply chain of users large and small, occasional and entirely reliant on regular querying.

Tl;dr

Crossref recently wrapped up our first Working Group for users of the metadata, a group that plays a key role in discoverability and the metadata supply chain. You can jump directly to the stakeholder-specific recommendations or take a moment to share your use case or feedback.

Why a metadata user group? Why now?

A majority of Crossref metadata users rely on our free, open APIs and many are anonymous. A small but growing group of users pay for a guaranteed service level option and while their individual needs and feedback have long been integrated into Crossref’s work, as a group they provide a window into the workflows and use cases for the metadata of the scholarly record. As this use grows in strategic importance, to both Crossref and the wider community, it was clear that we might be overdue for a deeper dive into user workflows.

In 2021, we surveyed these subscribers for their feedback and brought together a few volunteers over a series of 5 calls to dig into a number of topics specific to regular users of metadata. This group, the first primarily non-member working group at Crossref, wrapped up in December 2022, and we are grateful for their time:

Achraf Azhar, Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD)
Satam Choudhury, HighWire Press
Nees Jan van Eck, CWTS-Leiden University
Bethany Harris, Jisc
Ajay Kumar, Nova Techset
David Levy, Pubmill
Bruno Ohana, biologit
Michael Parkin, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)
Axton Pitt, Litmaps
Dave Schott, Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)
Stephan Stahlschmidt, German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW)

This post is intended to summarize the work we did, to highlight the role of metadata users in research communications, to provide a few ideas for future efforts and, crucially, to get your feedback on the findings and recommendations. Though this particular group set out to meet for a limited time, we hope this report helps facilitate ongoing conversations with the user community.

Survey Highlights

If you’re looking for an easy overview of users and use cases, here’s a great starting point.

If you interpret this graphic to mean that there is a lot of variety centered on a few high level use cases, the survey and our experiences with users certainly supports that. A few key takeaways from the 2021 survey may be useful context:

Frequency of use: At least 60% of respondents query metadata on a daily basis
Use cases
- Finding and enhancing metadata as well as using it for general discovery are all common use cases
- For most users, matching DOIs and citations is a common need but for a significant group, it is their primary use case
- Analyzing the corpus for research was a consistent use case for 13% of respondents
Metadata of particular interest
- Abstracts are the most desirable non-bibliographic metadata, followed by affiliation information, including RORs
  - Some other elements (beyond citation information) that respondents find useful are:
    - Corrections and retractions
    - Relationship metadata
    - Book chapters
    - Grant information

NB: The survey did not ask about references but we are frequently asked why they’re not included more often.

It’s also worth noting that about a third of respondents said that correct metadata is more important to them than any particular element.

There is more to this survey that isn’t covered here but it was kept fairly short to help with the response rate. Knowing we would have some focused time to discuss issues too numerous or nuanced to reasonably address in a survey, we compiled a long list of questions and topics for the Working Group then followed up with a second, more detailed survey to kick off the meeting series.

What we set out to address

We had three primary goals for this Working Group:

Highlight the efforts of metadata users in enabling discovery and discoverability
Determine direction(s) for improved engagement
Inform the Crossref product development roadmap for metadata retrieval services

Of course, everyone involved had some questions and topics of interest to cover, including (but not limited to):

Understanding publisher workflows
How best to introduce changes, e.g. for a high volume of updated records
Understanding the Crossref schema
Query efficiencies, i.e. ‘tips and tricks’ (here for the REST API)
Which scripts, tools and/or programs are used in workflows
What other metadata sources are used
What kind of normalization or processing is done on ingest
How metadata errors are handled

What did we learn?

Workflows
I started with the admittedly ambitious goal of collecting a library of workflows. After a few years of working with users, I learned never to assume what a user was doing with the metadata, why or how. For example, some subscribers use Plus snapshots (a monthly set of all records), regularly or occasionally and some don’t use them at all. Understanding why users make the choices they do is always helpful.

In my experience, workflows are frequently characterized as “set it and forget it.” It’s hard to know how often and how easily they might be adapted when, for example, a new record type like peer review reports becomes available. So, it’s worth exploring when and how to highlight to users changes that might be of interest.

As it turned out, half the group had their workflows mostly or fully documented. The rest are partially documented, not documented at all or the availability of documentation was unknown. Helping users document their workflows, to the extent possible, should be a mutually beneficial effort to explore going forward. We’re doing similar work with the aim of making ours more transparent and replicable.

Feedback on subscriber services
User feedback might be the most obvious and directly consequential work of this group, at least for Crossref - understanding how well the services used meet their needs and what might be improved.

One frequent suggestion for improvement is faster response time on queries. This is an area we’ve focused on for some time, because refining queries to be more efficient is often the most straightforward way to improve response times and one reason for the emphasis on workflows.

We also discussed the possibility of whether or how to notify users of changes of interest. Just defining “change” is complex since they are so frequent and may often be considered very minor. We’ve been experimenting a bit over the past few years with notifying these users in cases where we’re aware of upcoming large volumes of changes, which is sometimes the case when landing page URLs are updated due to a platform change, for example. It was incredibly useful to discuss with the group what volume of records would be a useful threshold to trigger a notification (100K if you’re curious).

But perhaps the most common feedback we get from all users is on the metadata itself and the myriad quality issues involved. The group spent a fair amount of time discussing how this affects their work and shared a few examples of notable concerns:

Author name issues, e.g. ‘Anonymous’ is an option for authors but that or things like ‘n/a’ are sometimes used in surname fields
Invalid DOIs are sometimes found in reference lists
Garbled characters from text not rendering properly
Affiliation information is often not included or incomplete (e.g. doesn’t include RORs)
Inconsistencies in commonly included information, e.g. ISSNs

It’s worth noting that a common misunderstanding - not just among users - is what is required in the metadata. Users nearly always expect more metadata and more consistency than is actually available. The introduction of Participation Reports a few years ago was a very useful start to what is an ongoing discussion about the variable nature of metadata quality and completeness.

Users in the metadata supply chain
A few years ago, our colleague Joe Wass used Event Data to put together this chart of referrals from non-publisher sources in 2015.

The role of metadata users in discoverability of content is key in my view and one that often doesn’t get enough attention, especially given that the systems and services that use this information often use it to point their own users to relevant resources. And because they work so closely with the metadata, users frequently report errors and so serve as a sort of de facto quality control. So, unfortunately, the effects of incomplete or incorrect metadata on these users might be the most powerful way to highlight the need for more and better metadata.

What are the recommendations?

In discussions with the Working Group, a few themes emerged, largely around best practices, which, by their nature, tend to be aspirational.

If you’re not already familiar with the personas and Best Practices and Principles of Metadata 2020, that is a useful starting point (I am admittedly biased here!) and many are echoed in the following recommendations:

For users:

Document and periodically review workflows
Report errors to members or to Crossref support and reflect corrections when they’re made (metadata and content)
Understand what is and isn’t in the metadata
Follow best practices for using APIs

For Crossref:

Define a set of metadata changes, e.g. to affiliations, to further the discussion around thresholds for notifying users of ‘high volumes’ of changes
Provide an output schema.
Continue refining the input schema to include information like preprint server name, journal article sub types (research article, review article, letter, editorial, etc.), corresponding author flags, raw funding statement texts, provenance information, etc.
Collaborate on improving processes for reporting metadata errors and making corrections and enhancements

For metadata providers (publishers, funders and their service providers):

Follow Metadata 2020 Metadata Principles and Practices
Consistency is important, e.g. using the same, correct relationship for preprint to VoR links for all records
- Workarounds such as putting information into a field that is ‘close’ but not meant for it can be considered a kind of error
Understand the roles and needs of users in amplifying your outputs
Respond promptly to reports of metadata errors
Whenever possible, provide PIDs (ORCID IDs, ROR IDs, etc.) in addition to (not as a substitute for) textual metadata

What is still unclear or unfinished?

Honestly, a lot. We knew from the outset that the group would conclude with much more work to be done, in part because there is so much variety under the umbrella of metadata users and many answers lead to more questions and in part because the metadata and the user community will continue to evolve. Even without a standing group that meets regularly, it’s very much an ongoing conversation and we invite you to join it.

Now it’s your turn–can you help fill in the blanks?

Does any or all of this resonate with you? Do you take exception to any of it? Do you have suggestions for continuing the conversation?

Specifically, can you help fill in any of the literal blanks? We’ve prepared a short survey that we hope can serve as a template for collecting (anonymous) workflows. Please take just a few minutes to answer a few short questions such as how often you query for metadata.

If you are willing to share examples of your queries or have questions or further comments, please get in touch.

Perspectives: Mohamad Mostafa on scholarly communications in UAE

Mohamad Mostafa — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

تسلط سلسلة مدونة توقعات - وجهات نظر الخاصة بنا الضوء على أعضاء مختلفين من مجتمعنا العالمي المتنوع في كروس رف .نتعلم المزيد عن حياتهم وكيف تعرفوا وعملوا معنا، ونسمع رؤى حول مشهد البحث العلمي في بلدهم، والتحديات التي يواجهونها، وخططهم للمستقبل.

As we continue with our Perspectives blog series, today, we meet Mohamad Mostafa, Crossref Ambassador in the UAE and Production Manager at Knowledge E. Mohamad is passionate about helping improve the discoverability of research through rich metadata. We invite you to read and listen to what Mohamad has to say!

بينما نواصل سلسلة مدونة توقعات - وجهات نظر الخاصة بنا، نلتقي اليوم مع محمد مصطفى، سفير كروس رف في الإمارات العربية المتحدة ومدير الإنتاج في نوليدج اي . محمد متحمس للمساعدة في تحسين إمكانية اكتشاف البحث من خلال البيانات الوصفية الغنية. ندعوكم لقراءة ما يقوله محمد والاستماع إليه!

English عربي

Tell us a bit about your organisation, your objectives, and your role

أخبرنا قليلاً عن مؤسستك وأهدافك ودورك

My name is Mohamad Mostafa, and I am the Production Manager at Knowledge E. Within our publishing program, we publish around 2000 articles across 13 titles that are fully Open Access, which is something that I really value.

اسمي محمد مصطفى، وأنا مدير الإنتاج في نولدج إي. ضمن برنامج النشر الخاص بنا، ننشر حوالي 2000 مقالة عبر 13 عنوانًا مفتوح الوصول بالكامل، وهو أمر أقدره حقًا.

In a world that’s moving faster than ever, the availability, quality, and pursuit of knowledge are fundamental for advancement. Knowledge E, in line with its vision of developing a more knowledgeable world, helps institutions advance the quality of their research; move towards teaching excellence; upgrade library technology, services, and practices; and advance scholarship through journal publication, management, and training. In other words, it works with higher education institutions, research centres, ministries, publishers, and scholars to solve our society’s most significant challenges.

في عالم يتحرك بشكل أسرع من أي وقت مضى، يعد توافر المعرفة وجودتها والسعي وراءها أمورًا أساسية للتقدم. إن نوليدج إي، تماشياً مع رؤيتها لتطوير عالم أكثر معرفة ودراية، تساعد المؤسسات على تحسين جودة أبحاثها؛ التحرك نحو التميز في التدريس؛ ترقية مكتباتها الرقمية والخدمات والممارسات المتعلقة بها؛ ودعم المنح الدراسية المتقدمة من خلال نشر المجلات وإدارتها والتدريب. بمعنى آخر، تعمل شركة نولدج إي مع مؤسسات التعليم العالي ومراكز البحث والوزارات والناشرين والعلماء لحل أهم التحديات التي تواجه مجتمعنا.

I am also a Crossref Ambassador. As part of the ambassador program, we aim to raise awareness about Crossref services among librarians, publishers, editors, and authors in the Middle East and North Africa region. As part of this, we run workshops in English and Arabic, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive metadata and persistent identifiers. We also help research communities improve their understanding of how to use Crossref services. The importance of making regional research objects easy to find, cite and reuse encouraged me to join the ambassador program.

أنا أيضًا سفير كروس رف. كجزء من برنامج السفراء، نهدف إلى زيادة الوعي حول خدمات Crossref بين أمناء المكتبات والناشرين والمحررين والمؤلفين في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا. وكجزء من هذا، فإننا ندير ورش عمل باللغتين الإنجليزية والعربية، للتأكيد على أهمية البيانات الوصفية الشاملة والمعرفات المستمرة. نحن أيضًا نساعد مجتمعات البحث على تحسين فهمهم لكيفية استخدام خدمات .Crossref شجعتني أهمية تسهيل العثور على عناصر البحث الإقليمية والاستشهاد بها وإعادة استخدامها على الانضمام إلى برنامج سفراء كروس رف.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?

ما هو الشيء الذي يجب أن يعرفه الآخرون عن بلدك ونشاطه البحثي؟

A lot of regional research is being produced (in Arabic) and even without proper infrastructure (the lack of language support within the international publishing ecosystems such as peer review systems, indexes, citations databases, submissions systems, etc.) and the inadequate awareness about the various services (such as Crossref solutions) that can help with the discoverability and visibility of this research, the Arab region is increasingly recognised as a global leader in research outputs. Generally, these are some of the challenges and frustrations associated with the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region.

يتم إنتاج الكثير من الأبحاث الإقليمية (باللغة العربية) وحتى بدون بنية تحتية مناسبة (نقص الدعم اللغوي داخل أنظمة النشر الدولية مثل أنظمة مراجعة الأقران، والفهارس، وقواعد بيانات الاستشهادات، وأنظمة التقديم، وما إلى ذلك) وعدم كفاية الوعي حول الخدمات المختلفة (مثل حلول(Crossref التي يمكن أن تساعد في اكتشاف هذه البحوث وإبرازها، يتم الاعتراف بالمنطقة العربية بشكل متزايد كرائد عالمي في مخرجات البحث. بشكل عام، هذه بعض التحديات والإحباطات المرتبطة بمنطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?

هل توجد اتجاهات في الاتصالات العلمية فريدة من نوعها في الجزء الذي تعيش فيه من العالم؟

In general, Open Access and Open Research are getting more and more attention in our region currently. We have recently launched the Forum for Open Research in MENA to raise awareness about all the new scholarly communications trends and support the Middle East and North Africa movement towards Open Science.

بشكل عام، يحظى الوصول الحر والبحث المفتوح باهتمام متزايد في منطقتنا حاليًا. لقد أطلقنا مؤخرًا منتدى الأبحاث المفتوحة في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا لزيادة الوعي حول الاتصالات العلمية الجديدة ودعم حركة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا نحو العلوم المفتوحة.

The Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM) is a non-profit membership organisation supporting the advancement of open science policies and practices in research communities and institutions across the Arab world.

منتدى البحوث المفتوحة في الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا (FORM) هو منظمة غير ربحية ذات عضوية تدعم النهوض بسياسات وممارسات العلوم المفتوحة في المجتمعات والمؤسسات البحثية في جميع أنحاء العالم العربي.

We believe the Arab world has the resources and capability to play a pivotal role in the global transition towards more accessible, sustainable, and inclusive research and education models. And we want to support all our research communities and stakeholder groups in the journey towards a more ‘open’ world. Our vision is to help unlock research for and in the Arab world. Our mission is to support the advancement of open science practices in research libraries and universities across the Arab world by facilitating the exchange of actionable insights and developing practical policies.

نعتقد أن العالم العربي لديه الموارد والقدرة على لعب دور محوري في التحول العالمي نحو نماذج بحث وتعليم أكثر سهولة واستدامة وشمولية. ونريد دعم جميع مجتمعاتنا البحثية ومجموعات أصحاب المصلحة في رحلتنا نحو عالم أكثر "انفتاحًا". رؤيتنا هي دعم الوصول الحر والبحوث المفتوحة في العالم العربي. ومهمتنا هي دعم تقدم ممارسات العلوم المفتوحة في مكتبات البحث والجامعات في جميع أنحاء العالم العربي من خلال تسهيل تبادل الأفكار القابلة للتنفيذ وتطوير السياسات العملية.

Our first Annual Forum was held in Cairo in October 2022 (as part of the global Open Access Week initiative). The event was a huge success, with over 1,100 delegates from over 48 countries across the globe. The next Annual Forum will be hosted in the UAE in October 2023, and details will be available shortly on our website.

عقد المنتدى السنوي الأول في القاهرة في أكتوبر 2022 (كجزء من مبادرة أسبوع الوصول الحر العالمي). حقق الحدث نجاحًا كبيرًا، حيث حضره أكثر من 1100 مندوب من أكثر من 48 دولة حول العالم. سيتم استضافة المنتدى السنوي القادم في دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة في أكتوبر 2023، وستتوفر التفاصيل قريبًا على موقعنا.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?

كيف تصف قيمة أن تكون جزءًا من مجتمعCrossref ؟ ما هو تأثير مشاركتك على أهدافك؟

I have been a Crossref ambassador for more than 5 years now, and I can really say that it has been a great experience being part of such an amazing and collaborative community. We got the chance to interact with different publishers and service providers and participate in different Crossref annual events. It’s also perfectly aligned with our vision of supporting Open Research.

لقد كنت سفيرًا لـ Crossref لأكثر من 5 سنوات حتى الآن، ويمكنني حقًا أن أقول إنها كانت تجربة رائعة أن أكون جزءًا من هذا المجتمع المذهل والتعاوني. لقد أتيحت لنا الفرصة للتفاعل مع مختلف الناشرين ومقدمي الخدمات والمشاركة في الأحداث السنوية المختلفة لـ .Crossref كما أنه يتماشى تمامًا مع رؤيتنا لدعم البحث المفتوح.

Recently, we have delivered a series of three Arabic webinars that offered basic metadata information and advanced insights about the role of metadata and how Crossref services can help an institution. These webinars have been well received by the community of regional publishers, university presses, and librarians. Dozens of questions have been answered, and technical enquires have been resolved. It was a great experience, and it was good to see that kind of interest in our community. Also, more educational webinars are yet to come!

قدمنا مؤخرًا سلسلة من ثلاث ندوات عربية عبر الإنترنت تمحورت حول معلومات البيانات الوصفية الأساسية ورؤى متقدمة حول دور البيانات الوصفية وكيف يمكن لخدمات Crossref أن تساعد المؤسسات البحثية. لقيت هذه الندوات عبر الإنترنت استحسان مجتمع الناشرين الإقليميين دور النشر الجامعية وأمناء المكتبات. تمت الإجابة على عشرات الأسئلة، وتم الرد على الاستفسارات الفنية. لقد كانت تجربة رائعة، وكان من المفرح أن نرى هذا النوع من الاهتمام في مجتمعنا. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، سيتم تقديم المزيد من الندوات التعليمية على الإنترنت في المستقبل.

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?

بالنسبة لك، ما هو الشيء الأكثر أهمية الذي يمكن لـ Crossref تغييره (القيام بالمزيد / القيام بعمل أفضل في)؟

Language is still a barrier in some parts of the Arab region, so producing more educational content in different formats (webinars, flyers, videos with subtitles, etc.) would be highly appreciated here. 

لا تزال اللغة تشكل حاجزًا في بعض المناطق العربية، لذا سيكون إنتاج المزيد من المحتوى التعليمي بتنسيقات مختلفة (ندوات عبر الإنترنت، ونشرات، ومقاطع فيديو مع ترجمة، وما إلى ذلك) موضع تقدير كبير هنا.

Which other organisations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open scholarship?

ما هي المنظمات الأخرى التي تتعاون معها أو التي تلعب دورًا محوريًا في عملك في مجال الابحاث المفتوحة؟

We work closely with ORCiD and invite them to our events, support DOAJ via our charitable Foundation, and rely heavily on PKP products mainly the Open Journal Systems (OJS) with plans to expand and start using Open Monograph Press (OMP).

إننا نعمل عن كثب مع ORCiD ونقدر دعمهم لفاعلياتنا، كما ندعم DOAJ عبر موقعنا ومؤسستنا الخيرية، ونعتمد بشكل كبير على منتجات مشروع المعرفة العامة وخاصة المجلة المفتوحة أنظمة (OJS) كما أننا نود التوسع والبدء في استخدام Open Monograph Press (OMP).

What are the post-pandemic challenges/hopes you are facing and how are you adapting to them/what you’re looking forward to?

ما هي التحديات / الآمال التي تواجهها في فترة ما بعد الجائحة وكيف تتكيف معها / ما الذي تتطلع إليه؟

We aim for more face-to-face meetings and onsite workshops/conferences as the world opens up again. In addition, we have launched the Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM) (a non-profit membership organisation supporting the advancement of Open Science policies and practices in research communities and institutions across the Arab region.)

نحن نهدف إلى المزيد من الاجتماعات وجهًا لوجه وورش العمل / المؤتمرات. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، أطلقنا منتدى البحث المفتوحMENA (FORM) ، وهي منظمة غير ربحية ذات عضوية تدعم النهوض بسياسات وممارسات العلوم المفتوحة في مجتمعات ومؤسسات البحث في جميع أنحاء المنطقة العربية.

A catalyst for positive action, we work with key stakeholders to develop and implement a pragmatic programme to facilitate the transition toward more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable research and education models in the Arab region. Our driving focus is on building the resources, the membership, the organisational structures, and the broader community to support the advancement of Open Science in research communities and research institutions across the Arab world.

كمحفز للعمل الإيجابي، نحن نعمل مع أصحاب المصلحة الرئيسيين للتطوير وتنفيذ برنامج عملي لتسهيل الانتقال نحو المزيد من نماذج البحث والتعليم الشاملة والمستدامة والتي يسهل الوصول إليها في المنطقة العربية. ينصب تركيزنا الدافع على بناء الموارد، والعضوية، والهياكل التنظيمية، والمجتمع الأوسع لدعم تقدم العلوم المفتوحة في المجتمعات البحثية والمؤسسات البحثية عبر العالم العربي.

Following the huge success of our 2022 Annual Forum (held in Cairo with the support and endorsement of UNESCO and the Egyptian Knowledge Bank), which attracted over 1100 delegates from 48 countries, our 2023 Annual Forum will be held in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. For more details about the event and the call for papers, see our website: https://forumforopenresearch.com

بعد النجاح الكبير لمنتدى 2022 السنوي (الذي عقد في القاهرة مع دعم وتأييد اليونسكو وبنك المعرفة المصري)، التي اجتذبت أكثر من 1100 مندوب من 48 دولة، المنتدى السنوي لعام 2023 سيعقد في أبو ظبي في دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة. لمزيد من التفاصيل حول الحدث والدعوة للمشاركة، راجع موقعنا على الإنترنت:https://forumforopenresearch.com

What are your plans for the future?

ما هي خططك المستقبلية؟

Keep working with different global and regional stakeholders to help the transition of our region towards Open Science.

استمر في العمل مع مختلف الشركاء العالميين والإقليميين للمساعدة في انتقال منطقتنا العربية نحو العلوم المفتوحة.

Thank you, Mohamad!

شكرا لك يا محمد!

How funding agencies can meet OSTP (and Open Science) guidance using existing open infrastructure

Ed Pentz — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In August 2022, the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo (PDF) on ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research (a.k.a. the “Nelson memo”). Crossref is particularly interested in and relevant for the areas of this guidance that cover metadata and persistent identifiers—and the infrastructure and services that make them useful.

Funding bodies worldwide are increasingly involved in research infrastructure for dissemination and discovery. While this post does respond to the OSTP guidelines point-by-point, the information here applies to all funding bodies in all countries. It will be equally useful for publishers and other systems that operate in the scholarly research ecosystem.

In response to calls from our community for more specifics, this post:

Provides an overview of the specific ways that Crossref (along with organisations and initiatives like DataCite, ORCID, and ROR) helps U.S. federal agencies—and indeed any other funder—meet critical aspects of the recommendations.
Restates our intent to collaborate with all stakeholders in the scholarly research ecosystem, including the OSTP, the US federal agencies, our existing funder, publisher, and university members, to support the recommendation as plans develop.
References the work and adoption of Crossref Grant DOIs, including analyses of existing metadata matching funding to outputs.
Highlights that what’s outlined in the memo aligns with our longstanding mission to capture and maintain the scholarly record and our vision of the Research Nexus, as we describe in our current blog series, regarding our role in preserving the integrity of the scholarly record (ISR).

Infrastructure already exists to support funder goals; it just needs more adoption

Ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to metadata that captures the scholarly record is an essential part of meeting the aims of the memo but also supporting Open Science globally.

In September, Crossref ORCID, DataCite, and ROR participated in the 2022 Forum on Global Grants Management run by Altum and the summary provides a good example of the importance of open infrastructure and open metadata to the goals of Open Science:

Open Science begins with open infrastructure: Attendees agreed that Open Science relies on many other ‘opens’ – most notably, open metadata, open infrastructure, and open governance. Metadata and DOIs (digital object identifiers) for publications, grants, and research outputs, are essential to illuminate the connections that exist between funding and outcomes. That metadata runs on infrastructure powered by organisations such as Crossref, ORCID, ROR, and DataCite.

As a foundational scholarly infrastructure committed to meeting the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI) of governance, insurance, and sustainability, Crossref plays an essential role in implementing and supporting key aspects of the guidance. For many years, we have been focused on the integrity of the scholarly record (ISR), and the shared vision to collectively achieve what we call the Research Nexus, which is described as

A rich and reusable open network of relationships connecting research organisations, people, things, and actions; a scholarly record that the global community can build on forever, for the benefit of society.

Metadata—including persistent identifiers and relationships between different research objects—is the foundation of the Research Nexus and is critical to openly and sustainably fulfilling the OSTP memo’s recommendations.

This topic of open metadata and identifiers isn’t just an issue for research resulting from US federal funding. We are working to implement open scholarly infrastructure globally, bringing significant benefits to the whole scholarly research ecosystem.

The current situation brings to mind the William Gibson quote, “The future is already here - it’s just not evenly distributed yet”. Much of the open infrastructure to support the identifier, metadata and reporting requirements of the OSTP memo already exists, but it is unevenly implemented. Increased collaboration and effort will be needed to bring this all to fruition.

We set out below some steps that all stakeholders can take to meet not just the OSTP guidelines, but Open Science goals more broadly, and globally.

What does ‘adoption’ look like? How exactly do funders and other stakeholders work with this infrastructure?

The OSTP memo calls for specific actions concerning metadata and identifiers where, fortunately, open and global solutions already exist.

For example, item 4 a) says, “Collect and make publicly available appropriate metadata associated with scholarly publications and data resulting from federally funded research.” Crossref and DataCite make metadata, including persistent identifiers (DOIs to be specific), openly available for a broad range of research objects from publications to data. Item 4 b) reads, “Assign unique digital persistent identifiers to all scientific research and development awards and intramural research protocols”. Again, federal agencies and other funders are already joining to register awards and grants and distribute these records openly through Crossref. However, this is an example of uneven adoption as registering awards and grants with DOIs is only being done by a few funders so far, which needs to increase.

Here is an ideal workflow that funders and publishers can already follow

Funders join Crossref to register grants and awards (or indeed any other object such as reports). They apply on our website, accept our terms, and provide key information such as contact details. An annual membership fee ranges from $200-$1200 USD.
Funders and publishers collect ROR IDs and authenticated ORCID iDs for all authors/awardees and their affiliations.
Funders register a Crossref DOI for the award/grant, including awardees’ ORCID iDs and ROR IDs. They send us XML information about the grant (note that we will imminently release an online form to make it easier for the less technical funders). Many funder members register the metadata through a third party, such as Altum (if they use ProposalCentral) or Europe PMC.
At the same time, funders update the awardees’ ORCID record directly with the Crossref Grant DOI and metadata.
Grantees produce research objects and outputs such as data, protocols, code, preprints, articles, conference papers, book chapters, etc.
These objects are registered with Crossref or DataCite, and DOIs are created by the publisher or repository members who include ORCID iDs, Crossref Grant DOIs (gathered from the author), ROR IDs for affiliations for all contributors, and other key metadata such as licensing information, and in the case of publications - references and abstracts. Note that the publisher works its magic (actually, publishers do a lot of editorial and production work, such as including data citations in the references using DataCite DOIs for the data in data repositories).
On the Crossref side, we do a bunch of processing and matching and are planning to refine this and do more. Sometimes relationships are notified and added, such as data citation, preprints related to articles or funding acknowledgements converted from free text to Open Funder Registry IDs and names.
Grant records with Crossref DOIs are now part of the scholarly record. All stakeholders may retrieve the open metadata and relationships through our public APIs. Crossref and DataCite will always provide open metadata, as safeguarded by our respective commitments to POSI.

Anyone can use the open metadata registered with Crossref, DataCite and ORCID as connections have been established between (ideally all) research objects and entities through open metadata and identifiers. This means that:

Funding agencies can monitor compliance with their policies
Publishers can identify the funder and meet their requirements
Funding agencies can assess and report on the reach and return of their funding programs
The provenance and integrity of the scholarly record is preserved and discoverable, benefitting all stakeholders.

Suggestions for meeting OSTP and Open Science guidance, point by point

OSTP Recommendation	Publishers should…	Funding agencies should…
4 a) Collect and make publicly available appropriate metadata associated with scholarly publications and data resulting from federally funded research	For scholarly publications: register comprehensive metadata & DOIs with Crossref. For scholarly data: register comprehensive metadata and DOIs with DataCite.	Use Crossref’s API to retrieve publication and other metadata. Use DataCite’s API to retrieve data/repository metadata.
i) all author and co-author names, affiliations, and sources of funding, referencing digital persistent identifiers, as appropriate;	Collect and validate the following from authors at manuscript submission: ROR & ORCiD IDs, Crossref Grant DOIs. Include data citations in reference lists, preferably with DataCite DOIs.	Register awards and grants with Crossref and create DOI records for them. Use ORCID’s API to retrieve validated contributor metadata. Update contributors’ ORCID records with Crossref Grant DOIs and metadata. Use ROR API to retrieve and verify affiliation metadata. Recommend data citations be included in published outputs.
ii) the date of publication; and,	Include acceptance and publication dates in Crossref metadata.	Use Crossref’s API to retrieve publication dates.
iii) a unique digital persistent identifier for the research output;	For scholarly publications and research outputs: register full metadata & DOIs with Crossref. For scholarly data: register full metadata and DOIs with DataCite.	Use Crossref and DataCite APIs to retrieve DOIs for research outputs.
4 b) Instruct federally funded researchers to obtain a digital persistent identifier that meets the common/core standards of a digital persistent identifier service defined in the NSPM-33 Implementation Guidance, include it in published research outputs when available, and provide federal agencies with the metadata associated with all published research outputs they produce, consistent with the law, privacy, and security considerations.	Collect ORCID iDs on manuscript submission for all authors. Register Crossref and DataCite DOIs and metadata for research outputs, including data.	Recommend that researchers applying for funding obtain an ORCID iD and collect them upon grant application for all applicants. Prepopulate grant applications with CV and publication information from applicants’ ORCID records. ORCID iDs should be included in the grants registered by the agencies with Crossref. Agencies can use our open APIs to retrieve the metadata on publications and data rather than ask researchers to do it, saving time and effort.
4 c) Assign unique digital persistent identifiers to all scientific research and development awards and intramural research protocols that have appropriate metadata linking the funding agency and their awardees through their digital persistent identifiers.		Join Crossref to register Crossref Grant DOIs, including ROR IDs and ORCID iDs Ensure grant proposal and assessment systems integrate with Crossref, ROR for affiliations and with ORCID for applicants/awardees.
5 a) coordinate between federal science agencies to enhance efficiency and reduce redundancy in public access plans and policies, including as it relates to digital repository access;	Work with agencies to ensure a smooth, automated workflow.	Using and supporting existing open scholarly infrastructure and using open identifiers will avoid duplication of effort and make the overall ecosystem more efficient .
5 b) improve awareness of federally funded research results by all potential users and communities;	Collect Crossref Grant DOIs from authors and use them to link from publications to grant information.	Communicate your Crossref Grant DOIs and open grant metadata widely via human and machine interfaces. Inclusion in the Crossref API will enhance dissemination and discoverability Update contributors’ ORCID records with Crossref Grant DOIs and metadata
5 c) consider measures to reduce inequities in the publishing of, and access to, federally funded research and data, especially among individuals from underserved backgrounds and those who are early in their careers;		Registering grants and sharing metadata through Crossref means it’s part of the world’s largest open community-governed metadata exchange and makes it available to the entire world without restriction.
5 d) develop procedures and practices to reduce the burden on federally funded researchers in complying with public access requirements;	Ensure your systems and those you work with make it as easy as possible for authors to provide the necessary metadata and persistent identifiers - work towards as much automation as possible and pulling from other systems rather than asking for data to be re-keyed.	Ensure the platforms you work with, such as grant proposal or assessment systems, retrieve and prepopulate ROR IDs, ORCID iDs, and Crossref and DataCite DOIs and associated metadata whenever possible so that the researchers don’t have to manually rekey or reformat data.
5 e) recommend standard consistent benchmarks and metrics to monitor and assess implementation and iterative improvement of public access policies over time;		Ensure that platforms and systems integrate with ROR, ORCID, Crossref, and DataCite so that this open metadata can lead to the creation of benchmarks and metrics.
5 f) improve monitoring and encourage compliance with public access policies and plans;	Use open infrastructure to help authors easily comply with public access and funder/institution policies. Automate systems as much as possible.	Using the open infrastructure, metadata, and identifiers outlined in this post will make monitoring more straightforward and compliance easier for all stakeholders. The community can build services on open infrastructure and metadata.
5 g) coordinate engagement with stakeholders, including but not limited to publishers, libraries, museums, professional societies, researchers, and other interested non-governmental parties on federal agency public access efforts;	Work with the global open infrastructure organisations (Crossref, DataCite and ORCID) whose members include funding agencies, societies, publishers, universities, libraries, repositories, museums, NGOs, and many other stakeholders - all looking to improve the efficiency of the research ecosystem.	Work with the global open infrastructure organisations (Crossref, DataCite and ORCID) whose members include funding agencies, societies, publishers, universities, libraries, repositories, museums, NGOs, and many other stakeholders - all looking to improve the efficiency of the research ecosystem.
5 h) develop guidance on desirable characteristics of—and best practices for sharing in—online digital publication repositories;	Support automated systems that use metadata and identifiers to populate repositories automatically.	Collaborate with publishers, Crossref and others to develop automated systems to populate repositories.
5 j) develop strategies to make federally funded publications, data, and other such research outputs and their metadata are findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-useable, to the American public and the scientific community in an equitable and secure manner.	Provide and support a range of discovery services based on open infrastructure.	Encourage discovery services - and develop services - that use the open infrastructure, metadata and persistent identifiers to enable.

Everybody needs to play their part

A lot of the work on making the above happen is already underway, and there is widespread adoption of open identifiers and metadata, but as noted above, funders are still early in the adoption journey, and implementation among all stakeholders is patchy.

Critical parts of the infrastructure rely on third-party platforms that supply tools and systems to authors, funders, and publishers - so coordinating the support for the appropriate metadata and identifiers in these systems and tools is very important.

We are emphasising how our existing open scholarly infrastructure systems are helping. But we also know that it’s not all perfect yet. Infrastructure is always evolving, metadata is never complete, refactoring workflows and systems can be costly, and integration can always be smoother. But our existing open infrastructure has already delivered significant benefits, and broader adoption will bring additional benefits to the whole scholarly research and communications ecosystem and help achieve the promise of Open Science in advancing human knowledge.

While working on this coordination and integration, we all try to remember that it should minimise work for researchers, and processes should be as automated as possible.

Collaboration is key to making this all work.

We already work with many funders through our Advisory Group, our 30 funder members, 25 of whom have so far collectively registered around 40,000 Crossref Grant DOIs, retrievable from our open API. Some grants are even matched to resulting outputs already, and some funders have recently dug into Crossref metadata to analyse outcomes from their investments, such as the Dutch Research Council (NWO) which presents findings and makes a case for greater emphasis on Crossref funding metadata.

We also work closely with partners Europe PMC and Altum, and we engage in community research and discussion, for example, through the Open Research Funders Group.

Alongside our fellow infrastructures and open identifier registries ORCID, DataCite, and ROR, we integrate with and support each other operationally and out in the community.

We will continue focusing our resources and efforts on engaging with funders, including US federal agencies responding by the OSTP guidelines, and all stakeholders to support the entire global scholarly research ecosystem.

Everyone has a part to play, and we must all pull together to prioritize this work.

Who’s in?

Please get in touch with Ed, Ginny, or Jennifer (or indeed DataCite or ORCID or ROR) if you’d like to have a discussion about the workflows described here, or just to make sure you’re up to date on the latest developments and opportunities we describe. We look forward to working with all funding agencies to support them as they develop their plans.

Better preprint metadata through community participation

Martyn Rittman — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Preprints have become an important tool for rapidly communicating and iterating on research outputs. There is now a range of preprint servers, some subject-specific, some based on a particular geographical area, and others linked to publishers or individual journals in addition to generalist platforms. In 2016 the Crossref schema started to support preprints and since then the number of metadata records has grown to around 16,000 new preprint DOIs per month.

Preprints aren’t the same as journal articles, books, or conference papers. They have unique features, and how they are viewed and integrated into the publishing process has evolved over the past six years. For this reason, we have been revisiting the preprint metadata schema and decided that the best approach would be to form an advisory group (AG) of preprint practitioners and experts to help us.

The AG has identified a number of areas in which preprint metadata could be improved. Four of these were considered to have the highest priority:

Withdrawal and removal of preprints.
Preprints as an article type (not a subtype of posted content) in the schema.
Relationships between preprints and other outputs.
Versioning of preprints.

The members of the AG set to work with great enthusiasm, sharing perspectives and expertise. This led to a first tranche of recommendations shared for feedback earlier this year, and we’re grateful for engagement and feedback from the community over the last few months.

What did the community say?

Some of the points raised in the feedback were:

Could the origin of a withdrawal be included in the metadata, in particular whether it was requested by an author or another party?
Can the metadata represent when a preprint has been submitted to a journal and what stage it is in the editorial process?
Crossref is not alone in looking at preprint metadata, and several NISO groups are also engaged in related work.
Interoperability and the ability to create relationships with identifiers beyond DOIs is important to maintain an accurate and comprehensive record of research outputs.

These will form the basis for ongoing discussions.

What happens next?

There are three next steps that we will be taking.

The recommendations outline only the outcomes of discussions in a relatively brief format. We have been working on a more detailed paper to communicate more about what was discussed and provide some extra justification and alternatives.
The AG will continue to meet and discuss the points raised during consultation on the recommendations, along with topics that were considered a lower priority at an earlier stage.
We will draw up a set of proposals for specific changes to the metadata schema that will reflect the outcomes of the recommendations and discussions.

Although the initial period for feedback on preprint metadata has ended, we welcome feedback at any time. If you would like to get in touch, please contact me or any member of the advisory group.

The Research Nexus: a vision for a more connected scholarly community

Jennifer Kemp — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Research Nexus: A vision for a more connected scholarly community

Published in Information Services and Use (2022), this paper sets out Crossref’s vision for a Research Nexus — a comprehensive, interconnected graph linking scholarly entities through persistent identifiers and open metadata. Based on a presentation at NISO Plus in February 2022.

Strategists

Understand why connections between scholarly entities matter as much as the entities themselves. How a richer graph of relationships — between works, people, organisations, and outputs — can transform discovery, assessment, and trust in the scholarly record.

Decision-makers

See how the Research Nexus vision maps to your organisation’s metadata strategy. Why investing in persistent identifiers and open metadata is foundational to a more connected, more trustworthy research ecosystem.

Practitioners

Learn how Crossref’s metadata infrastructure supports the Research Nexus. The role of DOIs, ORCIDs, ROR IDs, funder IDs, and relationships between records in building a comprehensive scholarly graph.

What this paper covers

The Research Nexus concept — a vision for a rich, machine-readable graph connecting all entities in the scholarly ecosystem: works, people, organisations, funders, datasets, and more
Why connections matter — how relationships between entities enable discovery, research assessment, integrity checking, and open science workflows that individual records cannot support alone
The role of persistent identifiers — DOIs, ORCIDs, ROR IDs, and funder IDs as the building blocks of a connected scholarly record
Crossref’s contribution — how Crossref metadata links works to people, institutions, funders, and related outputs, and how members can enrich those connections
Gaps and opportunities — where the scholarly graph is incomplete, and what it would take to fill those gaps through community collaboration
A call to action — how publishers, institutions, funders, and infrastructure providers can work together to realise the Research Nexus vision

Read the full paper

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Do you want to be a Crossref Ambassador?

Vanessa Fairhurst — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A re-cap

We kicked off our Ambassador Program in 2018 after consultation with our members, who told us they wanted greater support and representation in their local regions, time zones, and languages.

We also recognized that our membership has grown and changed dramatically over recent years and that it is likely to continue to do so. We now have over 16,000 members across 140 countries. As we work to understand what’s to come and ensure that we are meeting the needs of such an expansive community, having trusted local contacts we can work closely with is key to ensuring we are more proactive in engaging with new audiences and supporting existing members.

We know that Crossref still remains inaccessible to many around the world, and in line with our strategic goal to engage communities, we want to lower the barriers to participation. Our Ambassadors are essential to us achieving this goal as we look to develop additional content in languages other than English, identify organisations to work closer with to support local research ecosystems, provide more in-person and online events in local time zones and languages, and do more in terms of open support via our community forum.

What are our ambassadors up to now?

We currently have a team of 30 ambassadors, spanning Indonesia, Turkey, Ukraine, India, Bangladesh, Colombia, Mexico, Tanzania, Cameroon, Nigeria, Russia, Brazil, USA, UAE, Australia, China, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, and Taiwan. The program is reviewed annually, welcoming new faces and sometimes sadly saying goodbye to others. This enables us to continue improving how we work together and ensures the Ambassador team remains a diverse group of committed individuals that have the time and support from Crossref to fully participate in the program.

Over the last 3 years, we’ve had some great successes alongside a few challenges, not least of which has been working across 15 countries during a pandemic. We have all experienced the additional personal and professional strain that COVID-19 brought along, including shifts in the way we work and anxieties in the way we go about our lives. Of course, it has also meant that all our interactions have been restricted to Zoom, which has many benefits but doesn’t compare to face-to-face interactions when it comes to building strong working relationships, particularly across language and cultural barriers.

Despite this, our ambassador team helped us run 15 multi-lingual webinars last year, including Content Registration in Arabic, Getting Started with Books in Brazilian Portuguese, and an Introduction to Crossref in Chinese. They also helped us translate various materials and content into other languages, provided feedback on our new developments, took part in beta-testing, provided support to members on our community forum, and participated in calls to contribute to the program’s future.

I love helping people get to know Crossref’s products and services.

I was proud to work as Ambassador and give an online Chinese webinar to introduce Crossref and the services in Oct. 2021.

I am glad to be of help to Spanish speakers who are not able to grasp all the Crossref information correctly because of a language barrier or because they don’t have the time to read and explore all the information available.

Muy contento de poder formar parte como Embajador y con ello poder promover el uso y aprovechamiento de los productos de Crossref.

I feel so blessed meeting with many diverse friends in Crossref ranging from Europe to Asia continents.

Feeling happy by giving back knowledge to my regional community.

The future is ours to co-create

As countries are slowly dropping restrictions and we are taking our first cautious steps into a potential ‘post-pandemic’ world, our Community Engagement and Communication team has been looking at what this means for our activities in 2022 and beyond.

A big part of this is identifying local communities and groups to engage with to learn what challenges our members are facing, what barriers to participation in Crossref still exist, and how we can overcome these together. This practice is also fundamental to our vision of the Research Nexus––a rich and reusable open network of relationships connecting research organisations, people, things, and actions––which can only become a reality if everyone can fully contribute to the scholarly record.

As such, we would like to expand our Ambassador Program and particularly encourage applications from those based in the following countries:

Argentina
Chile
Canada
Croatia
El Salvador
Germany
Ghana

Iraq
Kenya
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Peru
Poland
Vietnam

By being one of our ambassadors, you will become a key part of the Crossref community; our first port of call for updates or to test out new products or services, become well connected to our wide network of members, and work closely with us to make scholarly communications better for all.

If you are interested in participating, please read more on our Ambassadors page. You can submit an application letting us know why you are interested, how you work with Crossref currently, and a bit more about yourself. We will then follow up with you to discuss your ideas and the program in more detail.

The Ambassador Program is quite flexible, so you can choose how and when you contribute based on your comfort levels and other commitments. However, it does come with some minimum requirements of attending two team calls a year, being responsive and letting us know if anything is preventing you from participating, and completing our annual feedback survey so we can continue to improve the program going forward. A good level of English and a firm understanding of our services and systems at Crossref is also a must to participate fully in the program and provide support to others in your local community. If you have just joined Crossref or want to learn more about how to work with us, then the Ambassador program may be too much for you right now, but our documentation has lots of helpful information and step-by-step guides, and you could also look at attending one of our events or joining our community forum.

If you have any questions, you can always contact us at feedback@crossref.org. We look forward to hearing from you!

Perspectives: Bruna Erlandsson on scholarly communications in Brazil

Bruna Erlandsson — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Join us for the first in our Perspectives blog series. In this series of blogs, we will be meeting different members of our diverse, global community at Crossref. We learn more about their lives, how they came to know and work with us, and we hear insights about the scholarly research landscape in their country, challenges they face, and plans for the future.

In our first blog, we meet Bruna Erlandsson, Crossref Ambassador in Brazil, co-owner of Linceu Editorial, and client services manager at ABEC Brasil. Bruna has dedicated her career to scholarly publishing and has worked with Crossref for many years. We invite you to have a read and a listen below to meet Bruna!

<a type="button" style="cursor:pointer;" class="video-language-button" data-videoid="1030565718" data-playerid="video-player-perspectives-bruna-english">Portuguese</a>

<a type="button" style="cursor:pointer;" class="video-language-button" data-videoid="1030565745" data-playerid="video-player-perspectives-bruna-portuguese">English</a>

Tell us a bit about your organisation, your objectives, and your role
Conte-nos um pouco sobre sua organização, seus objetivos e sua função

I am a co-founder of the company Linceu Editorial, dedicated to publishing scientific and technological research in ethical, creative, and innovative ways. We strive to provide quality editorial services that meet standard industry requirements and best practices, increase visibility, attract readers and potential authors, and ensure their work is properly cited. My personal goal is to be recognized by the scientific community for providing excellent service to our clients.

Sou sócia proprietária da empresa Linceu Editorial, que se dedica à editoração de artigos científicos de inúmeras revistas, de forma ética, criativa e inovadora. Buscamos atribuir aos periódicos de nosso portfólio os requisitos de qualidade editorial alinhados às melhores práticas editoriais, de forma que aumentem sua visibilidade e atraiam leitores, potenciais autores e, não menos importante, que recebam citações em seus artigos. Meu objetivo pessoal é obter reconhecimento da comunidade científica por meio de uma prestação de serviço em nível de excelência.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?
O que os outros deveriam saber sobre seu país e sua atividade de pesquisa?

Brazil is the South American leader in publishing scientific articles in Open Access journals. However, it faces challenges due to the absence of a more comprehensive public policy to support scientific editors. As a result, most journals are produced by teaching and/or research institutions or scientific associations with volunteer editorial teams that, although lacking professional journal production skills, produce high-quality journals. Only a tiny percentage of Brazilian journals are published through commercial publishers.

O Brasil é o líder sul-americano na publicação de artigos científicos, com destaque para as revistas em acesso aberto. No entanto, enfrenta desafios em função da ausência de uma política pública mais abrangente para apoio aos editores científicos. A maior parte dos periódicos é produzida por instituições de ensino/pesquisa ou Sociedades Científicas, tendo uma equipe editorial voluntária e carecendo de profissionalização em sua produção, embora, em muitos casos, apresentem boa qualidade. Apenas uma pequena porcentagem de periódicos brasileiros é publicada por meio de um publisher comercial.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?
Existem tendências nas comunicações acadêmicas que são únicas em sua parte do mundo?

I wouldn’t say unique. However, adherence to Open Science practices, such as preprints and making research data available, is already part of the editorial culture. On the other hand, open peer review is not yet well accepted by everyone in the scientific community, and only a few journals adopt it. In addition, in some areas of research, such as Education and Social Science, researchers are very active - on forums, in discussions lists and attending the same conferences - so there’s this feeling that ‘everyone knows everyone’ which can then lead to potential conflicts of interest and apprehensiveness around open peer review, particularly when it comes to publishing a negative review.

Eu não diria única, mas penso que, no Brasil, a adesão às práticas da ciência aberta, como publicação em preprint e disponibilização de dados de pesquisa, já fazem parte da cultura editorial. Por outro lado, a revisão aberta ainda não é bem aceita por toda comunidade científica, sendo poucos os periódicos que o adotam. Além disso, em algumas áreas de conhecimento com grande produção local, como por exemplo a Ciências Sociais e Educação, a interação entre membros da comunidade é muito grande, visto que são pesquisadores muito ativos em fóruns, listas de discussões e conferências da área, causando a sensação de que “todo mundo conhece todo mundo”, resultando em um possível conflito de interesse, visto que existe um grande receio em publicar um parecer aberto, especialmente se o caso for um parecer negativo.

What about any political policies, challenges, or mandates that you have to consider in your work?
E as políticas, desafios ou mandatos políticos que você deve considerar em seu trabalho?

In Latin America we have a large indexing database, Redalyc, and a digital library of Open Access journals, which has recently excluded a number of journals for charging APCs (Article Processing Charges), upon the understanding that this would go against their Diamond Open Access requirement.

However, in Brazil - in general - the understanding of Open Access is not so limited. Charging APCs are in fact encouraged by many as a form of self-sustainability of the journal while still being Open Access.

As for challenges, one of the biggest is whether or not to publish in English. Although the number of Brazilian journals that publish exclusively in English or both languages (Portuguese and English) is remarkably high. There is still however a belief that local science is only of interest to the local public, and so some question whether there is a value in publishing in English (or other languages). For example, if an author writes a research paper about a small riverside community in the countryside of Acre state in Brazil, they might ask why someone outside the country would be interested in reading that.

Aqui na América Latina, temos uma grande base indexadora, Redalyc, e biblioteca digital de periódicos de Acesso Aberto que, recentemente, excluíu da base um número considerável de periódicos que cobrassem qualquer tipo de taxa de publicação, por entender que isso iria contra os requisitos de seu modelo de Acesso Aberto Diamante (periódicos em acesso aberto livre de taxa de publicação).

No entanto, no Brasil, em geral, o entendimento é outro, a cobrança de taxas de processamento não descaracteriza o acesso aberto, sendo, na verdade, encorajado por muitos como uma forma de auto-sustentabilidade do periódico.

Já em relação a desafios, acredito que um dos maiores é a questão de publicar ou não em inglês. Embora seja notável o número de periódicos brasileiros que publicam exclusivamente em inglês ou ainda nos dois idiomas (português e inglês), existe ainda a crença de que a ciência local só teria interesse do público local, criando assim o questionamento se há ou não o valor em publicar em outro idioma. Por exemplo, se uma pesquisa estuda algo sobre uma comunidade ribeirinha no interior do estado do Acre, aqui no Brasil, é comum existir a dúvida se algo tão específico seria do interesse de alguém de fora do nosso país.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?
Como você descreveria o valor de fazer parte da comunidade Crossref; que impacto teve sua participação em seus objetivos?

I get immense value from being part of the Crossref community. Being a Crossref Ambassador brings greater recognition and legitimacy to my role working with editors and adds value to my company’s services as well. The title of Ambassador enhances trust in my opinions, presentations, and when providing support and clarification to those asking questions. However it also comes with a great responsibility to do this well, which motivates me to always keep up to date with developments at Crossref. Through the Ambassador Program I have given several webinars for Crossref and the Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos (ABEC Brasil), which provide much needed information and support to Portuguese speaking Crossref members as well as enhancing the visibility of my professional activities at Linceu Editorial.

É um valor enorme fazer parte da comunidade Crossref! Ser Embaixadora do Crossref traz um reconhecimento entre os editores e agrega valor aos serviços de minha empresa. Esse título assegura confiabilidade em minhas opiniões, apresentações, e esclarecimentos de dúvidas, o que traz junto uma grande responsabilidade que me motiva a me manter sempre atualizada com tudo em relação ao Crossref. Através do Programa de Embaixadores eu ministrei diversos webinários para a Crossref e também para a Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos (ABEC Brasil), fornecendo muitas informações necessárias para os membros da Crossref que falam português, e também isso tudo acaba por retornar em visibilidade para as minhas atividades profissionais na Linceu Editorial.

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?
Para você, qual seria a coisa mais importante que o Crossref poderia mudar (fazer mais/fazer melhor)?

I think there is still a need for more multilingual training both online and face-to-face, which has been particularly lacking during the pandemic, to provide more information on Crossref services beyond Content Registration. For example Similarity Check is a service that people still have a lot of questions about (such as ‘what is the magic similarity percentage score to identify plagiarism?’ Answer - there isn’t one!). Crossmark is another service where I believe people could benefit from more training on it’s importance in the publication process, not only in cases of retraction but also in guaranteeing that the article is up-to-date and trustworthy. In Brazil many people use Open Journal Systems (OJS) and so the development of Crossref service specific plugins and training on how to use them is really useful!

Acho que ainda há necessidade de mais treinamentos multilíngues, tanto online quanto presencial – o que tem sido particularmente escasso durante a pandemia – para fornecer mais informações sobre os serviços do Crossref além do Registro de Conteúdo. Por exemplo, o Similarity Check é um serviço sobre o qual as pessoas ainda têm muitas dúvidas (como ‘qual é a porcentagem de similaridade aceitável para identificar plágio?’ Resposta - não existe!). O Crossmark é outro serviço onde acredito que as pessoas poderiam se beneficiar de mais treinamento sobre sua importância no processo de publicação, não apenas em casos de retratação, mas também para garantir que o artigo esteja sempre atualizado e confiável. No Brasil muitas pessoas usam o Open Journal Systems (OJS) e por isso o desenvolvimento de plugins específicos do serviço Crossref e treinamento sobre como usá-los seriam muito úteis!

Which other organisations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open science?
Com quais outras organizações você colabora ou é fundamental para o seu trabalho em ciência aberta?

I contribute to ABEC Brasil in a variety of ways including speaking on short courses about Crossref, designing content for lectures as part of an online program called ABEC Educação (which will be launched soon), and as a volunteer consultant to answer a variety of questions from editors regarding content registration at Crossref.

Contribuo com a ABEC Brasil, participando tanto como ministrante de minicursos sobre ferramentas Crossref quanto como conteudista de um curso no Programa EaD ABEC Educação (que será lançado em breve), além de como consultora voluntária para atender a diversas dúvidas de editores em relação a depósito de conteúdo.

What are the post-pandemic challenges you are facing and how are you adapting to them?
Quais são os desafios pós-pandemia que você está enfrentando e como você está se adaptando a eles?

Considering the current situation in Brazil, I don’t think I would consider us having reached ‘post-pandemic’ just yet. Although vaccination is taking place successfully, there are still many uncertainties and fears. A good example of this is Crossref LIVE Brazil which was canceled at the start of the pandemic and at the moment we still don’t know when we will be able to reschedule this. It still feels too risky to bring a number of speakers from abroad to Brazil and too soon to hold such a large in-person event.

However, if I had to highlight one challenge I’ve been facing, it would be something more personal rather than work-related. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it would be the lack of human contact! It has been really hard to get use to not gathering together with family and friends and not being able to travel, meet new people, and experience new cultures. To deal with it, I spend my free time planning the places I will go to and people I will visit as soon as this whole situation is over!

Para ser honesta, considerando a realidade atual no Brasil, eu ainda não considero o momento atual “pós-pandemia”. Embora a vacinação esteja ocorrendo com sucesso, ainda existem muitas incertezas e medos. Um exemplo bem claro é o Crossref Live in Brazil, que foi cancelado assim que a pandemia foi “anunciada” e, até hoje, não sabemos quando ocorrerá, pois ainda soa muito arriscado trazer palestrantes de fora para o Brasil e também se encontrar com diversas pessoas em um evento presencial.

No entanto, se eu tivesse que destacar um desafio que tenho enfrentado, seria algo mais pessoal e não relacionado ao trabalho. E, sem sombras de dúvidas, seria a falta de contato humano! Está sendo realmente complicado se acostumar em não encontrar amigos e familiares, e também não poder viajar e conhecer novos lugares, pessoas e culturas – o jeito que encontrei para lidar com isso é gastar meu tempo livre planejando todos os lugares que irei e todas as pessoas que visitarei assim que essa situação toda passar.

What are your plans for the future?
Quais são seus planos para o futuro?

My plans for the future include continuously learning more and more about scholarly publishing including the various services that Crossref provides. I want to be able to help publishers implement valuable tools into their workflows such as Similarity Check and Crossmark, and contribute to greater scientific dissemination of Brazilian research so that Brazilian journals can get the global recognition, visibility and value they deserve.

Meus planos para o futuro incluem aprender cada vez mais e mais sobre publicação científica, incluindo os vários serviços que o Crossref oferece. Quero poder ajudar os editores a implementar ferramentas valiosas em seus fluxos de trabalho, como Similarity Check e Crossmark, e contribuir para uma maior divulgação científica das pesquisas brasileiras para que os periódicos brasileiros possam obter o reconhecimento global, visibilidade e valor que merecem.

Thank you, Bruna!
Obrigado, Bruna!

Announcing the ROR Sustaining Supporters program

Ed Pentz — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In collaboration with California Digital Library and DataCite, Crossref guides the operations of the Research Organization Registry (ROR). ROR is community-driven and has an independent sustainability plan involving grants, donations, and in-kind support from our staff.

ROR is a vital component of the Research Nexus, our vision of a fully connected open research ecosystem. It helps people identify, connect, and analyze the affiliations of those contributing to, producing, and publishing all kinds of research objects. Crossref added support for ROR to its schema and REST API in 2021 and we are asking Crossref members to use ROR IDs for author affiliations in the metadata they deposit with Crossref. But this post is about how the Crossref community can support ROR in another way.

All three lead organisations—as well as the ROR initiative—have publicly committed to the POSI Principles and we know that our diverse and global community is increasingly interested in showing its support for open scholarly infrastructure too. Now there’s an opportunity to show that support; the following blog by Maria Gould, cross-posted from the ROR blog, explains how.

ROR begins a new round of community fundraising

Since ROR launched in 2019, we have been charting a path to sustainability that leverages our broad community network and diversifies our funding sources. ROR is currently funded through a combination of in-kind support from its three operating organisations, project-based grant funds, and financial contributions from community members.

While ROR aims to minimize overhead and contain costs, it still requires resources to build and maintain the registry’s infrastructure, especially as adoption continues to grow. ROR has been working to establish independent revenue streams that complement ROR’s in-kind support, avoid dependence on grant funds, and ensure the registry data remains openly available.

This year, ROR is initiating a new round of community fundraising. Building on the community fundraising campaign we ran during 2019-2021, we are renewing a call for organisations to commit to supporting ROR financially. We are launching a Sustaining Supporters program that opens up new ways for organisations to participate in the collective funding of ROR.

ROR Sustaining Supporters program

With the Sustaining Supporters program, organisations are encouraged to support ROR’s operating expenses on a recurring annual basis. Any organisation that signs up to support ROR through the end of 2022 will be recognized as a Founding Supporter and receive a supporter badge that can be displayed on their website.

We want to make the process of contributing to ROR as easy as possible. To ensure this is the case, organisations can support ROR at any amount that works for their budget and capacity. Also, to simplify the invoicing process, organisations that are already members of Crossref or DataCite can choose to receive an invoice directly from Crossref and DataCite for their ROR contributions. However, if organisations prefer, they can also be invoiced directly from ROR.

Why support ROR

ROR aims to be an example of the power and potential of community-funded open infrastructure. ROR is committed to providing open, stakeholder-governed infrastructure for research organisation identifiers and associated metadata. Implementation of ROR IDs in scholarly infrastructure and metadata enables more efficient discovery and tracking of research outputs across institutions and funding bodies.

The Sustaining Supporters program is the next step in ROR’s sustainability journey. ROR is continuing to explore future potential paid service tiers designed for those organisations and companies that rely heavily on our infrastructure, which would complement the supporters program. However, rest assured that any paid services will not impact the availability of ROR data or our commitment to supporting our community, in line with our commitment to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI).

We’ve all seen key infrastructure components disappear, be enclosed, or get acquired. We are also realistic about how much effort and cost is involved in sustaining key components of open infrastructure that the scholarly community depends on. And we are committed to doing this right. That means not just sustaining core infrastructures, but investing in them so that they can evolve alongside community needs.

ROR is a free resource for the research community. However, this shared infrastructure does require a collective funding approach that can sustain it as a common good.

Join us!

This is an exciting moment to be part of ROR’s growth. Let’s fund open infrastructure together!

If your organisation is interested in supporting ROR and helping to fund open, community-led infrastructure, sign up here.

A Registry of Editorial Boards - a new trust signal for scholarly communications?

Fabienne Michaud — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Perhaps, like us, you’ve noticed that it is not always easy to find information on who is on a journal’s editorial board and, when you do, it is often unclear when it was last updated. The editorial board details might be displayed in multiple places (such as the publisher’s website and the platform where the content is hosted) which may or may not be in sync and retrieving this information for any kind of analysis always requires manually checking and exporting the data from a website (as illustrated by the Open Editors research and its dataset).

For well-established as well as early career researchers, membership of an editorial board demonstrates their contribution to their community, brings prestige, improves (or maintains) their professional profile and often increases their chances of being published.

Whilst most journal websites only give the names of the editors, others possibly add a country, some include affiliations, very few link to a professional profile, an ORCID ID. Even when it’s clear when the editorial board details were updated, it’s hardly ever possible to find past editorial boards information and almost none lists declarations of competing interest.

We hear of instances where a researcher’s name has been listed on the board of a journal without their knowledge or agreement, potentially to deceive other researchers into submitting their manuscripts. Regular reports of impersonation, nepotism, collusion and conflicts of interest have become a cause for concern.

Similarly, recent studies on gender representation and gender and geographical disparity on editorial boards have highlighted the need to do better in this area and provide trusted, reliable and coherent information on editorial board members in order to add transparency, prevent unethical behaviour, maintain trust, promote and support research integrity.

Registry of Editorial Boards

We are proposing the creation of some form of Registry of Editorial Boards to encourage best practice around editorial boards’ information and governance that can easily be accessed and used by the community.

What we have in mind

A Registry of Editorial Boards could be a new trust-signal for Crossref members and details would be included on a member’s Participation Report.

Crossref members would register and maintain this information for their journal titles in a similar way as they currently manage their metadata. Only the owner of the title, or their trusted service provider, would be able to update it. Editors would be linked by ORCID iD and ROR and Crossref would use ‘autoupdate’ to push editorship information to ORCID profiles, saving researchers time. The information would be made available via Crossref’s API.

This new service would introduce more transparency and automation to the editorial process and connect content platforms (i.e. peer review management systems, publishers’ websites, ORCID and other author register systems, ROR, bibliographic databases, etc.) and make available current and historical information on editorial boards including metadata on the editorial boards’ full affiliations.

The benefits for the community

The benefits would be wide-ranging for the different stakeholders in the scholarly communications community, from publishers, researchers, institutions, funders, bibliometricians to librarians including:

providing those involved in the peer review process and research ethics a single, authoritative and up-to-date resource on editorial boards
reducing fraudulent claims to be or to have been on an editorial board of a publication in order to be published or publish others
connecting and automating editorship role updates with e.g. ORCID, ROR, etc.
generating a detailed analysis of the publication practices of editorial board members and their close contacts
assessing any relationships between authors, reviewers and editorial board members for conflict of interest, etc.
supporting researchers responding to a request to join an editorial board, making proactive approaches to a journal or wanting to ensure that an editorial board is representative of its community and assess its levels of diversity and inclusivity
providing increased visibility to researchers, particularly to early career researchers

Your feedback

Before we progress further, we would like to fully understand what the needs of the community are and whether members would be willing and have the capacity to participate and contribute regularly in registering and maintaining details of their editorial boards.

✏️ Please let us know what your thoughts and experience are with editorial boards by completing this brief survey by 31 March 2022.

More new faces at Crossref

Lindsay Russell — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Looking at the road ahead, we’ve set some ambitious goals for ourselves and continue to see new members join from around the world, now numbering 16,000. To help achieve all that we plan in the years to come, we’ve grown our teams quite a bit over the last couple of years, and we are happy to welcome Carlos, Evans, Fabienne, Mike, Panos, and Patrick.

Our Software Development team has seen the most growth with the addition of Carlos, Mike, Panos, and Patrick; collectively, they bring specialist skills that are helping us to pay down technical debt, modernize our underlying infrastructure, and prepare for a consistent front-end experience. As a member of the Product team, Fabienne has a fresh take on our Similarity Check service, steering the upgrade to iThenticate v2. And Evans brings a scientific researcher perspective to our Member Experience team along with experience as a member who’s worked with our tools.

And now some words from each of them.

Carlos Del Ojo Elias

I am a computer scientist with a master’s degree in Bioinformatics. Previously I used to work as a security auditor. I’ve got experience in research and software development both in academia and industry. It’s very exciting for me to join Crossref as a Senior software developer on the technology team. My current project involves working on the authentication and authorization subsystems, exploring state-of-the-art technologies in order to improve our services. I have always enjoyed contributing to the open-source community, so it is a pleasure for me to work in an organisation that promotes the principles of openness and transparency of software and data.

Evans Atoni

I am a member of the Technical Support team having joined Crossref just a few weeks ago. I’m passionate about advancing open access and POSI. Helping our members sort through knotty technical queries and building relations with them to service their very diverse needs is what I’m most excited about in my role. In my spare time, I enjoy anything outdoors, family time, and traveling. I work remotely from Nairobi, Kenya.

Fabienne Michaud

I joined Crossref in April 2021 as a Product Manager for scholarly stewardship which includes the content comparison tool Similarity Check and I am thrilled to be a member of such a lovely, supportive and international team. I have a background in teaching and have worked in academic, research, and not-for-profit libraries in the UK for over 20 years in academic liaison, customer services, and management roles. These experiences have given me a user-centered approach and a drive to find collaborative, reliable, and pertinent technological solutions to support the research and scholarly community. Since starting at Crossref and, through my work with the Similarity Check Advisory Group, I have developed a good understanding of the current ethical issues facing the publishing sector (such as paper mills and other manipulations of the publication process) and a particular interest in how AI and automation tools can play a part in addressing these challenges.

Mike Gill

I’ve been a software developer for twenty years, having studied software engineering at university. During my career, I have worked mostly in the banking and engineering industries so this is my first time working in scholarly publishing. I confess that before joining Crossref I wasn’t aware that the community existed so I was excited to see how I could ply my trade in this new (to me!) field. The role also appealed as, having primarily been a team leader/line manager in my recent career, this was an opportunity to be hands-on again and work with modern languages such as Kotlin. In the end, though, what really sealed it for me was reading on the Crossref website that ‘we take the work seriously but not necessarily ourselves’ which basically sums me up. So I knew I’d be in good company and that has proven to be the case!

Panos Pandis

I joined Crossref as a Senior Software Developer in 2020, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Moving to Crossref has been a much-needed breath of fresh air. I’m a big fan of open-source, and at Crossref, it just feels like home. Even more so after our recent commitment to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI). My main focus at the moment is Crossref’s Event Data service. I’m fascinated by the potential of Event Data and the broad audience I get to support and communicate with through the project. So if you spot me in a room, feel free to ask me anything about Clojure/Kotlin, Event Data, obscure technology, or kombucha recipes.

Patrick Vale

I’m delighted to have joined Crossref as the first Frontend Developer. My role covers the inauguration of a scalable framework in which we can build future User Interfaces, and generally making people’s lives easier as they interact with our products and services - if a human uses it, I’m interested! It’s my intention to provide a platform on which we can quickly iterate to build and adapt our interfaces to suit the rapidly changing needs of our community. It’s been a pleasure to learn about the impact Crossref has across the scholarly spectrum; and to work with a team of open, practical, and downright friendly colleagues is a privilege. Outside of work, I enjoy cycling, growing things, and most recently, avoiding two small cats while moving from anywhere to anywhere around the house.

Your contributions have been impactful and it will be fun to see all that you will surely contribute to our road ahead!

RFP: Help evaluate the reach and effects of metadata

Jennifer Kemp — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE, 14 October 2021:

We received several excellent proposals in response to this RFP and we’d like to thank everyone involved for their time and enthusiasm.

We are excited to announce the two projects that have been selected, to run through early 2023. Stay tuned!

With or Without: Measuring Impacts of Books Metadata
This project will test the premise that academic books metadata improves discoverability and usage by assessing the impact of book chapter records with DOIs (unique from metadata associated with the entire book) with associated chapter and book attributes. The study aims to prove or disprove its hypothesis and rank metadata attributes by their association with successful content discovery and access. The findings will be considered alongside similar metadata research in order to develop a metadata efficacy framework, which can be used to determine the return on metadata investments by publishers and service providers.

Lettie Y. Conrad and Michelle Urberg, Independent consultants

Metadata For Everyone
This project will explore the metadata quality, consistency and completeness from various individual journals and communities. The project will pay special attention to elements that are most likely to vary across cultures, such as names and those that are potentially multi-lingual, with the understanding that metadata issues do not affect nor impact all communities in the same way.

Juan Pablo Alperin, Associate Director of Research, Public Knowledge Project & Co-Director, Scholarly Communications Lab
Mike Nason, Scholarly Communications & Publishing Librarian, University of New Bruinswick Libraries
Marco Tullney, Head of Publishing Services & Coordination Open Access at TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology

We’re excited (and a little nervous) to launch a new research project designed to assess the effects of metadata on research communications. We’re expecting this effort to be a significant contribution to the existing research on the topic and we’re really looking forward to getting started. We’re also a little nervous because of course we don’t know what the conclusions will be (after all, if we did, we wouldn’t be starting this project).

Assume nothing

It seems logical and very widely accepted that more and better metadata leads to good things. Does it? If so, how and how do we know that? What does the ‘before and after’ look like when metadata is corrected or enhanced? There are so many questions, so many stakeholders and enough variation around record types (books come to mind) and disciplines (hello citation styles) that the topic warrants all the attention it gets and more. This project is designed to be very broad in scope, sampling from various criteria, and is expected to last about a year.

Interested in getting involved?

If you’re a researcher involved in scientometrics or bibliometrics or if you’re a consultant with experience in original research, please have a read of the RFP and get in touch with a statement of interest by 1st September or with questions in the meantime. We’re looking for an individual, research group or organisation that will work with us over the course of the project to define terms, finalize the approach, analyze the data and communicate the results, whatever they may be.

RFP responses are requested by 1st September so don’t hesitate to get in touch with questions.

If you’re interested in the project but not in responding to the RFP, you may still be able to help. We would appreciate wide circulation of this announcement to help us find qualified respondents to the RFP so please do share this with your network. And, of course, we hope you stay tuned for the outcome of the work. Check back with us on that in about a year…

DOAJ and Crossref sign agreement to remove barriers to scholarly publishing for all

Ginny Hendricks — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

22 June 2021, London, UK and Boston, MA, USA — The future of global open access publishing received a boost today with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Crossref. The MOU formalizes an already strong partnership between the two organisations and furthers their shared pursuit of an open scholarly communications ecosystem that is inclusive of emerging publishing communities.

Both organisations aim to encourage the dissemination and use of scholarly research using open infrastructure, online technologies, regional and international networks, and community partners - all supporting local institutional capacity and sustainability around the world.

“DOAJ is delighted to be formalizing today’s agreement with Crossref, an organisation we are already closely aligned with. Together we stand a greater chance of encouraging an open, fair, and fully inclusive future for scholarly publishing,” said Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ Founder and Managing Director.

The agreement will enable content from journals indexed on DOAJ to be more easily identified through the use of Crossref metadata. The MOU also covers the exchange of a variety of services and information and greater coordination of technical and strategic requirements between DOAJ and Crossref. Included too is the development of outreach and training materials, coordination of service and feature development, as well as research studies to explore the overlaps and gaps in the journals and metadata covered by each organisation.

“As academic-led journals continue to grow in number and geographic reach, it’s important we support this community more effectively. Our partnership with DOAJ means we can share strategies, data, and resources in order to lower barriers for emerging publishers around the world,” said Ginny Hendricks, Crossref’s Director of Member & Community Outreach.

About DOAJ

DOAJ is a community curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer reviewed journals. DOAJ deploys more than one hundred carefully selected volunteers from among the community of library and other academic disciplines to assist in the curation of open access journals. This independent database contains over 15,000 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities. DOAJ is financially supported worldwide by libraries, publishers and other like-minded organisations. DOAJ services (including the evaluation of journals) are free for all, and all data provided by DOAJ are harvestable via OAI/PMH and the API. See doaj.org for more information.

About Crossref

Crossref makes research objects easy to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse. We’re a not-for-profit membership organisation that exists to make scholarly communications better. We rally the community; tag and share metadata; run an open infrastructure; play with technology; and make tools and services—all to help put research in context. Visit crossref.org for further information.

Please contact louise@doaj.org or feedback@crossref.org with any questions.

An Advisory Group for Preprints

Martyn Rittman — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We are delighted to announce the formation of a new Advisory Group to support us in improving preprint metadata. Preprints have grown in popularity over the last few years, with increasing focus brought by the need to rapidly disseminate knowledge in the midst of a global pandemic. We have supported metadata deposits for preprints under the record type ‘posted content’ since 2016, and members currently register a total of around 17,000 new preprints metadata records each month.

As preprints develop and different practices arise, we are keen to re-examine the metadata schema: to do this properly we need community input. We want to ensure that the schema is fit for purpose and supports the diversity of ways in which preprints are posted, linked with other objects, and used. Metadata schema need regular review, and this is just one example of a number of areas we are looking to update. Several topics we see as a high priority for preprints are better notification for when a preprint has been withdrawn or removed, accurate recording of versioning, and better indication of preprint server names.

We have invited a number of organisations we know to be active in this area, and are looking forward to some very positive discussions. Participants span five continents and include members who post preprints, indexing services, and others with significant experience in the area of preprints. The first meeting took place earlier this week and brought up a diverse range of themes that will be tackled in future meetings.

Our annual open call for board nominations

Lucy Ofiesh — Thu, 27 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref’s Nominating Committee is inviting expressions of interest to join the Board of Directors of Crossref for the term starting in 2022. The committee will gather responses from those interested and create the slate of candidates that our membership will vote on in an election in September. Expressions of interest will be due Friday, June 25th, 2021.

Board roles and responsibilities

The role of the board at Crossref is to provide strategic and financial oversight of the organisation, as well as guidance to the Executive Director and the staff leadership team, with the key responsibilities being:

Setting the strategic direction for the organisation;
Providing financial oversight; and
Approving new policies and services.

The board is representative of our membership base and guides the staff leadership team on trends affecting scholarly communications. The board sets strategic directions for the organisation while also providing oversight into policy changes and implementation. Board members have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure sound operations. Board members do this by attending board meetings, as well as joining more specific board committees.

Crossref’s services provide central infrastructure to scholarly communications. Crossref’s board helps shape the future of our services, and by extension, impacts the broader scholarly ecosystem. We are looking for board members to contribute their experience and perspective.

Who can apply to join the board?

Any active member of Crossref can apply to join the board. Crossref membership is open to organisations that produce content, such as academic presses, commercial publishers, standards organisations, and research funders. In fact, this year the board has specifically included in the committee’s remit to “propose at least one name from a funder member for the current round of elections.”

There is a link at the bottom of this post to submit your expression of interest.

What is expected of board members?

Board members attend three meetings each year that typically take place in March, July, and November. Meetings have taken place in a variety of international locations and travel support is provided when needed. Following travel restrictions as a result of COVID-19, the board adopted a plan to convene at least one of the board meetings virtually each year and all committee meetings take place virtually. Most board members sit on at least one Crossref committee. Care is taken to accommodate the wide range of timezones in which our board members live.

While the expressions of interest are specific to an individual, the seat that is elected to the board belongs to the member organisation. The primary board member also names an alternate who may attend meetings in the event that the primary board member is unable to. There is no personal financial obligation to sit on the board. The member organisation must remain in good standing.

Board members are expected to be comfortable assuming the responsibilities listed above and to prepare and participate in board meeting discussions.

About the election

The board is elected through the “one member, one vote” policy wherein every member organisation of Crossref has a single vote to elect representatives to the Crossref board. Board terms are for three years, and this year there are five seats open for election.

The board maintains a balance of seats, with eight seats for smaller members and eight seats for larger members (based on total revenue to Crossref). This is in an effort to ensure that the diversity of experiences and perspectives of the scholarly community are represented in decisions made at Crossref.

This year we will elect two of the large member seats (membership tiers $3,900 and above) and three of the small member seats (membership tiers $1,650 and below). You don’t need to specify which seat you are applying for. We will provide that information to the nominating committee.

The election takes place online and voting will open in September. Election results will be shared at the November board meeting and new members will commence their term in 2022.

About the nominating committee

The nominating committee will review the expressions of interest and select a slate of candidates for election. The slate put forward will exceed the total number of open seats. The committee considers the statements of interest, organisational size, geography, gender, and experience.

2021 Nominating Committee:

Liz Allen, F1000/Taylor & Francis, London, UK, committee chair
Melissa Harrison, eLife, Cambridge, UK
Andrew Joseph, Wits University Press, Johannesburg, South Africa
Abel Packer, SciELO, São Paulo, Brazil
Lisa Scott, New England Journal of Medicine, Boston, USA

How do you apply to join the board?

Please click here to submit your expression of interest or contact me.

Open-source code: giving back

Joel Schuweiler — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

TL:DR;

Hi, I’m Joel
GitLab UI unsatisfactory
Wrote a UI to use the API
Wrote a missing API
Open company contributes changes back to another open company
Now have a method for getting work done much easier
Hurrah!

I’m Joel, a Senior Site Reliability Engineer here at Crossref. I have a long background in open source, software development, and solving unique problems. One of my earliest computer influences was my father. He wrote software to support scientists in search of things like the top quark, the most massive of all observed elementary particles.

One day my father came home with over 40 floppy disks, excited to have this cool, free operating system called Linux. Together we installed Linux and ended up with a fully functional computer. Learning and using Linux opened up an entirely new world to me of amazing open-source software that I could use freely. As I enjoyed all this new software now available to me, I tried to fix any bugs or problems I’d encounter and report solutions for them to the software developers. It felt great to be able to contribute back so others could benefit.

Software teams tend to manage their workflow by writing issues, reviewing them to make sure they make sense and have an achievable goal, estimate how much time it will take to complete, and finally––the crucial step––putting the issues in the order in which they should be completed. To manage my work, I’ve always used Jira––a product designed to help teams of all types prioritize work––and for the first time in over a decade, I find myself not using it in my work.

Product development tracking with GitLab

The Crossref team took the decision a few years ago to move all our development and product tracking work via GitLab––a commercial open-source product anyone can use to help keep track of software throughout the development life cycle––with an open-by-default policy. Work is tracked using the issues feature of Gitlab. GitLab will host it, so you don’t have worry about maintenance and backups. One major drawback I discovered with GitLab, is a lack of maturity when it comes to doing light project management work.

This is where the trouble begins with GitLab.

In the board view of your issues, you can transition your issues from waiting, to in progress, from in progress to done. The problem with this view is its width-restricted, and things like tags on issues, which are used to help categorize, take up valuable vertical space. With enough tags and a long enough subject line, you can only see five issues at a time on a MacBook Pro monitor, for example.

In the list view of your issues, you get a clean compact view; the perfect view to order issues. However there’s one major flaw, it’s paginated. (You know when you’re shopping and they make you click to see another page of goods? Yes, like that.) The problem with GitLab’s implementation is you can drag and drop issues on a given page, but there is no way to move the issues to another page in the list of results. Additionally, all newly-created issues are added to the end of the list.

The solution

I went about finding a solution by visiting GitLab’s own public issue page and found that requests requiring user interface (UI) changes would languish; in some cases, they would go years without getting approval. Instead of putting in all the work to open an issue with them, only to have it be discarded or ignored, I decided to look for another way.

GitLab has an API, what more could I need? I discovered I could log in and get a list of all the issues, by project, and by group. “This is perfect!”, I thought. I can write my own UI around it. It took three evenings writing a UI that was satisfactory to me. When I started writing javascript to interact with the UI, I learned that the ’re-ordering of issues’ didn’t actually have an API. Further investigation lead me to the issue tracker where I found an issue by a GitLab employee asking for the same functionality––the ability to re-order issues.

While in a chatroom for GitLab development, I was genuinely surprised by my experience. There was quick attentive help on locating the file I would need to implement the change, they set up a development environment, and even helped submit tests for my code while I worked on updating documentation and writing a changelog entry. It felt like GitLab must’ve designated an employee to work with the community on submitting improvements. In no time, the API for re-ordering was implemented. After the scheduled monthly release of GitLab rolled out with my new API, I was able to easily re-order issues.

GitLab’s response when help was needed along the way was impressive. Now there is a much easier method for getting work done that everyone can use. It’s rewarding when you can contribute back to the community for all to benefit.

Is GitLab as polished as Jira? No. Did they embrace me making changes by being open from the start and providing help along the way? Yes. Do I see Jira shifting its culture to match? Unlikely.

By emulating GitLab, an open organisation like Crossref has a shot at encouraging community development.

Discuss all things metadata in our new community forum

Vanessa Fairhurst — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR: We have a Community Forum (yay!), you can come and join it here: community.crossref.org.

Community is fundamental to us at Crossref, we wouldn’t be where we are or achieve the great things we do without the involvement of you, our diverse and engaged members and users. Crossref was founded as a collaboration of publishers with the shared goal of making links between research outputs easier, building a foundational infrastructure making research easier to find, cite, link, assess, and re-use. It is at the very core of what we do and who we are. Our global community now includes publishers, libraries, government agencies, funders, researchers, universities, ambassadors, and more from over 140 countries. We are also actively part of the larger scholarly research community, which includes other open scholarly infrastructure organisations, metadata users and aggregators, open science initiatives, and others with shared aims and values.

What do we mean by ‘community’?

‘Community’ is often one of those words which gets bandied around without much thought given to its meaning. At Crossref, we are aware that expertise lies within our broad, global community and we engage with them (you!) in a variety of ways to ensure that decisions we make are community-led and that what we do, as well as what we don’t do, are in line with the views of our members and developed with your insights and input. We do this via our working groups, committees, ambassador program, beta-testing groups, in-person and online events, webinars, and on-going dialogues and feedback via our support channels and even social media. We are also involved in a number of collaborative projects with other organisations such as ROR, Metadata 2020, Make Data Count, PIDapooloza, and the FREYA project to name but a few.

Community is more than just signing up to be a Crossref member. It’s more than just attending an event or a webinar, or levelling up to include the use of a service like Crossmark or Similarity Check –– it’s really engaging with us and creating something together of shared value for the scholarly community. As an organisation, we’ve been so thrilled that there is a new group dedicated to highlighting community managers and our work. We are working with –– and learning a lot from –– the Centre for Scientific Collaboration & Community Engagement to improve the way we interact and involve people in Crossref. The model below shows a trajectory towards true collaboration that we aim to follow in the coming months and years.

Cite as: Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. (2020) The CSCCE Community Participation Model – A framework for member engagement and information flow in STEM communities. Woodley and Pratt doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3997802

In the current climate, there are additional challenges and limitations on how we interact with all the various communities that we as individuals are a part of, both professionally and personally. I wrote in my last blog about how we have moved our events online and thought about new ways to better connect and engage with our community virtually. One of those ways is our Community Forum.

The purpose of our community forum

Hosted on the open-source discussion platform Discourse, you can find our forum at community.crossref.org. The goal of the community forum is to create an inclusive, open space where Crossref members, ambassadors, sponsors, service providers, and others who share a passion for scholarly infrastructure, can connect. This enables collaborative problem-solving, the sharing of expertise and experiences across time zones and languages, and allows members to post questions to be answered by other community members or even our staff. Members of the community engage via creating posts, commenting on existing content in the forum, volunteering for working groups or beta-testing projects, helping to co-create materials that include translations and shared FAQs, giving feedback on new developments, and joining online events and webinars. Throughout these interactions, we expect that those who use the community forum will form relationships –– a collective working together to advance their work with Crossref and shape the future of scholarly infrastructure.

When I joined Crossref as Community Manager over three years ago, the idea of a forum had already begun to take shape, but it wasn’t quite there just yet. There was additional research and consultation with the community to be done to check this was the approach we wanted to take.

This involved speaking to others working in scholarly communications about forums they were involved in running or were an active participant of –– check out the PKP forum for instance if you haven’t already –– and having numerous valuable conversations about successes, potential downfalls, and realistic expectations. The most important –– and commonly cited –– takeaway is that building an online community takes time. We are still at the start of this journey. It will only work if it is a place of value for all and a place where people feel a sense of belonging and co-ownership.

Preparing to rollout the forum

We tested the platform with a small group of beta-testers and also sent out a survey to over 1,700 of our members, taking a sample with a geographical and organisational spread. The responses thankfully held no major surprises and reinforced our belief that this is something of use to people.

Key research findings

77% of respondents had previously contacted our Support team for help resolving an issue.
90% stated either ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ to whether they would use a community forum to post their questions, though over half have never used a forum before.
Most common reasons of importance for joining are ‘Community support in solving issues or answering questions’, ‘To locate FAQs and quickly find answers to common issues’, and ‘To connect with others working in a similar role and/or with similar interests’
Most commonly-stated things that would discourage or limit member’s participation would be how time-consuming and complex the forum is to use, and any potential language barriers.

Things you can do on the forum

We hope this will provide a much more open level of support for the community, enabling us to bring out all those great questions and thoughtful conversations we receive via our Support channels into the public sphere, where we can all benefit from these rich exchanges. Ultimately our goal for the future is that this space is owned by you, the Crossref community. This is a platform for you to connect and build relationships with others working in scholarly communications: metadata fanatics, identifier aficionados, developer gurus, and open research enthusiasts - we welcome you all!

Share what activities or projects you are working on and get input from others.
Share issues that you need some help resolving, post a question to the forum in your native language and get help from another community member.
Give us feedback on our plans and help us shape future developments at Crossref.
Test out new tools and services.
Find out about upcoming events and webinars, and share any you think are of interest to the community.
Help us identify better ways of working together through Crossref and co-create new materials and projects.

How to get started

So, how do I sign up you ask? Simply head over to community.crossref.org and set up an account. There’s a useful How-To guide available on our welcome post, as well as some Community Guidelines all our members should follow.

Do you have a question about registering or updating your metadata? Then head over to the Content Registration category and post your query to the group. Want to find out about getting started with Similarity Check service? Then take a look at our Similarity Check topic in our services category. Or maybe you want to know more about upcoming multilingual webinars at Crossref, or perhaps you have one of your own you’d like to share? Then check out the Community Calendar.

We’re also looking for talented linguists out there to help us translate our welcome email template into multiple languages so that anyone joining the community can get a welcome in their native language. To join in, visit my post in our ‘Questions from Crossref’ category.

We look forward to seeing you in the community soon!

404: Support team down for essential maintenance

Amanda Bartell — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

2020 has been a very challenging year, and we can all agree that everyone needs a break. Crossref will be providing very limited technical and membership support from 21st December to 3rd January to allow our staff to rest and recharge. We’ll be back on January 4th raring to answer your questions. Amanda explains more about why we made this decision.

As we all know, 2020 has been an unprecedented year, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting lives across the globe.

It’s been amazing to watch our members pivot their working practices and continue to publish content and register it with Crossref to keep the wheels of research and scholarly communications moving.

Since January, we’ve seen 9,079,082 items registered with Crossref, up 13% on 2019. 2628 new members have also joined during that time and we now have almost 13.5k members from 139 countries. We’ve seen over 337 million requests to our REST API on average per month in 2020, a 9% increase over 2019 (and over 600 million total metadata queries on average per month across all our APIs and services).

Of course, all this activity brings an increasing number of requests for help and support. Since the start of 2020, we have answered almost 24,000 support tickets from the community. Sometimes these just need a quick answer or a link to our documentation. Sometimes it’s a straightforward new member application or a routine query. But sometimes a prospective member needs a lots of advice, sometimes a long-standing member or user needs in-depth investigations and consultancy. Sometimes the request highlights a problem in one of our systems that needs input from our product and development colleagues. But either way, it’s keeping our small team of five full-time employees very busy.

Vanessa wrote earlier in the year about how our Community Outreach team has changed its working practices this year. As Head of Member Experience I’ve been incredibly impressed by the way our membership, support and billing staff have done the same - remaining really focused on the needs of the Crossref community while (at the same time) balancing this with the demands of working from home, childcare, home-schooling, and supporting those affected by the pandemic in their own community. Isaac’s thoughtful post on our forum about his first week working at home because of the pandemic really highlighted some of these challenges.

We take work/life balance seriously at Crossref. We want to make sure that we’re are able to continue to help the Crossref community effectively in 2021, but are also able to continue to look after ourselves, our families, and our own communities in this difficult time. We all hope that 2021 will be a very different year, but there’s still likely to be disruption ahead for all of us, and one thing is sure: there will continue to be plenty more requests coming in for our small team to stay on top of in the meantime.

With this in mind, we want to make sure that our support staff are able to properly rest and recharge during what is a holiday period for many of us coming up. We’ll be operating with just one person each on the technical support and membership support side between 23rd December and 3rd January. This means that while we’ll be able to answer urgent queries, non-urgent questions will be left unanswered until 4th January. And we’ll not take on any new members between 21st December and 3rd January too.

We know many of you will be continuing to work during this period. If you have a non-urgent question, do take a look at our support documentation in the meantime, or see if other members (or our amazing Ambassadors) are able to help on our forum. If you can’t find what you’re looking for and it’s urgent, we hope that the limited staff who are on call will still be able to help you out.

Colleagues in the US have recently celebrated their Thanksgiving, and I remain enormously thankful for our team here at Crossref, and for you all in the scholarly community for your enthusiasm for working together collectively to help the world find, cite, link, assess, and reuse scholarly content. We all really appreciate your patience while we reset ready for 2021. Happy Holidays!

Calling all 24-hour (PID) party people!

Kathleen Luschek — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

While we wish we could be together in person to celebrate the fifth PIDapalooza, there’s an upside to moving it online: now everyone can participate in the universe’s best PID party! With 24 hours of non-stop PID programming, you’ll be able to come to the party no matter where you happen to be.

Send us your ideas for #PIDapalooza21

Now is your chance to share your work in the #PIDapalooza21 spotlight! We’re seeking proposals for short, interactive sessions about what you are doing––or want to do––with persistent identifiers and the communities that love and use them.

#PIDapalooza21 will feature sessions around the broad theme of PIDs and Open Research Infrastructure, focusing on the following areas:

Theme 1. PIDs 101

For PID beginners! You’ve got just 30 minutes to get attendees up to speed on a PID or PIDs. Make it fast! Make it fact-filled! Make it fun!

Theme 2. PID Communities International

Have you always wanted to host a Spanish-language PID session, or bring together PID people in the humanities? Tell us how you’d connect with PID peers around the world!

Theme 3. PID Success Stories

There’s nothing better than hearing about what’s working in the PID world––and why! Share your success stories so we can all benefit from them.

Theme 4. PID Party!

It wouldn’t be PIDapalooza without the party sessions, so be creative! Help us make this the best PID party ever!

Propose a session now!

The call for proposals will be open until October 30. Submit your PIDea now!

*Note: The PIDapalooza submission form uses Google. If you are unable to access Google Forms, email your session idea.

Get the full low-down on #PIDapalooza21 at the PIDapalooza website.

Open Abstracts: Where are we?

Ludo Waltman — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) launched this week. The initiative calls on scholarly publishers to make the abstracts of their publications openly available. More specifically, publishers that work with Crossref to register DOIs for their publications are requested to include abstracts in the metadata they deposit in Crossref. These abstracts will then be made openly available by Crossref. 39 publishers have already agreed to join I4OA and to open their abstracts.

Where are we at the moment in terms of openness of abstracts? For an individual publisher working with Crossref, the percentage of the publisher’s content for which an abstract is available in Crossref can be found in Crossref’s Participation Reports. The chart presented below gives the overall picture (as of September 1, 2020) for medium-sized and large publishers working with Crossref. The vertical axis shows the number of journal articles of a publisher in the period 2018-2020. Because of the large differences between publishers in the number of articles they publish, this axis has a logarithmic scale. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of the articles of a publisher for which an abstract is available in Crossref. The orange dots represent publishers that have agreed to join I4OA. The publishers colored in blue have not yet agreed to join the initiative.

A similar chart was published a few months ago in this blog post on the importance of open abstracts. Comparing the above chart with the one published a few months ago, the first effects of I4OA are already visible. While for most publishers the percentage of abstracts available in Crossref has hardly changed, it has increased from 11% to 95% for the Royal Society, one of the founding publishers of I4OA. This reflects the efforts the Royal Society has made over the past months to improve the availability of abstracts in Crossref for its content, not only for new content but also for existing content. For SAGE, another founding publisher of I4OA, the percentage of abstracts available in Crossref has increased from 38% to 50%. A further increase can be expected to take place in the coming months. The third founding publisher of I4OA, Hindawi, has remained at a stable level, with abstracts being available for 97% of its content.

The above chart shows that many publishers supporting I4OA are already making abstracts available in Crossref. Other publishers do not yet make abstracts available in Crossref but have nevertheless decided to join I4OA. This is the case for Frontiers, PLOS, and Karger, and also for several smaller publishers not visible in the above chart, such as EMBO and Ubiquity Press. These publishers are currently adjusting their workflows and will start submitting abstracts to Crossref soon.

Of the publishers that have not yet joined I4OA, some may not yet be aware of I4OA, while others may need more time to decide whether they will join the initiative. As can be seen in the above chart, most publishers that have not yet joined I4OA do not make abstracts available in Crossref at the moment. However, some publishers have not yet joined I4OA even though they do make abstracts available in Crossref. We hope these publishers will join I4OA soon. By joining the initiative, these publishers would formalize their commitment to openness of abstracts.

None of the publishers in the above chart makes abstracts available in Crossref for 100% of its journal content. Some publishers, such as Copernicus and Hindawi, are close to 100%, but even these publishers have some content for which no abstract is available. Importantly, this does not necessarily mean that publishers have failed to submit abstracts to Crossref for some of their content. Instead, it may simply mean that some of their journal content does not have an abstract. Research articles usually have an abstract, but many other types of content published in journals, such as book reviews, letters, editorials, and corrections, often do not have an abstract. For most publishers, it is therefore impossible to make abstracts available for 100% of their content. Moreover, since Crossref does not distinguish between different types of content published in journals, we cannot provide separate statistics on the availability of abstracts for different types of journal content.

As an example, let’s consider Brill, a publisher that has joined I4OA and that mainly focuses on the humanities and social sciences. Abstracts are available in Crossref for 57% of Brill’s content in the period 2018-2020. This may suggest that Brill has failed to submit abstracts to Crossref for a significant share of its content. However, when we look up journal publications of Brill in 2018 and 2019 in the Web of Science database, abstracts turn out to be available for only 68% of these publications. Assuming that Web of Science has more or less complete coverage of abstracts, this seems to indicate that Brill has already submitted most of its abstracts to Crossref. In fact, Web of Science shows that about a quarter of the publications of Brill are book reviews and that hardly any of these book reviews has an abstract. This illustrates why some publishers, for instance those that publish many book reviews, cannot be expected to get close to 100% availability of abstracts.

Despite the above caveats, it is clear that there is still a long way to go in improving the availability of abstracts in Crossref. As of September 1, 2020, abstracts were available for 21% of all journal articles in Crossref in the period 2018-2020. In Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index), 86% of all journal publications in 2018 and 2019 that have a DOI also have an abstract.

Publishers who wish to distribute their abstracts openly through Crossref can include them in the normal content registration process. They can send XML to Crossref (using Crossref’s metadata deposit schema), either directly via HTTPS POST or via the Crossref admin system. For back-content, a resubmission of the full XML is required. In addition, various tools can be used to deposit abstracts. Open Journal Systems (OJS) has a plugin that supports the depositing of abstracts. Metadata Manager also facilitates this, but only for journal articles. Crossref’s web deposit form does not yet support abstracts, but Crossref is working on this.

To keep track of the progress publishers are making in depositing abstracts in Crossref, we plan to publish regular updates of the chart presented above on the I4OA website. We look forward to witnessing the impact of I4OA in the coming months!

Thank you to guest authors Bianca Kramer and Ludo Waltman, as well as the other founding members of I4OA.

Crossref at the Frankfurt Digital Book Fair

Rosa Morais Clark — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Frankfurt Book Fair (#FBM20) will be online this year since people are really not traveling right now. This special edition of #FBM20 will have an extensive digital program in which we will be participating. So you can hang out with us from anywhere in the world!

Similar to the in-person event of years past, members of our technical support, membership, and outreach teams will be on hand at our online Crossref Cafe.

Here are our Crossref Cafe hours:

	Support	Membership	Community outreach	Product
Wed 14 Oct 8:00 - 9:00 UTC	Paul	Sally	Vanessa	Bryan
Wed 14 Oct 14:00 - 15:00 UTC	Shayn	Anna	Susan	Sara
Thu 15 Oct 8:00 - 9:00 UTC	Paul	Laura	Vanessa	Martyn
Thu 15 Oct 14:00 - 15:00 UTC	Isaac, Shayn	Anna, Kathleen	Susan	Kirsty
Fri 16 Oct 8:00 - 9:00 UTC	Paul	Amanda	Vanessa, Rachael	Rakesh
Fri 16 Oct 14:00 - 15:00 UTC	Isaac, Shayn	Anna, Kathleen	Susan

Who will be online:

Susan, Vanessa, and Rachael can talk to you about our upcoming events.
Kirsty can talk to you about Crossmark.
Kathleen can explain Similarity Check.
Laura can show you how to use Metadata Manager for Content Registration.
Isaac, Shayn, and Paul can help troubleshoot any metadata, DOI, or reporting needs.
Sara can talk to you about content registration.
Anna will give you a ‘metadata health check’ including a tour of your Participation Report.
Rakesh can talk to you about product design.
Sally and Amanda can answer your questions about membership.
Martyn can talk to you about Cited-by.
Bryan can talk to you about recent updates to our products and services.

We are happy to schedule one-on-one virtual meetings as well.

Please do drop-in to say “Guten Tag”. We’re looking forward to seeing you online!

Publishers, are you ready to ROR?

Maria Gould — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If you manage a publishing system or workflow, you know how crucial—and how challenging!—it is to have clean, consistent, and comprehensive affiliation metadata. Author affiliations, and the ability to link them to publications and other scholarly outputs, are vital for numerous stakeholders across the research landscape. Institutions need to monitor and measure their research output by the articles their researchers have published. Funders need to be able to discover and track the research and researchers they have supported. Academic librarians need to easily find all of the publications associated with their campus. Journals need to know where authors are affiliated so they can determine eligibility for institutionally sponsored publishing agreements.

Until recently, an open, unambiguous, and persistent identifier for research organisation affiliations has been a missing layer of the scholarly ecosystem. DOIs could identify articles and datasets and other research outputs, and ORCID IDs could identify researchers, but no equivalent solution was available to identify institutions. With the launch of the Research Organization Registry (ROR) in 2019 (which Crossref has helped to develop), the landscape is changing. ROR IDs are an opportunity to make affiliation details easier for publishers to use and easier for those who rely on this data.

Affiliations are a key piece of Crossref metadata that has been missing, but will soon be supported in the Crossref metadata schema. This means that content registered with Crossref can be associated with a ROR IDs to enable better tracking and discovery of research and other publication outputs by institution.

What is ROR?

ROR is the Research Organization Registry––open, noncommercial, community-led infrastructure for research organisation identifiers. The registry currently includes globally unique persistent identifiers and associated metadata for more than 98,000 research organisations (as of August 2020).

ROR IDs are specifically designed to be implemented in any system that captures institutional affiliations and to enable connections (via persistent identifiers and networked research infrastructure) between research organisations, research outputs, and researchers.

ROR IDs are interoperable with those in other identifier registries, including GRID (which provided the seed data that ROR launched with), Crossref Funder Registry, ISNI, and Wikidata. ROR data is available under a CC0 waiver and can be accessed via a public API and data dump.

ROR is not the first organisation identifier to exist. But ROR is distinct because it is completely open, specifically focused on identifying affiliations, and collaboratively developed by, with, and for key stakeholders in scholarly communications. ROR is operated as a joint initiative by Crossref, DataCite, and California Digital Library, and was launched with seed data from GRID in collaboration with Digital Science. These organisations have invested resources into building an open registry of research organisation identifiers that can be embedded in scholarly infrastructure to effectively link research to organisations.

Why care about ROR IDs in Crossref metadata?

Ed Pentz, Crossref’s Executive Director, explains the key role ROR can play in enriching Crossref metadata:

“Over the years Crossref has expanded the metadata it collects (for example, ORCID IDs and license URLs) based on the changing needs of our members and the scholarly research community. A key type of metadata that is missing from Crossref is affiliations. We’ve had a lot of feedback from members that adding affiliations should be a priority. At Crossref LIVE19 in Amsterdam, ROR was ranked joint first place for Crossref by the 100 plus attendees at the meeting. For the last few years we’ve been diligently working on the initiative and are very happy that ROR is now coming to fruition.”

Crossref metadata does include some affiliations already. But this data is not comprehensive or consistent, and appears as free-text strings only (even if originally sourced from a list of institutions). A search for UC Berkeley, for instance, returns multiple variants of the university’s name:

University of California, Berkeley
University of California-Berkeley
University of California Berkeley
UC Berkeley
And likely more…

While it isn’t too difficult for a human to guess that “UC Berkeley,” “University of California, Berkeley,” and “University of California at Berkeley” are all referring to the same university, a machine interpreting this information wouldn’t necessarily make the same connections. If you are trying to easily find all of the publications associated with UC Berkeley, you would need to run and reconcile multiple searches at best, or miss data completely at worst. This is where an affiliation identifier comes in: a single, unambiguous, standardized identifier that will always stay the same (for UC Berkeley, that would be https://ror.org/01an7q238).

ROR IDs for affiliations can transform the usability of Crossref metadata. While it’s crucial to have IDs for affiliations, it’s equally important that the affiliation data can be easily used. The ROR dataset is CC0, so ROR IDs and associated affiliation data can be freely and openly used and reused without any restrictions.

What does this mean for publishers?

As the Crossref schema update is being cleared for takeoff, this is a good time for publishers and publishing service providers to be thinking about adopting ROR.

ROR IDs can be useful in publishing workflows in a variety of ways. They can easily be implemented into manuscript tracking systems to identify the affiliations of submitting authors and co-authors. This can be done via a simple institution lookup that connects to the ROR API. Authors choose their affiliation from a dropdown list populated from ROR; they do not have to provide a ROR ID or even know that a ROR ID is being collected.

Upon publication, ROR affiliation data can be included when content is registered with Crossref. ROR IDs are also supported in the JATS XML format that many publishers use. Crossref metadata can be searched and crawled, and the Crossref API will make ROR IDs available so affiliation data can be captured by tools and services and fed into downstream reporting and tracking systems.

Get ready to ROR!

ROR is already working with a number of publishers and service providers that are planning to integrate ROR in their systems, map their affiliation data to ROR IDs, and/or include ROR IDs in publication metadata.

For example: Rockefeller University Press has already added the collection of ROR IDs to their publication workflow. Upon submission, the author selects an institutional affiliation from a dropdown list of options that comes from ROR. Rockefeller University Press also relies on this affiliation data for billing and licensing purposes to coordinate Gold Open Access publishing agreements.

In addition to publishers, libraries and repositories and other stakeholders are building in support for ROR. You can also see the list of active and in-progress ROR integrations here.

We know decisions about identifier adoption aren’t easy or immediate, so get in touch with ROR if you have questions or want to be more involved in the project. ROR holds regular community meetings and webinars and supports several community working groups for those interested in implementing ROR IDs and working with ROR data. This is a community-driven effort so we want to hear from you!

New faces at Crossref

Crossref — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Please help us welcome new faces at Crossref! Martyn, Sara, Laura, and Mark joined us very recently and we are happy they’re with us. Both Martyn and Sara have joined the Product team and this has given us the chance to reorganize the team into the following groups: content registration, scholarly stewardship, scholarly impact, metadata retrieval, and UX/UI leadership. Laura joined the Finance and Operations team to help make the billing process simple for our members. Mark joins the Technology team and one of his projects will be improving the Event Data service.

It is exciting to already see the impact of your contributions and look forward to what’s to come!

And now a few words from each of them.

Martyn Rittman

I am a former university researcher who worked on interdisciplinary projects around life sciences and analytical chemistry, with positions in the UK and Germany. I spent seven years at open access publisher MDPI doing everything from running journals to handling production, developing services for authors and publishers, and supporting preprints. I’m very excited to be joining Crossref as a Product Manager and developing some great products and services that focus on how Crossref-indexed research creates impact. This includes supporting the use of preprint metadata. I’m also looking forward to getting my teeth into event data, which looks at how those in the research community and beyond reference, use, and reuse research. If you are interested in making use of event data or have examples of event data applications, I would like to hear from you.

Sara Bowman

I’m thrilled to have joined Crossref at this exciting time in the organisation. As a member of the Product team, my primary area of focus is content registration, building, and improving tools for our members to deposit rich metadata. I’m particularly interested in how we can create a unified user experience for content registration while supporting the needs of our diverse membership. A scientist by training, I’ve spent the last 6 years working on open source technologies to support scholarly communication, most recently in the role of Product Manager at the Center for Open Science. I’m passionate about open tools and using data to drive product development, building innovative solutions to improve research and scholarly communication.

Laura Cuniff

I joined Crossref two months ago as a part-time Billing Support Specialist on the Finance and Operations team. With the help of my supportive and knowledgeable colleagues, I took on learning the various systems. My goal is to make the billing process as simple as possible for our members by researching, retrieving, and relaying billing information. This allows our members to focus on the reason for their engagement with Crossref. With several part-time jobs cobbled together at different times of the day, I have the flexibility to volunteer with a few organisations in my hometown of Ipswich, MA. If you find yourself at the Ipswich Visitor Center, I may greet you, recommend the most beautiful spots in town, give you a tour of the Ipswich Museum, or send you off with a wonderful Ipswich Humane Group cat or dog! I’m very excited to be here!

Mark Woodhall

I am an open-source enthusiast who has worked in a range of technology roles at a variety of companies as a polyglot programmer with experience in Clojure(Script), Java, C#, and JavaScript. It’s really exciting to be working at Crossref as a Senior Software Developer on the Technology team and I’m proud to be part of a team with open source at its heart. I’m really looking forward to getting more involved with event data and building a scalable solution to support its future uses.

Welcome to the Crossref community Martyn, Laura, Sara, and Mark.

Community Outreach in 2020

Vanessa Fairhurst — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

2020 hasn’t been quite what any of us had imagined. The pandemic has meant big adjustments in terms of working; challenges for parents balancing childcare and professional lives; anxieties and tensions we never had before; the strain of potentially being away from co-workers, friends, and family for a prolonged period of time. Many have suffered job losses and around the world, many have sadly lost their lives to the virus.

I’ve been very fortunate that my family and friends remain in good health and very grateful to work for a supportive and caring organisation such as Crossref. I don’t usually work from home every day, so adjusting to the ‘new normal’ these last few months has been difficult at times. I certainly miss seeing my colleagues in the Oxford office day-to-day, and now have a new appreciation for the challenges our remote working members of staff face, particularly when it comes to feeling quite isolated at times. I’ve also learnt about the importance of good communication and building in greater flexibility to projects, especially when you are not able to see people face-to-face.

My role as Outreach Manager is all about people; it often involves organising and attending industry events as well as running our own educational days, which we call our Crossref LIVE events. The global health crisis brought the majority of international travel to an abrupt halt, something the environment may thank us for, but that also requires a dramatic reimagining of how we can effectively and empathetically engage with our members and the wider community.

As our planned in-person events have been postponed, for now, we converted our LIVE events into an online format, which we have so far run in Arabic, Spanish, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese with help from our Ambassadors and technical support team. We have had better attendance and engagement than we ever dreamed, with lots of thoughtful questions and positive feedback. While an online format has its limitations it also brings new opportunities, particularly by enabling us to reach many members who would not be able to attend a physical event. We have more in the works for the rest of the year, so keep a lookout on our webinar and events pages.

We have all had to adapt to new ways of living and working this year, but vital research continues to be done and new content continues to be published. We embrace new ways of engaging with our international membership so we can continue to support them in their roles and in working with our systems, despite the uncertain circumstances we find ourselves in.

Lessons learned:

Online events need to be much shorter than physical ones. Zoom fatigue is real, no one can stay focused for long periods of time at the screen.
Flexibility is key, running events in multiple languages and time-zones make them more accessible for a geographically diverse audience, but also ensuring recordings and other materials are readily available means people can engage with the content in their own time. And they do. Our Spanish LIVE on May 19 saw 335 people attend, and a further 304 (so far) watch the recording in their own time.
Don’t forget to build in time for breaks.
Although it’s impossible to replicate the natural human interaction that occurs at a physical event, an online format can still bring hearts as well as minds together. Break-out rooms, polls, and clever use of chat functionality all help to build engagement and turn a passive audience into active participants.
People love an online quiz.
Partner with others –– an interesting guest speaker can bring a whole new dynamic to your planned content.
Take the opportunity to be a little more experimental. We can’t do business as usual right now, so embrace new ideas and see what works!

Hoping you all stay safe and healthy, and that we can meet again in person in 2021.

Calling all prospective board members

Lucy Ofiesh — Thu, 21 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

English version –– Información en español –– Version Française

The Crossref Nominating Committee is inviting expressions of interest to join the Board of Directors of Crossref for the term starting in 2021. The committee will gather responses from those interested and create the slate of candidates that our membership will vote on in an election in September. Expressions of interest will be due Friday, June 19, 2020.

Setting the strategic direction for the organisation;
Providing financial oversight; and
Approving new policies and services.

As an example, in 2019 the board decided to remove fees for the Crossmark service. This involved a strategic review of the service and its alignment with the mission by the Membership & Fees committee; followed by a review of the financial implications of removing the fee; and ultimately, a vote by the full board to remove the fee starting in 2020.

I’m interested but busy! What is expected of board members?

Starting in 2020, following travel restrictions as a result of COVID-19, the board introduced a plan to convene at least one of the board meetings virtually each year and all committee meetings take place virtually. Most board members sit on at least one Crossref committee. Care is taken to accommodate the wide range of timezones in which our board members live.

Board members are expected to be comfortable assuming the responsibilities listed above and to prepare and participate in board meeting discussions.

About the election

The board is elected through the “one member, one vote” policy wherein every member of Crossref has a single vote to elect representatives to the Crossref board. Board terms are for three years, and this year there are six seats open for election.

The board maintains a balance of seats, with eight seats for smaller publishers and eight seats for larger publishers, in an effort to ensure that the diversity of experiences and perspectives of the publishing community is represented in decisions made at Crossref. This year we will elect two of the larger publisher seats and four of the smaller publisher seats.

The election takes place online and voting will open in September. Election results will be shared at the November board meeting and new members will commence their term in 2021.

About the nominating committee

2020 Nominating Committee:
Melissa Harrison, eLife, Cambridge, UK, committee chair
Scott Delman, ACM, New York, NY
Susan Murray, AJOL, Grahamstown, South Africa
Tanja Niemann, Erudit, Montreal, Canada
Arley Soto, Biteca, Bogotá, Colombia

How to submit an expression of interest

Please click here to submit your expression of interest or contact me with any questions at lofiesh [at] crossref.org.

Versión en español

El Comité de Nominación de Crossref está invitando a expresiones de interés a unirse a la Junta Directiva de Crossref para el período que comienza en 2021. El comité recopilará las respuestas de los interesados y creará la lista de candidatos que nuestra membresía votará en una elección en septiembre. Las expresiones de interés vencen el viernes 19 de junio de 2020.

La función de la junta directiva de Crossref es proporcionar supervisión estratégica y financiera de la organización, así como orientación para el Director Ejecutivo y el equipo de liderazgo del personal, con responsabilidades importantes como:

Establecer la dirección estratégica para la organización;
Proporcionar supervisión financiera; y
Aprobar nuevas políticas y servicios.

La junta es representativa de nuestra base de miembros y guía al equipo de liderazgo del personal sobre las tendencias que afectan las comunicaciones académicas. La junta establece direcciones estratégicas para la organización mientras supervisa los cambios e implementación de políticas. Los miembros de la junta tienen la responsabilidad fiduciaria de garantizar operaciones sólidas. Los miembros de la junta hacen esto asistiendo a las reuniones de la junta, además de unirse a comités de la junta más específicos.

Como ejemplo, en 2019 la junta decidió eliminar las tarifas de servicio de Crossmark. Esto implicó una revisión estratégica del servicio y su alineación con la misión del comité de Membresía y Tarifas; seguido de una revisión de las implicaciones financieras de eliminar la tarifa; y, en última instancia, un voto de la junta completa para retirar la tarifa a partir de 2020.

Los servicios Crossref proporcionan infraestructura central para las comunicaciones académicas. La junta directiva de Crossref ayuda a dar forma al futuro de nuestros servicios y, por extensión, impacta el ecosistema académico más amplio. Estamos buscando miembros de la junta para contribuir con su experiencia y perspectiva.

¡Estoy interesado pero ocupado! ¿Qué se espera de los miembros de la junta?

Los miembros de la junta asisten a tres reuniones cada año que generalmente tienen lugar en marzo, julio y noviembre. Las reuniones se han llevado en una variedad de ubicaciones internacionales y se brinda apoyo para viajes cuando es necesario.

A partir de 2020, después de las restricciones de viaje como resultado de COVID-19, la junta introdujo un plan para convocar al menos una de las reuniones de la junta virtualmente todos los años, y todas las reuniones del comité tienen lugar virtualmente. La mayoría de los miembros de la junta formen parte del menos un comité Crossref. Se tiene cuidado de acomodar la amplia gama de zonas horarias en las que viven los miembros de nuestra junta.

Aunque las expresiones de interés son específicas de un individuo, el asiento elegido para la junta pertenece a la organización miembro. El miembro primario de la junta también nombra a un suplente que puede asistir a las reuniones en caso de que el miembro de la junta principal no pueda.

Se espera que los miembros de la junta se sientan cómodos asumiendo las responsabilidades anteriores y que se preparen y participen en las discusiones de la reunión de la junta.

Las reuniones de la junta se llevarán a cabo en inglés, por lo que los posibles miembros de la junta deben sentirse cómodos leyendo material en inglés y en inglés conversacional.

Sobre las elecciones

La junta se elige mediante la política de “un miembro, un voto” en la que cada miembro de Crossref tiene un voto para elegir representantes en la junta de Crossref. Los términos de la junta son de tres años, y este año hay seis asientos abiertos para la elección

La junta mantiene un equilibrio de asientos, con ocho asientos para editoriales más pequeñas y ocho asientos para editoriales más grandes, en un esfuerzo por garantizar que la diversidad de experiencias y perspectivas de la comunidad editorial esté representada en las decisiones tomadas en Crossref. Este año elegiremos dos de los asientos de editor más grandes y cuatro de los asientos de editor más pequeños.

La elección se realiza en línea y la votación se abrirá en septiembre. Los resultados de las elecciones se compartirán en la reunión de la junta de noviembre y los nuevos miembros comenzarán su mandato en 2021.

Sobre el comité de nominaciones

El comité de nominaciones revisará las expresiones de interés y seleccionará una lista de candidatos para la elección. Esta lista presentada excederá el número total de asientos disponibles. El comité considera declaraciones de interés, tamaño organizacional, geografía, género y experiencia.

Comité de nominaciones 2020:
Melissa Harrison, eLife, Cambridge, UK, committee chair
Scott Delman, ACM, New York, NY
Susan Murray, AJOL, Grahamstown, South Africa
Tanja Niemann, Erudit, Montreal, Canada
Arley Soto, Biteca, Bogotá, Colombia

Cómo presentar una expresión de interés

Por favor haga clic aquí para enviar su expresión de interés o contáctame si tiene alguna pregunta lofiesh [at] crossref.org.

Version Française

Appel à tous les membres potentiels du conseil d’administration

Le comité de nomination de Crossref invite les personnes qui seraient intéressées à se porter candidates pour l’élection au conseil d’administration de Crossref, pour le mandat commençant en 2021. Le comité de nomination rassemblera les réponses des personnes candidates et élaborera une liste des candidats, pour lesquels nos membres pourront voter lors des élections au conseil d’administration, en septembre. Les candidatures doivent être déposées au plus tard le vendredi 19 juin 2020.

Le rôle du conseil d’administration de Crossref est d’opérer une supervision stratégique et financière de l’organisation, et de conseiller le directeur exécutif ainsi que l’équipe de direction du personnel. Les principales responsabilités du conseil d’administration sont les suivantes :

Fixer l’orientation stratégique de l’organisation
Assurer la surveillance financière
Approuver de nouvelles politiques et de nouveaux services

Le conseil d’administration est représentatif de nos adhérents et guide l’équipe de direction du personnel en ce qui concerne les tendances affectant les communications savantes. Le conseil d’administration établit des orientations stratégiques pour l’organisation, tout en assurant le contrôle des changements et de la mise en œuvre des politiques. Les membres du conseil ont la responsabilité fiduciaire d’assurer son bon fonctionnement. Les membres du conseil d’administration s’acquittent de cette responsabilité en assistant aux réunions du conseil d’administration et en participant à des comités, plus spécifiques, du conseil d’administration.

A titre d’exemple, en 2019, le conseil d’administration a décidé de supprimer les frais liés au service Crossmark. Ceci a impliqué un examen stratégique du service et de son alignement avec la mission de Crossref, par le comité des adhésions et frais, puis un examen des implications financières de la suppression des frais, et, finalement, un vote par l’ensemble du conseil d’administration pour supprimer les frais à partir de 2020.

Les services de Crossref fournissent une infrastructure centralisée pour les communications savantes. Le conseil d’administration de Crossref aide à façonner l’avenir de nos services et, par extension, a un impact sur l’écosystème universitaire plus large. Les futurs membres du conseil d’administration sont recherchés particulièrement pour leur expérience et leur point de vue.

Je suis intéressé mais très occupé! Qu’attend-on des administrateurs?

Les membres du conseil d’administration assistent à trois réunions par an qui ont généralement lieu en mars, juillet et novembre. Les réunions se déroulent dans des lieux divers, à l’échelle internationale, et une assistance financière est octroyée, en cas de besoin, pour le voyage.

À partir de 2020, à la suite des restrictions de voyage causées par la COVID-19, le conseil a présenté un plan pour convoquer au moins une des réunions du conseil en téléconférence chaque année, et toutes les réunions des comités auront lieu en téléconférence. La plupart des membres du conseil d’administration siègent à au moins un comité de Crossref. Nous souhaitons préciser que nous prenons soin de prendre en compte le large éventail de fuseaux horaires dans lesquels vivent les membres de notre conseil d’administration.

Bien que les manifestations d’intérêt émanent d’une personne, le siège pourvu au conseil appartient à l’organisation membre dans son ensemble. Le membre titulaire du conseil d’administration nomme également un suppléant, qui pourra assister aux réunions en cas d’empêchement du membre titulaire du siège au conseil d’administration.

Il est attendu que les membres du conseil d’administration puissent dédier aux responsabilités présentées ci-dessus le temps qui leur est raisonnablement dû, ainsi qu’à la préparation et à la participation aux discussions des réunions du conseil.

À propos de l’élection

Le conseil d’administration est élu selon une politique de «un membre, une voix» dans laquelle chaque membre de Crossref dispose d’une seule voix pour élire les représentants au conseil d’administration de Crossref. Le mandat du conseil d’administration est de trois ans et, cette année, six sièges sont à pourvoir lors de des élections de septembre prochain.

Le conseil d’administration maintient un équilibre des sièges, avec huit sièges pour les petits éditeurs et huit sièges pour les grands éditeurs, afin de garantir que la diversité des expériences et des perspectives de la communauté de l’édition soit représentées dans les décisions prises à Crossref. Cette année, sont à pourvoir deux sièges de grands éditeurs et quatre sièges de petits éditeurs.

Le vote aura lieu en ligne et s’ouvrira en septembre. Les résultats de ce scrutin seront communiqués lors de la réunion du conseil d’administration de novembre et les nouveaux membres commenceront leur mandat en 2021.

À propos du comité de nomination

Le comité des candidatures examinera les candidatures et sélectionnera une liste de candidats aux élections. Le nombre de candidats proposés dépassera le nombre total de sièges à pourvoir. Le comité prend en compte les déclarations d’intérêt, la taille de l’organisation, la géographie, le sexe et l’expérience des personnes pour sa sélection.

Comment exprimer une manifestation d’intérêt

Veuillez cliquer ici pour envoyer votre candidature ou contactez-moi pour toute question à lofiesh [at] crossref.org.

Crossing the Rubicon - The case for making chapters visible

Jennifer Kemp — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

To help better support the discovery, sale and analysis of books, Jennifer Kemp from Crossref and Mike Taylor from Digital Science, present seven reasons why publishers should collect chapter-level metadata.

Book publishers should have been in the best possible position to take advantage of the movement of scholarly publishing to the internet. After all, they have behind them an extraordinary legacy of creating and distributing data about books: the metadata that supports discovery, sales and analysis.

Librarianship, and the management of book catalogs at scale took off in the nineteenth century. The Dewey Decimal Classification, the various initiatives of the Library of Congress and the British Library followed. Innovations from the 1960s gave us MARC records and ISBNs. The late 90s produced ONIX, which gave the book industry a tremendous start in migrating online.

However, progress in the decades after appears to have been less dramatic. Some might even argue that this tremendous legacy and wealth of metadata experience has acted as a weight, and has slowed progress. Nowhere is this lack of progress clearer than in the discovery and analysis of book chapters: approximately one-quarter of books published per year has chapter-level metadata, and about two-thirds of books don’t have a persistent and open identifier, ratios that have not significantly changed over the last ten years.

Only one-quarter of scholarly books make chapter level metadata available

The proportion of edited books and monographs with chapter-level data is approximately one-quarter of all books published in the last ten years. Calculating this figure is necessarily approximate, using numbers published in Grimme et al (2019), and based on data and observed trends in both Dimensions and Crossref.

So why the lack of progress?

For many publishers and their vendor partners, with systems geared up to the efficient delivery of title-level information, the case for moving towards chapter-level metadata can seem daunting (and potentially expensive!).

Metadata is necessarily detailed and it’s not the kind of thing most people will dabble in. Practitioners, as in other technical fields, have expertise that others may find difficult to leverage if they don’t know what questions to ask. organisations often find themselves entrenched in outdated approaches to metadata.

Crossref and Metadata 2020 are collaborating to produce arguments why publishers should move from book-level metadata to chapters. They’ve been working with representatives from the scholarly community, including both small and large presses, not-for-profits and university presses.

Here we present 7 reasons why publishers should collect chapter-level metadata:

1. Increased discoverability
Increasingly, we’re seeing students and researchers move away from traditional book catalogs and onto more general purpose tools, that are often optimized for journal content, and which may - inadvertently - exclude books and chapters from search results. Making chapter level data and DOIs available places book content into these new channels at no additional cost, and starts to reduce the dependency on specialist vendors. Discovery is simplified, requiring less familiarity or expertise to find relevant book content.

2. Increased usage
Exposing the contents of books at a more granular level drives more users towards the book content, and increasing usage numbers and (depending on platform and business model) revenue.

3. Matching author expectations
New generations of authors expect their content to be easily discoverable in the platforms they use. Without chapter level data, this content won’t easily be found in Google Scholar, Mendeley or ResearchGate. For younger researchers, for those in certain disciplines or using resources well-suited to it, if the chapter metadata - which in many cases requires either an introductory paragraph or an abstract - is missing, the book may as well not exist.

4. Author exposure
About half of scholarly book publishing is thought to be in the form of collected works: books where two or three editors get credit at the top level, but dozens of authors contribute to the chapters. Without chapter level metadata, these authors – the book authors of tomorrow – get no credit for their efforts.

5. Usage and citations reporting
Having chapters readily available in the modern platforms means that they start to accumulate evidence of sharing and citations from the moment of being published. Where chapter content is available on its own, the lack of associated metadata inhibits this evidence. After all, the DOI is a citation identifier. Evidence of impact is now critical for research evaluation, funding, tenure and promotion, and without this data, an author’s chapter may as well remain unread.

6. Supporting your authors with funding compliance and reporting
Authors are increasingly being mandated by their funders to report back on the status of their books and chapters. And, in the case of Open Books and Open Chapters, the funders and authors are frequently the ultimate clients, who are looking to record and report evidence of both academic or social impact. Making chapter level information and identifiers available will facilitate this evidence gathering, especially for open chapters within otherwise non-open books, and increasingly common phenomena.

7. Understanding the hot topics in your books
Whether you use Altmetric, or one of the other data sources that capture book activity, being able to access the social and media metrics of the chapters in your book gives you an immediate insight into the topics that capture interest at a broader level. Vital information when it comes to planning more books in the space, especially if you’re on the look out for books with trade crossover potential.

With chapter-level data, publishers can summarize their programs and compare how many authors they work with, how many book titles they have and where there might be gaps in subject and authors omitted from the metadata. Does the scholarly record fully reflect each book? If not, there may be a good deal of information that is simply unavailable to the machines that read the metadata and use it in systems throughout scholarly communications.

Fortunately, it’s becoming easier to manage this data. Although traditional book metadata systems don’t always support chapter-level data, they do often permit publishers to register title-level DOIs, and with Crossref encouraging ISBN information alongside the generation of chapter level DOIs, some of the significant challenges have been reduced.

Both Crossref and Metadata 2020 offer best practices that make clear the need for richer metadata. It’s also important to acknowledge the very real barriers to providing robust metadata, whether for book chapters or anything else, which is why having the conversations and being aware of available resources is important. Because, though it may be difficult, the hurdles are often up-front making the decision to invest in better metadata, factoring in associated costs, setting up workflows, etc.

But as we have seen from the previous decades, book publishers and their suppliers are experts in managing substantial amounts of metadata. Just as no-one would argue to roll-back all those advantages, we believe that - once deployed - industry-wide creation and distribution of chapter data would be an advance from which there is no retreat.

REFERENCES

https://riojournal.com/article/38698/

The State of Open Monographs Report

https://longleafservices.org/blog/the-sustainable-history-monograph-pilot/

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/12/07/enriching-metadata-is-marketing/

https://www-ingenta-com.pluma.sjfc.edu/blog-article/five-reasons-chapter-level-metadata-increases-value-academic-books/

Can you help us to launch Distributed Usage Logging?

Kirsty Meddings — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Update: Deadline extended to 23:59 (UTC) 13th March 2020.

Distributed Usage Logging (DUL) allows publishers to capture traditional usage activity related to their content that happens on sites other than their own so they can provide reports of “total usage”, for example to subscribing institutions, regardless of where that usage happens.

We are looking for a consultant to take the lead with DUL outreach, promoting the service and its benefits in order to solicit participation from publishers (receivers) and content-hosting platforms/scholarly collaboration networks (senders).

Crossref provides the infrastructure for DUL. The call for participation is being led by COUNTER and the selected consultant will be representing COUNTER, with additional support from Crossref

If you are interested in this opportunity, please download the request for information (RFI).

The RFI response deadline is 23:59 (UTC) 13 March 2020.

Crossref is 20

Ed Pentz — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It seems like only yesterday…

On January 19th, 2000 a new not-for-profit organisation was registered in New York State. It was called Publishers International Linking Association, Inc but was more commonly referred to as “CrossRef”. This means that Crossref will be 20 years old on January 19th, 2020 so I wanted to mark the occasion with a short post. We are planning more ways to mark our 20th anniversary later this year so keep a lookout.

Crossref becoming a legal entity was the result of developments over the previous few years and the DOI-X pilot in 1999. Moving quickly, the fledgling organisation issued its first news release on February 2nd, 2000 - Crossref Update Journal Reference Linking Service Names Executive Director, Board of Directors, New Members, and a “Go Live” Timetable - announcing the appointment of an Executive Director (me!), that there were 22 members, and a plan for launching the system. From these beginnings, Crossref has grown into one of the most successful examples of sustainable scholarly infrastructure. This is due to the hard work and support of many people and organisations, and an organisational structure and governance and sustainability model that has proven very robust.

Looking back, Crossref has achieved an amazing amount but it certainly wasn’t a forgone conclusion that we would be successful. On our tenth anniversary we wrote an overview of Crossref’s founding and early years The Formation of Crossref: A Short History, which highlights that vision, collaboration, trust and utility all contributed to Crossref’s success. I particularly want to recognize Eric Swanson, from Wiley, and Pieter Bolman, from Academic Press/Harcourt Brace for their critical role in the founding of Crossref and in its early success by providing the vision, bringing everyone together, serving as the first Chair and Treasurer of the organisation, and providing me with support and guidance in Crossref’s early start-up phase.

Our history document notes that Crossref grew more quickly than expected, “By the end of 2003, CrossRef had 300 members with 12 million DOIs assigned, compared to the initial projection of 60 participating publishers and 3 million DOIs assigned.” Looking at the 2010 annual report at the ten year mark, Crossref had 43 million content items, 943 members and 15 staff. Since then, Crossref has continued to grow faster than expected and, in fact, at the start of of 20th year, growth is increasing. Our latest annual report “Crossref Annual Report & Fact File 2018-19” highlights that there we have 111 million content items - an average annual increase of 15%; over 11,500 members with over 180 joining per month - an average annual increase of 112%; and 37 staff - an average annual increase of 7%. Crossref is also financially stable, having generated surpluses every year since 2003 and with no fee increases in 15 years - an effective 30%+ decrease for members.

Some of the most important statistics for me are those around DOI resolutions - humans and machines following persistent DOI links - and metadata dissemination via our open APIs and paid services. In 2010 there were around 470 million DOI resolutions for the entire year - we now see over 400 million resolutions per month. With metadata dissemination in 2010 there were on average about 40 million queries per month and there are now over 600 million per month meaning that huge amounts of metadata are flowing out into the ecosystem and improving persistent linking, discovery, and the research process. Also, very importantly, we are much more global and diverse than we were, with members and users from over 120 countries, representing all disciplines and all types of organisations (societies, commercial publishers, funders, start-ups, universities and other research institutions). And in a big change, the members in the top three fee categories accounted for 36% of revenue in 2019 - down from 56% in 2011, while the bottom three categories accounted for 46% of revenue in 2019 - up from 25% in 2011.

As we noted in our blog post from November 2019, A turning point is a time for reflection, “different people have always wanted different things from us and, since our founding, we have brought together diverse organisations to have discussions—sometimes contentious—to agree on how to help make scholarly communications better. Being inclusive can mean slow progress, but we’ve been able to advance by being flexible, fair, and forward-thinking.” While we’ve been very successful, there is a lot we can do better and it is tricky keeping all our stakeholders happy - but that’s what we’ve always done and we’ll continue to do it by being open, inclusive, collaborative, and willing to change and adapt. The one constant in Crossref’s 20 years has been change. The staff and board will be reviewing Crossref’s strategy in 2020 with the value research report and LIVE19 Amsterdam workshops as input. I’m confident we can continue to play a vital role in the scholarly research ecosystem.

A huge thank you to everyone over the years who has contributed to Crossref’s success - it’s a very long list and includes staff, board members, members, users, supporters, partners, consultants, and many others. Personally, I’m proud and honored to have played a role in Crossref’s success and development over the last 20 years and the best part is that there is more to come.

Keep an eye out for the publication of the outputs from our LIVE19 meeting and further 20th anniversary activities.

Crossref annual report 2019: the fact file

Crossref team — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Fact File: Crossref Annual Report 2019

Crossref’s 2018–19 Annual Report — a figures-first summary of the year. Membership, content registration, retrieval, services, governance, and finances, all laid out as facts rather than narrative. Registered with DOI 10.13003/y8ygwm5.

Strategists

See the shape of the year at a glance. Headline numbers across membership, content registration, retrieval, services, and finances — the year in figures rather than narrative.

Decision-makers

Understand the year’s governance and finances. Board composition, member meetings, fee structure, and the financial position underpinning Crossref’s services in 2018–19.

Practitioners

See what members did with the infrastructure. Registration volumes by record type, retrieval activity, and the practical services members drew on through the year.

What the Fact File covers

Membership — total members, new joiners, breakdown by country and type
Content registration — DOIs registered, by record type, with year-on-year comparison
Retrieval activity — API queries and metadata distribution at scale
Services — Similarity Check, Cited-by, Crossmark, Funder Registry uptake
Governance — board composition, member meetings, working groups
Finances — revenue, expenditure, and the financial position at year end

Read the report

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Metadata 20/20 outcomes: principles, personas and practices for richer open scholarly metadata

Ginny Hendricks — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Metadata 20/20: Principles, personas and practices for richer open scholarly metadata

Metadata 20/20 was an international, community-led initiative bringing together researchers, publishers, librarians, funders, data repositories, and service providers around a shared goal: richer, more connected, more reusable, and more open metadata for all research outputs. The outcomes page collects the full set of deliverables from the initiative’s three phases.

Strategists

Understand why richer metadata is a community problem — and a community opportunity. The principles and use cases that make the case for investing in metadata quality across the scholarly ecosystem.

Decision-makers

Know what good metadata practice looks like for your role. Personas across six stakeholder communities — researchers, publishers, librarians, funders, data repositories, and platforms — clarify what each group needs from metadata and what each can contribute.

Practitioners

Apply the practices, evaluation frameworks, and best practices guidance. Concrete implementation guidance drawn from a multi-stakeholder survey (211 responses from 23 countries), a peer-reviewed literature review, and a 2019 workathon.

What the initiative produced

Metadata principles — aspirational guidelines for improving research communications, discoverability, and reuse across the community
Metadata personas — role-based constructs for six stakeholder communities, identifying what each needs from metadata and how each can contribute
Metadata practices — implementation guidance to help each persona act on the principles
Use cases — real-world challenges and opportunities that illustrate the cost of poor metadata and the value of richer records
Literature review — a peer-reviewed synthesis of the metadata landscape, published in RIO Journal
Multi-stakeholder survey — 211 responses from 23 countries exploring metadata awareness and attitudes (2019)
Evaluation framework — approaches for assessing and improving metadata quality
Workathon proceedings — outputs from the September 2019 community event on metadata change management
Methods paper — documentation of the community-based process used to develop the principles and personas

Explore the outcomes

A Journey of a Crossref Ambassador in Latin America

Arley Soto — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

English version –– Información en español

In this post, Arley Soto shares some experiences about his work as a Crossref ambassador in Latin America.

When I joined as a volunteer Crossref ambassador in 2018, I never imagined that in less than two years, I would have the opportunity to travel to three Latin American cities, visit Toronto, organize the first Crossref LIVE in Spanish and hold webinars in Spanish about Crossref’s services. After almost two years of continuous learning, I think it is worth sharing my experience with the Crossref community for a better understanding of the ambassadors’ role in Latin America and to inspire ambassadors from other parts of the world to write and post their experiences.

Before becoming a Crossref ambassador, I had already been working with Crossref since 2011, when we started to coordinate DOI registration for the Biomédica Journal of the National Health Institute, one of the first journals to implement the DOI in Colombia. During these first years of relations with Crossref, I acquired basic knowledge on membership and the technical aspects of the services the agency offers, including Reference Linking, Content Registration and Crossmark. This close relationship with Crossref enabled us to hold the PKP-Crossref workshop in 2018 with Juan Pablo Alperín and Susan Collins at the Third International Congress of Redalyc Editors at Universidad César Vallejo, city of Trujillo.

In the same year, thanks to the invitation by the State University System (SUE, for the Spanish original) (Bogotá chapter), I had the opportunity to give a presentation on Crossref during the 2018 International Open Access Week held at Universidad Militar Nueva Granada. Around 50 people participated, including members and non-members of Crossref. There, I emphasized the nature of Crossref as a non-profit organisation, based on affiliations and the importance of new members participating in the annual elections organized by Crossref and running to be representatives in the Crossref Board of Directors.

In November 2018, I had the pleasure of participating in the Crossref Meeting in Toronto, thanks to an invitation from the organizers. There, I talked to the representatives of other organisations who are members of Crossref around the world and I also met some of the members of the Crossref team in person. This event was essential for me as an ambassador, because I learned about Crossref’s vision and different projects firsthand, which increased my capacity to explain Crossref’s scope and role in the area of scientific communications. I remember that the booth Crossref provided to answer technical questions was particularly useful. There, Isaac, Shayn and other members of the technical team were always available to resolve specific queries that I had not been able to resolve before myself.

In my second year as an ambassador, I represented Crossref at the Universidad Central del Ecuador (Quito, Ecuador), in a talk with an average of 40 people from different parts of Ecuador. There, I emphasized the technical aspects of the DOI and good practices for its use in academic publications. This talk was held on April 21, 2019, in collaboration with Crossref and BITECA S.A.S., a sponsoring member of Crossref.

In May 2019, with Susan Collins and Vanessa Fairhurst, we organized Crossref LIVE Bogotá, which was not only successful because of the number of attendees from different parts of Colombia and other countries in the region, but also due to the meeting of Latin American ambassadors, where we worked the full morning discussing the priorities and issues of the region with ambassadors from Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Peru. Apart from other issues, at this meeting, it became clear the need to have better resources and support in Spanish for Spanish-speaking members.

Additionally, we helped to review the Spanish translation of the “You are Crossref” booklet, which we printed and distributed at Crossref LIVE Bogotá.

During 2019, I participated in the Introduction to Crossref and Content Registration and Introduction to Reference Linking and Cited-by webinar webinars and held the first webinar in Spanish about the new Metadata Manager tool, always with the ongoing support and assistance of the Crossref team.

And to end the year with a bang, together with Rachael Lammey, we organized the presentation: Open infrastructure and open data for the global metrics community: what can you build? I presented this at the 2Latmetrics: Altmetrics and Open Science in Latin America colloquium on November 4 in the city of Cusco (Peru).

This account of activities is a demonstration of the commitment of Crossref’s ambassadors to transmit the message of the importance of ethically and responsibly sharing, citing and making science visible on the web.

Spanish version

Cuando me vinculé como embajador voluntario de Crossref en 2018, no imaginaba que en menos de dos años tendría la oportunidad de viajar a 3 ciudades en Latinoamérica, conocer Toronto, organizar el primer Crossref LIVE en español y realizar webinars en español sobre los servicios de Crossref. Después de casi dos años de continuo aprendizaje, creo que vale la pena compartir mi experiencia a la comunidad de Crossref para entender mejor el rol de los embajadores en Latinoamérica y para inspirar embajadores de otras regiones del mundo a que escriban y publiquen sus experiencias.

Antes de convertirme en embajador de Crossref ya había trabajado con Crossref desde el año 2011, año en el que empezamos a gestionar DOI para la revista Biomédica del Instituto Nacional de Salud, una de las primeras revistas en implementar DOI en Colombia. Durante esos primeros años de relaciones con Crossref, adquirí un conocimiento básico sobre las membresías y los aspectos técnicos de los servicios que la agencia ofrece, incluyendo el Reference Linking, Content Registration y Crossmark, entre otros. Esta relación estrecha con Crossref favoreció para que en 2018 realizáramos el taller de PKP - Crossref entre Juan Pablo Alperín y Susan Collins en el 3er Congreso Internacional de Editores Redalyc, en la Universidad César Vallejo, ciudad de Trujillo

En ese mismo año, gracias a la invitación realizada por el Sistema Universitario Estatal, SUE (capítulo Bogotá) tuve la oportunidad de hacer una presentación de Crossref en la Semana Internacional de Acceso Abierto 2018, realizado en Universidad Militar Nueva Granada 2018, allí participaron alrededor de 50 personas entre miembros y no miembros de Crossref, aquí hice énfasis en la naturaleza de Crossref como organización sin ánimo de lucro, basada en afiliaciones y la importancia de que los nuevos miembros participen en las votaciones anuales que organiza Crossref y que se postulen para ser representantes en la junta directiva de Crossref.

En noviembre de 2018 tuve el placer de participar en el Crossref Meeting en la ciudad de Toronto, gracias a una invitación de los organizadores. Allí conversé con representantes de otras organizaciones afiliadas a Crossref alrededor del mundo y también conocí en persona a algunos de los integrantes del equipo de Crossref. Este evento fue de vital importancia para mí como embajador ya que conocí de primera mano la visión y los diferentes proyectos que realiza Crossref, lo que aumentó mi capacidad para explicar en mi contexto el alcance y el papel de Crossref en el entorno de la comunicación científica. Recuerdo que fue particularmente útil el kiosco que dispuso Crossref para atender inquietudes técnicas en donde Isaac, Shane y otros miembros del equipo técnico siempre estuvieron dispuestos a solucionar dudas específicas que no había podido resolver antes por mi mismo.

En el segundo año como embajador representé a Crossref en la Universidad Central del Ecuador (Quito, Ecuador), charla a la que asistieron en promedio 40 personas de diversos lugares del Ecuador, allí hice énfasis en los aspectos técnicos del DOI y buenas prácticas de su utilización en publicaciones académicas.. Esta charla tuvo lugar el 21 de abril de 2019 y la realizamos en colaboración con Crossref y BITECA SAS miembro patrocinador en Crossref.

En mayo de 2019 organizamos junto con Susan Collins y Vanessa Fairshuit el Crossref LIVE Bogotá, que no solamente fue exitoso por la cantidad de asistentes de diferentes partes de Colombia y de otros países de la región, sino por la reunión de embajadores de Latinoamérica, donde trabajamos una mañana completa para discutir acerca de las prioridades y temáticas propias de la región con embajadores de Brasil, México, Chile y Perú. Entre otros asuntos, en esta reunión se hizo evidente la necesidad de tener mayores recursos y soporte en Español para los miembros hispanohablantes.

Así mismo contribuimos con la revisión de la traducción al español de la cartilla “Usted es Crossref” que imprimimos y repartimos durante el Crossref LIVE Bogotá.

Durante 2019 participé en los webinars Introduction to Crossref and Content Registration y Introduction to Reference Linking and Cited-by webinar y llevé a cabo el primer Webinar en español sobre la nueva herramienta Metadata Manager, siempre con el acompañamiento y el soporte permanente del equipo de Crossref.

Y para terminar el año de la mejor manera, preparamos junto con Rachael Lammey la ponencia Open infrastructure and open data for the global metrics community: what can you build? Que presenté en el congreso 2Latmetrics: métricas alternativas y ciencia abierta en américa latina el 04 de noviembre en la ciudad de Cusco (Perú).

Este recuento de actividades es una muestra del compromiso de los embajadores de Crossref en transmitir el mensaje de la importancia de compartir, citar y hacer visible la ciencia en la web, de una manera ética y responsable.

A turning point is a time for reflection

Ed Pentz — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref strives for balance. Different people have always wanted different things from us and, since our founding, we have brought together diverse organisations to have discussions—sometimes contentious—to agree on how to help make scholarly communications better. Being inclusive can mean slow progress, but we’ve been able to advance by being flexible, fair, and forward-thinking.

We have been helped by the fact that Crossref’s founding organisations defined a clear purpose in our original certificate of incorporation, which reads:

“To promote the development and cooperative use of new and innovative technologies to speed and facilitate scientific and other scholarly research.”

As Crossref prepares to turn 20 in January 2020, it’s an opportunity to reflect on achievements and highlights from 2018-19 and also ponder the preceding decades. Change is a constant at Crossref but the organisation has never strayed from its initial defined purpose. Our services and value now extend well beyond persistent identifiers and reference linking, and our connected open infrastructure benefits our 11,000+ membership as well as all those involved in scholarly research. This expansion is exactly what was envisioned to meet the goal of “speeding and facilitating” research.

This year’s annual report is different from previous years’; it has been expanded into a ‘fact file’ so that we can invite comments on the path ahead, based on transparent access to data about our membership, activities, and finances. As we were pulling together the charts and tables for this annual report we noticed stark differences in where Crossref is today compared to years past.

The rate of membership growth has accelerated and we now have over 180 new members joining every month, leading to one of the most striking changes we found. The lowest three membership tiers now account for 46% of revenue (up from 25% in 2011) while the highest three tiers account for 36% (down from 56% in 2011).

Today, the typical Crossref member has just a few hundred registered content items.

One way we have been able to accommodate this growth efficiently is by collaborating with sponsors in different countries. Very small members can join via a local sponsor that is able to provide technical, financial, language, and administrative support. We now have more members joining via sponsors, who otherwise would largely not be able to join at all. While you’d need to be a millionaire by US standards to join directly from Indonesia in our lowest fee tier (calculated using Purchasing Power Parity), the sponsor program—supported often by government investment in science and education—has enabled Indonesian organisations to join Crossref in large numbers, supporting their aim to become one of the fastest-growing nations in open research, and to help that research be discovered.

Crossref has repeatedly stayed ahead of developments in the community

In 2007, when the Similarity Check working group discussions and pilot started, there was disagreement on the board about whether Crossref should provide such a service and whether it was a strategic priority for members. By the end of the pilot, when the decision came to launch a production service, it was seen as essential and a top priority. This conclusion has been borne out in recent research into the value of Crossref; Similarity Check is one of the services of most importance to members.

Adding preprints as a record type was controversial at the time. The board discussed the topic of “duplicative works” for about two years with strong opinions on all sides. The working group delivered a good set of policies and technical specifications and in the July 2015 board meeting there was a majority—but not 100%—agreement on the motion to approve. We implemented preprints as a record type just in time to accommodate the snowballing of preprint servers emerging from existing and new members.

Another example of a former—and current—area of contention is the approach to metadata. When Crossref first launched, there were lengthy discussions about what metadata we should collect. The initial focus was on the minimal set of metadata to enable reference matching in support of reference linking. In the beginning, neither article titles, lists of authors, references, nor abstracts were included in the minimal metadata set. We supported them as optional but most members opted out. However, the huge set of metadata that Crossref collects and disseminates now is seen as essential, providing a lot of value for members in terms of discoverability.

Today, Crossref enables metadata retrieval on a large scale—an average of more than 600 million queries per month—through a variety of interfaces, most notably the REST API (Public, Polite, and Plus versions). The metadata is used by thousands of organisations and services—both commercial and not-for-profit—increasing the discoverability of member content. In fact, members of all stripes have long initiated projects to expand the metadata Crossref is able to collect and disseminate: from facilitating text mining (through license and full-text URLs); to enabling better connections with and evidence of contributions (through Funder IDs, ORCID iDs, and soon CRediT roles and ROR IDs).

These are all examples of where Crossref has successfully “promoted the cooperative use of new and innovative technologies” and where we are meeting our mission to make scholarly communications a little bit better. As ever, we need to thank our brilliant staff for their unfailing resilience, balance, and diligence, in these times of dynamic change.

Considering the value and future of Crossref

Research is global, and supporting a diverse global community is a challenge. This year, we conducted our first wide-ranging investigation into what people value from Crossref. This involved telephone interviews with over 40 community members as well as an online survey of 600+ respondents.

The results of the value research are referenced throughout the annual report/fact file and are available online publicly. We will be discussing the insights in various forums and posing some questions, such as:

How should Crossref balance the different dynamics in the community?
Are the right members involved in key decisions?
Are the sustainability model we have and the fees we charge fair?
Which initiatives should be top or bottom priorities?

Director of MIT Press, Amy Brand, recently reflected that Crossref is currently at a crossroads, envisioning that:

“The Crossref of 2040 could be an even more robust, inclusive, and innovative consortium to create and sustain core infrastructures for sharing, preserving, and evaluating research information.”

But only if Crossref is not:

“held back, and its remit circumscribed, by legacy priorities and forces within the industry that may perceive open data and infrastructure as a threat to their own evolving business interests.”

We welcome this public commentary and encourage others in the community to respond and report what value Crossref offers as community-owned infrastructure, and how they’d like to see the organisation evolve.

More than ever, we need to have this discussion with a broad and representative group. So please, read the value research report and the annual report/fact file, and get ready to voice your opinions!

Speaking, Traveling, Listening, Learning

Vanessa Fairhurst — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

2019 has been busy for the Community Outreach Team; our small sub-team travels far and wide, talking to members around the world to learn how we can better support the work they do. We run one-day LIVE local events alongside multi-language webinars, with the addition of a new Community Forum, to better support and communicate with our global membership.

This year we held a publisher workshop in London in collaboration with the British Library in February to talk about all things metadata and Open Access, before heading over to speak to members in Kyiv in March at the National Technical University of Ukraine. June saw our first ever non-English LIVE local event in Bogota held in collaboration with Biteca, and in an action-packed week in July, Rachael Lammey and myself jetted across to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok where we collaborated with Malaysian Ministry of Education, USIM, Chulalongkorn University, iGroup, and ORCID to run two events for our South-East Asian members.

Despite the varied locations, speakers and audiences at these events, some common themes emerged…

Language Matters

We currently work with member organisations in over 125 countries around the world, spanning an even greater number of languages. Whilst, at the moment at least, it is not possible to provide support across all these languages, we are improving support for non-native English speakers. We now have service videos, factsheets, and brochures available in 8 languages including: French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Bahasa Indonesia. As well as expanding our webinars to include a series in Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and Turkish so far.

Our global team of 24 Ambassadors have been key in helping us to provide translated documentation, to run multi-lingual webinars and in-person events, and to answer questions from our members across languages and timezones. Our LIVE local event in Bogota, saw us run our first ever Spanish event with support from our Latin American ambassador team.

I know first hand how daunting public speaking can be, particularly in a second language. As a non-native Spanish speaker, the fear of being misunderstood or mis-pronouncing a word can be paralysing. Members come along to our events with a whole host of questions, sometimes preferring to come and speak to us one-on-one at the break or follow up with us after the event. Everyone has their own preferences, however, being able to communicate in the local language helps to break down barriers and boosts audience participation by taking away these added pressures.

Additionally after running a number of these events, one of the key things we have learnt is how much content to cover in a day. Our LIVE locals are free to attend and open to the whole community. This however can mean that we have a very varied audience in terms of technical know-how and experience of working with our systems. At first we attempted to cover all we could, addressing as many needs, questions and uses of Crossref metadata that we could. However, creating content to please everyone is often a recipe for disaster and information overload. If you start to see your attendee’s eyes glaze over or they start answering emails on their smartphones, you’ve lost them.

Instead we are now going to tailor our events a little more, asking registrants questions in advance, and selecting specific topics to cover. Having a good range of distinct topics and presenters, including local guest speakers, also helps to maintain momentum and avoid audience fatigue. Wider information and conversations will then continue on our Community Forum as well as events being supplemented by webinars in local languages and timezones.

Relationship status: It’s complicated

A question we are often asked when talking to members is how to link distinct content items in the metadata - whether this be a data-set to the published results, a preprint with the version of record, or a translated version of an article with the original. Linking these related research outputs is extremely important; researchers need to be able to cite the correct version of the work they have used in their research. Creating a network of these linkages between scholarly outputs also helps ourselves, our members, and the wider community better track how research is used and developed.

English is by far the most common language used in international academic journals and often is required for publication, however the article can be published in two or more languages, enabling greater discovery and use of the research. A frequent question we get asked is how to register the two versions, whether they use the same DOI or whether each should be assigned its own identifier. Our advice is that each version of the article should have it’s own DOI for citation reasons, but should be linked in the metadata of the translated version as in the xml example below:

However, our schema covers far more relationship types than purely translations. Another interesting area of discussion which has become increasingly prevalent in the last couple of years is around preprints. We began supporting the registration of preprints in November 2016, using their specific record type and enabling linking in the metadata to the version of record, providing a clear publication history for accurate citation. Today we have almost 150k registered in our system.

In Kyiv, we had a request to talk more about data citation; the importance of making data available and persistently linked to. Although data is often shared, it is not routinely referenced in the same way as journal articles or other publications, and this is something we want to encourage. When data is cited it provides clarity and context about the research underpinning the published article, as well as enabling greater discovery and re-use of that data in future research and publications. You can do this in two ways at Crossref, either by including data citations your reference lists, or, again, by using the relations section of the schema. If you want to learn more about the ‘how’ of data citation, we have some useful guidance you can take a look at.

As we are always saying Crossref is all about making connections. Linking research objects by capturing and declaring relationships within your metadata helps to map the evolution of research. Making the distinct parts of the research and publication process accessible by both readers and machines, enables wider discovery, re-use, transparency, accuracy of citations and provides greater acknowledgment of contributors.

Finding Solutions to Resolutions

Reports are rarely the things that get pulses racing (you should probably take a long, hard look at yourself if so) but they are important and can be very useful to make sure your content and the associated metadata is being registered correctly.

We often get questions from members who want to better understand their resolution reports. These are reports generated on a monthly basis for each DOI prefix, sent to the business contact for your organisation, which provide statistics on the resolution rates of your content. So what do we mean by a resolution? Well simply, when a reader clicks on a DOI link for an article, that counts as one DOI resolution. No information is captured about the user or where they are coming from. Although we work to filter out computer-generated usage, the numbers are not a precise measure of human click-throughs to a publishers website - cached articles, search engine crawlers, and traffic directed through a library link resolver can be included in these numbers. However, the reports still provide a good idea of traffic to your publications via the DOI.

Often the part of the report which is of particular interest is the resolution failure rate. Although in an ideal world this would be 0%, realistically 2-3% is the norm. Publishers who are new to Crossref or who have created a small number of DOIs may have a higher failure percentage and this isn’t necessarily a problem (for example, a publisher with 1 failure and 9 successes will have a 10% failure rate). A .csv file containing a list of all failed DOI resolution attempts for the month is attached to each report so that you can review any significant number of failures or any dramatic changes which may indicate a problem that needs to be solved.

Possible reasons for DOI failures:

Bad links - check that your DOI is directing readers to the correct location of your full text or landing page.
Undeposited DOIs - any DOIs that have been distributed or published should be deposited immediately. Simply adding a DOI to your content page will not automatically register this link.
Similarly, if your DOI was deposited mid-month and distributed earlier, any attempts prior to this date will appear as failures on your report.
User error - sometimes users can make mistakes when typing or copy-and-pasting DOIs. To minimize the risk of this keep your DOIs simple and short.

It is also important to make sure you keep the contact details we have on file for your organisation up to date. Otherwise you might miss out on receiving important information about your account. Where it is possible we ask members to submit at least three separate contacts and review this regularly as people often move within and between organisations. We want to keep in touch to give you helpful, essential and interesting information (no spam!)

Get involved

Our next LIVE local event will be held in Oakland, California on 19 September, registration is open and spaces are still available. Alternatively you might want to sign up to one of our interactive Metadata Manager webinars to learn how to use our new content registration tool. Our plans for 2020 are still in the inception phase and we welcome any interest in collaboration, you can contact us at feedback@crossref.org or send us a message on the Community Forum, where you can also keep up to date with our plans as well as giving us your feedback and suggestions. Speaking of feedback and, we have a survey which is trying to collect just that. Please let us know what you value about Crossref (and what you don’t) - we’d love to hear your thoughts.

We'll be rocking your world again at PIDapalooza 2020

Ginny Hendricks — Sun, 18 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The official countdown to PIDapalooza 2020 begins here! It’s 163 days to go till our flame-lighting opening ceremony at the fabulous Belem Cultural Center in Lisbon, Portugal. Your friendly neighborhood PIDapalooza Planning Committee—Helena Cousijn (DataCite), Maria Gould (CDL), Stephanie Harley (ORCID), Alice Meadows (ORCID), and I—are already hard at work making sure it’s the best one so far!

We have a shiny [new website](https://pidapalooza.org), with loads more information than before, including spotify playlists (please add your PID songs to [the 2020 one](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1oJtbpTzF9I3MewQ1Yasml?si=D0TKdR8BTJSL-GA3X_LwVQ)!), an instagram photo gallery, and of course registration information. Look out for updates there and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/pidapalooza).

And, led by Helena, the Program Committee is starting its search for sessions that meet PIDapalooza’s goals of being PID-focused, fun, informative, and interactive. If you’ve a PID story to share, a PID practice to recommend, or a PID technology to launch, the Committee wants to hear from you. Please send them your ideas, using this form, by September 27. We aim to finalize the program by late October/early November.

Don’t forget to tie your proposal into one of the six festival themes:

Theme 1: Putting Principles into Practice

FAIR, Plan S, the 4 Cs; principles are everywhere. Do you have examples of how PIDs helped you put principles into practice? We’d love to hear your story!

Theme 2: PID Communities

We believe PIDs don’t work without community around them. We would like to hear from you about best practice among PID communities so we can learn from each other and spread the word even further!

Theme 3: PID Success Stories

We already know PIDs are great, but which strategies worked? Share your victories! Which strategies failed? Let’s turn these into success stories together!

Theme 4: Achieving Persistence through Sustainability

Persistence is a key part of PIDs, but there can’t be persistence without sustainability. Do you want to share how you sustain your PIDs or how PIDs help you with sustainability?

What would make heterogeneous PID systems ‘interoperate’ optimally? Would standardized metadata and APIs across PID types solve many of the problems, and if so, how would that be achieved? And what about the social aspects? How do we bridge the gaps between different stakeholder groups and communities?

Theme 6: PID Party!

You don’t just learn about PIDs through powerpoints. What about games? Interpretive dance? Get creative and let us know what kind of activity you’d like to organize at PIDapalooza this year!

PIDapalooza: the essentials

What? PIDapalooza 2020 - the open festival of persistent identifiers
When? 29-30 January 2020 (kickoff party the evening of January 28)
Where? Belem Cultural Center, Lisbon, Portugal (map)
Why? To think, talk, live persistent identifiers for two whole days with your fellow PID people, experts, and newcomers alike!

We hope you’re as excited about PIDapalooza 2020 as we are and we look forward to seeing you in Lisbon.

LIVE19, the strategy one: have your say

Ginny Hendricks — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

With a smaller group than usual, we’re dedicating this year’s annual meeting to hear what you value about Crossref. Which initiatives would you put first and/or last? Where would you have us draw the line between mission and ambition? What is “core” for you? How could/should we adapt for the future in order to meet your needs?

Striving for balance

Different people want different things from us. As Aristotle said: “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” As we prepare for our 20th year of operation, please join this unique meeting to help shape the future of Crossref.

There won’t be any plenary talks about trends in scholarly communications, but instead workshop-style activities to help hone our strategy, do some scenario planning, and prioritize goals together, as a community.

Have your say

Whether you can make it in person or not, you can still pitch in by giving us your opinion in advance. We’re gathering broad input on what you think we’re doing well, whether we’re on the right track strategically, and how we can improve. There’s never been such a comprehensive study of what value we offer so we hope to learn a lot and will adjust plans based on the results.

Please take the “Value of Crossref” survey. It’ll take 10-12 minutes.

At the meeting

Please join us at the Tobacco Theater in central Amsterdam on the afternoon of 13th November from 12:30 pm and for the full day of 14th November. The first afternoon will involve some scene-setting talks with key information you’ll need for the following day’s workshops, including the results of the survey above. There will also be some announcements, including who members have voted onto our board (this year’s slate is yet to be communicated), and of course plenty of time for discussion and questions among peers.

In addition to the results of the survey, during the meeting each participant will be furnished with a ‘fact pack’ to reference in their discussions and recommendations. It will include answers to questions like who pays to keep Crossref sustainable?. I’m looking forward to busting some myths on that one! Everyone will be pre-assigned to a particular table/topic (like a wedding!) and will stay in those groups for roundtable discussions. There will be a community facilitator and a staff member on each table. You will be able to mingle more widely in the breaks and the evening drinks reception on the 13th.

Based on this provided data, we’ll be asking participants to think about key questions such as:

Who, ultimately, does Crossref serve?
What should Crossref’s product development priorities be?
What (if anything) would be missed if Crossref went away? (i.e. what’s our central value)
What does ‘community’ really mean and how should Crossref work to better balance opposing priorities?

Research is global, and supporting a diverse global community is a challenge. Come and have your say. Register today.

I can’t wait to see you there and hear your thoughts.

Here’s to year one!

Vanessa Fairhurst — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Our Ambassador Program is now one year old, and we are thrilled at how the first 12 months have gone. In 2018 we welcomed 16 ambassadors to the team, based in Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, UAE, Ukraine, USA, and Venezuela.

Our ambassadors are volunteers with a good knowledge of Crossref and the wider scholarly community, they are well connected and passionate about the work that we do. Participating in the ambassador program is complementary to people’s existing roles and enables those who already work with Crossref to have a mechanism to feed back to us and to provide support for their communities.

We reflected on the successes and challenges of the first 12 months and discovered quite a lot has been achieved so far.

The Ambassador Program better equips me to support researchers to conduct outreach and collaborate in multidisciplinary discovery!

– Woei Fuh Wong, Research 123, Singapore

Within the framework of the Ambassador Crossref program, I ran a seminar, webinar, and held several meetings in Ukrainian scientific organisations.

– Andrii Zolkover, Internauka, Ukraine

In my role as ambassador, I am able to provide a greater level of support in Russian. Alongside translated materials, we have also received over 400 tickets to our Russian electronic support system and made over 300 consultations by phone.

– Maxim Mitrofanov, NEICON, Russia

Being an ambassador has enabled me to increase knowledge of Crossref within my community.

– Edilson Damasio, Department of Mathematics Library of State University of Maringá-UEM, Brazil

The ambassador program has helped in vastly raising the awareness of Crossref and its services all over the world. Based in the Middle East, I see the need in the Arab region to know more about Crossref in their mother tongue (Arabic). The program has proven success and its positive impact is tangible.

– Mohamad Mostafa, Knowledge E, UAE

Highlights

Over the course of 2018, there were a number of big achievements which would not have been possible without the help of our ambassadors.

Due to your feedback, we’re very keen to expand the level of multi-language support we offer our diversifying community. In addition to translating key messages, slide decks, and other educational materials, our ambassadors (and some members - thanks also!) helped us in the production of a series of short videos. We now have videos available for each of the Crossref services in nine languages including English, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesia. You can see in the chart below, that although our English videos have the most views (this is the default language), others have also experienced a lot of visitors, particularly notable are the Chinese and Spanish language videos. This underscores the importance of further support in non-English languages, as our series of multi-lingual webinars also demonstrated.

In 2018 we ran webinars in Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic. Several ambassadors have taken a lead in running these webinars in their local languages with assistance from Crossref staff on producing materials and answering questions on the day. Spanish language webinars saw record numbers of attendees from a range of different countries, and our Russian webinar recordings have been viewed over 200 times. We will be continuing to offer more webinars in different time zones and languages, and the recordings are always available for anyone who can’t attend on the day.

Our ambassadors have also been helping us improve and expand our LIVE local events. Last year we held events in Japan, South Africa, Russia, Germany, Brazil and India. Ambassadors help by providing recommendations on venues, accommodation, guest speakers, or even attending and speaking at the event themselves. Some run their own Crossref events which we can help provide materials and also represent Crossref at related industry events in their region. You may have had the chance to meet some of our ambassadors at our annual event in Toronto last November as well.

As our ambassadors are our representatives, acting as our eyes and ears in the wider community, it is important that they are kept up to date with new developments and have good opportunities to report back to us. The ambassador team has participated in beta-testing of a number of new initiatives including our new Metadata Manager and Participation Reports and our upcoming Community Forum. By providing feedback from their own user perspective and from how they anticipate those in their communities will view and use these tools, it enables us get better insights into how an initiative might work before launching it more widely.

Future Plans

Initial feedback on the program has been overwhelmingly positive, both from the ambassadors themselves and the wider Crossref community, so we’re looking at what we can do to hone the program over time. In 2019 we will be welcoming some more ambassadors to the team to further support our global community. We want to support our ambassadors, so we don’t foresee the group growing to the point where there are too many ambassadors for us to be able to engage with. You can read about the team and where they are based, as well as all about the new ambassadors we have welcomed so far this year, on Our Ambassadors page.

This year our ambassadors will be involved when we launch our online community forum (more to come on that soon). They’re already helping with the task-force that is advising on our new documentation, and we’ll be providing them with further training on Crossref tools and services. We also have more webinars and LIVE locals in the pipeline. Keep an eye on our webinars and events pages for more details as they come.

So a final thank you to our ambassador team - it has been great to work with you over the last year, and we look forward to how we can continue to work together!

Work through your PID problems on the PID Forum

Rachael Lammey — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

As self-confessed PID nerds, we’re big fans of a persistent identifier. However, we’re also conscious that the uptake and use of PIDs isn’t a done deal, and there are things that challenge how broadly these are adopted by the community.

At PIDapalooza (an annual festival of PIDs) in January, ORCID, DataCite and Crossref ran an interactive session to chat about the cool things that PIDs allow us to do, what’s working well and, just as importantly, what isn’t, so that we can find ways to improve and approaches that work.

We titled the session the Yin & Yang of PIDs and challenged attendees to put down on paper (post-its) their thoughts about what’s good about PIDs (the Yin) and what’s not so good (the Yang). Attendees could also upvote other’s comments by adding a smiley face sticker to the concept(s) they supported.

So what came out of the session? Lots of things!

Limits to PID uptake are often more cultural than technical
Yay for auto-update!
Slow adoption of new PID types
Trust issues (I don’t want my information in another system)
“I’m the only Erik, I don’t need an ORCID”
User stories work!

We know we only scratched the surface in the session, but fortunately PIDapalooza also brought a good way to continue the conversation: pidforum.org! The PIDforum was launched at PIDapalooza and is a global discussion platform for all things PID-related. Many PID providers and PID users are already on there, so help us understand more about the yin and yang of PIDs by sharing your own PID problems!

ROR announces the first Org ID prototype

Maria Gould — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

What has hundreds of heads, 91,000 affiliations, and roars like a lion? If you guessed the Research Organization Registry community, you’d be absolutely right!

Last month was a big and busy one for the ROR project team: we released a working API and search interface for the registry, we held our first ROR community meeting, and we showcased the initial prototypes at PIDapalooza in Dublin.

We’re energized by the positive reception and response we’ve received and we wanted to take a moment to share information with the community. Here are the links to our latest work, a recap of everything that happened in Dublin, some of the next steps for the project, and how the community can continue to be involved.

🎉 Ta da! The first ROR prototype

The Research Organization Registry (ROR) is finally here! We’re thrilled to officially announce the launch of our ROR MVR (minimum viable registry). The MVR consists of the following components, which are ready for anyone to use right now.

ROR IDs: Starting with seed data from GRID, ROR has begun assigning unique identifiers to approximately 91,000 organisations in its registry. ROR IDs include a random, unique, and opaque 9-character string and are expressed as URLs that resolve to the organisation’s record. For instance, here is the ROR ID for California Digital Library: https://ror.org/03yrm5c26
Search: We also built a search interface to look up organisations in the registry: https://ror.org/search.

ROR records: ROR IDs are stored with additional metadata about the organisation, such as alternate names/abbreviations, external URLs (e.g., an organisation’s official website), and other identifiers, such as Wikidata, ISNI, and the Open Funder Registry. This metadata will allow ROR to be interoperable with other identifiers and across different systems. The current schema is based on GRID’s dataset and we plan to incorporate other metadata fields over time and according to community needs.

API: The ROR API is now public. You can access the JSON files at https://api.ror.org/organisations.
OpenRefine reconciler: We’ve released an OpenRefine reconciler that can map your internal identifiers to ROR identifiers: https://github.com/ror-community/ror-reconciler.
Documentation: We have begun storing documentation on Github and will be adding more as we go along. Please feel free to follow and contribute: https://github.com/ror-community.

Community meeting recap

On January 22, 60+ representatives from across the research and publishing community gathered in Dublin to see what the ROR project team has been up to, demo the first prototypes in action, and discuss where we want to go next - and, of course, to practice ROR-ing together.

In the second half of the meeting, attendees split into discussion groups to identify specific aspirations for ROR and brainstorm concrete actions needed to achieve these goals, focusing on the main use case of exposing and capturing all research outputs of a given institution. The proposed ideas covered a spectrum of possibilities for ROR, highlighting the following themes:

ROR as seamlessly-integrated and sometimes invisible infrastructure

Integration between and within existing systems (and in new ones!)
Auto-detection of ROR IDs for example in manuscript tracking and funding application platforms
As such, researchers don’t ever have to be responsible for knowing what a ROR is and using it appropriately - the systems they use will do this for them.

ROR as a critical piece of funder workflows and infrastructure

Demonstrate to funders how ROR can help them analyze impact of research they fund
Conduct outreach with key international funders, especially those interested in open infrastructure
Make funders aware of ROR and encourage them to adopt and mandate use of ROR IDs - involve funders at the beginning to collaborate on technology
Integrate ROR with existing systems and identifiers already in use by funders and other stakeholders

ROR as a trusted registry, collaborative partner, and responsible steward

Culturally sensitive, inclusive, and respectful of what countries are already doing with regard to organisational identifiers, partnering with national bodies working on this and mapping ROR IDs to locally used identifiers.
Involve the institutions listed in the registry early on as well as CRIS systems
Interoperability with existing communities and governance bodies
Workflows to support trust and responsible management of organisational metadata, with policies and procedures for long-term curation and maintenance of records

What we’re hearing

Now that the ROR MVR is here, we’re hearing some really good questions about the data we’re capturing, how it can be used, and how we’ll be maintaining the registry going forward. We wanted to take a moment to respond to some of these questions.

What is the criteria for being listed in ROR? What is a “research organisation”?

We define the notion of “research organisation” quite broadly as any organisation that conducts, produces, manages, or touches research. This is in line with ROR’s stated scope, which is to address the affiliation use case and be able to identify which organisations are associated with which research outputs. We use “affiliation” to describe any formal relationship between a researcher and an organisation associated with researchers, including but not limited to their employer, educator, funder, or scholarly society.

Will ROR map organisational hierarchies?

No - ROR is focused on being a top-level registry of organisations so we can address the fundamental affiliation use case, and provide a critical source of metadata that can interoperate with other institutional identifiers.

ROR IDs are cool - what can I do with them?

Now that we have built our MVR, we will be working to incorporate ROR IDs into relevant pieces of the scholarly communication infrastructure. If you are a publisher, funder, metadata provider, research office, or anyone else interested in capturing affiliations, please get in touch with us to discuss how we might coordinate. If you are a developer, you are welcome to start playing around with the API: https://api.ror.org/organisations.

There’s an error in my organisation’s ROR record — can you fix it?

For the time being, please email info@ror.org to request an update to an existing record in ROR or request that a new record be added. We will formalize our data management policies and procedures in the next stage of the project.

What is ROR’s relationship to other organisational identifiers?

For ROR to be useful, it needs to augment the current offerings in a way that is open, trusted, complementary, and collaborative, and not intentionally competitive. We are committed to providing a service that the community finds helpful and not duplicative, and enables as many connections as possible between organisation records across systems.

I have my own dataset of institutional affiliations — can I give it to ROR?

We are always happy to hear about other efforts to capture affiliation data. Please get in touch with us to discuss how we might coordinate.

Can ROR support multiple languages and character sets?

GRID already supports multiple languages and character sets, so by extension ROR will have this enabled as well. Here is one example: https://ror.org/01k4yrm29.

How will ROR handle curation, i.e., updating records if an organisation changes its name or ceases to exist?

The curation and long-term management of records will be a cornerstone of our efforts in 2019 and we hope to release a working set of policies and procedures soon.

What’s next for ROR

Now that we have our MVR, what happens next for ROR? We’re eager to sustain the momentum from January’s stakeholder meeting at the same time we know there are some longer-term plans to put in place, and so we’re looking at both some immediate tasks as well as bigger-picture questions.

Product development

We have a few to-do items on our list following the launch of the MVR to keep everything running smoothly while we develop a comprehensive long-term product roadmap.

Rewrite some of the code for both the API and the OpenRefine reconciler
Address a few bugs in our repos
Provide guidance for troubleshooting issues
Communicate our processes for users to request changes, report bugs, and suggest features

As a reminder, you can access the existing code in Github: https://github.com/ror-community

Policy development

We’ve been emphasizing here and in community conversations that our primary focus now turns to formulating policies and procedures to ensure the successful management of ROR data over the long term. This is something we can’t (and shouldn’t) do on our own — we want to work with community stakeholders to develop the right solutions and establish the right frameworks. We understand the urgency of firming up these policies, but we are also aware that something this important can take time to complete and is not something to rush into lightly.

Community development

To help guide the next stages of the project, we are putting out an open call for participation in the ROR community advisory group. Advisory group members will be involved in giving input on data management, testing out new features, giving feedback on the product roadmap, and discussing ideas for events and outreach. We plan to convene this advisory group through bimonthly calls and asynchronous communication channels through the end of the year. We hope you will consider joining us! Please email info@ror.org if you are interested.

For those who want to stay informed about the project but not necessarily be part of the advisory group, you have other options!

Sign up for our mailing list (via the footer at ror.org)
Join our community on Slack (www.tinyurl.com/ror-community),
Follow us on Twitter (@ResearchOrgs).

You can also always drop us a line at info@ror.org, and let us know if you’d ever like to set up a meeting or conference call to talk about the project in more detail.

Final thoughts

Community engagement has been vital to ROR’s beginnings and will likewise be critically important for the next steps that we take. As both a registry of identifiers and a community of stakeholders involved in building open scholarly infrastructure, ROR depends on guidance and involvement at multiple levels. Thank you for being part of the journey thus far, and for joining us on the road that lies ahead. 🦁

Myth busting in Mumbai

Vanessa Fairhurst — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In December, Crossref’s Head of Metadata, Patricia Feeney and I headed to Mumbai for our first ever LIVE local event in India, held in collaboration with Editage.

Crossref membership in India has escalated in recent years, with a fifth of its 500 members joining in 2017 alone. Around 40% of these new members are smaller organisations who joined through one of the eight sponsors we currently have in the country.

With such a large increase in membership numbers, it seemed timely to visit and meet both our new and longer-standing members face-to-face. Our LIVE local events provide a great opportunity for us to learn what challenges our members in the community face, so we can understand how to best meet their needs. It also gives us a chance to explain in detail how to benefit from the services we offer, as well as keep them informed about any future developments. A special thanks goes to Editage for all their help in organizing, promoting, and running this event with us.

The Mumbai event was held at the Sahara Star hotel and attended by participants from a range of organisations, with varying levels of knowledge about Crossref. Patricia talked about how to register your content and the importance of providing us with accurate and comprehensive metadata. She also introduced our new Metadata Manager tool, which many participants were excited to hear more about. I gave an overview of Crossref services, with a specific focus on Crossmark and Similarity Check. The afternoon session was run by Editage, and featured a session on ‘Helping journals and publishers to get closer to authors’, followed by a lively debate on research integrity. The debate brought up a number of interesting talking points, including how to attract more students into a career in research, issues around malpractice and plagiarism, and how to improve India’s research culture.

The Q&A part of the day highlighted a number of myths about Crossref that I thought would be worth detailing here, as other members may benefit from these explanations.

Myth #1: Crossref is a mark of publisher and content quality

We have a membership application process where we ask for different types of information and make it clear what the Crossref member obligations are. Crossref doesn’t assess the quality of its members’ content or verify members’ publication processes and procedures. It’s not our role or part of our mission to do these things. It’s important to remember that content with a Crossref DOI says nothing about the quality of the content, or that it is peer-reviewed or authoritative.

Myth #2: Crossref archives content

We store the metadata our members provide about a piece of content, not the content itself. Our metadata is openly available across our APIs and search interfaces. The same applies for access to the full-text. A DOI will take you to a landing page for a piece of content, but access to the full-text will depend upon the content owner’s publishing model.

Myth #3: Crossref provides impact factors

On publisher websites, you’ll sometimes see the number of times a paper has been cited in Crossref, Google Scholar, Web of Science, etc. The Crossref citation information is made available to publishers through our Cited-by service, but it is not an impact factor. Cited-by counts are based on the subset of Crossref’s members participating in that service, so they’ll probably differ from other sources. Crossref Cited-by counts are meant to complement other services rather than replace them.

Myth #4: Crossref charges to make updates or corrections to the metadata associated with a DOI

Not true - while you have to pay for your initial registration, any subsequent updates, corrections or additions you make to the metadata of a content item is free of charge (apart from Crossmark metadata). If you’re a member, we actively encourage you to update your metadata to ensure that your records are as comprehensive and accurate as possible. This helps the scholarly community find and use the content you publish.

Myth #5: Crossref charges for failed deposits

Only deposits which are successful will be counted. You will receive an error message if your metadata deposit has failed, so you are aware of any errors and can resubmit. If you’re not sure what has gone wrong, you can contact our support team.

Myth #6: You need to have separate prefixes to register different record/resource types

You can register all your record types under one prefix (and you don’t need to tell us if you start to do so).

Myth #7: DOI resolutions are how many DOIs you have registered

No. When someone clicks on a DOI link for an article, we count that as one DOI resolution. This is different than the number of unique DOIs you have registered with us. We’ll send you a resolution report once a month which provides details of your total number of resolutions, as well as DOIs which have been most frequently clicked, and any resolution failures. These failures can be an indication that you need to update your metadata with us for that particular article to ensure your DOI is directing readers to the correct webpage.

Myth #8: Crossref own the plagiarism software used in Similarity Check

The Similarity Check service is provided in collaboration with Turnitin who run the iThenticate text-comparison tool. The iThenticate database is the largest comparison database of full-text academic content in the world. Similarity Check participants enjoy cost-effective use of iThenticate because they contribute their own published content into Turnitin’s database. Turnitin also provides our members with access to additional features in iThenticate, such as enhanced text-matches within the document viewer and access to a dedicated Similarity Check support team in order to discuss any technical or billing queries.

It’s great to have the opportunity to do some myth-busting! You’re bound to have more questions, so we’ll be running more LIVE locals in 2019, as well as virtual events. To keep updated, follow us @CrossrefOrg, or subscribe to our newsletter.

LIVE18: Roaring attendees, incomplete zebras, and missing tablecloths

Rosa Morais Clark — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Running a smooth event is always the goal, but not always the case! No matter how well managed an event is, there is always a chance that things will not go according to plan. And so it was with LIVE18.

For the first day we were without the tablecloths we had ordered, which actually gave the room quite a nice, but unintentional, ‘rustic’ look. When they finally did arrive the following day, we realized we preferred the rustic look! Some of the merchandise we had prepared ended up sitting in Canadian Customs for a day and a half, which meant they arrived to us halfway through the first day of the event. Luckily attendees were distracted by the very cool ‘I heart metadata’ bags and didn’t seem to notice.

Unfortunately a significant number of registrants also had problems with Canadian regulations: they were denied visas to enter the country. Despite always trying to choose countries with international airport hubs and a welcoming policy, this was an unforseen blow.

But from setting up to take down, LIVE18 was truly a team effort. Even though many Crossref staff had traveled far and wide to get there, they all rallied to help the night before—hauling boxes through the streets of Toronto, stuffing attendee bags, hanging signage, and moving furniture around until 11:30 pm.

Because of these efforts—and despite the glitches—Crossref LIVE18 was a great success.

How good is your metadata?

That was the framing question at Crossref LIVE 18 in Toronto which this year focused on all things metadata. Over the course of the two-day event, we heard from guest speakers on the importance of collaboration, the significance of metadata to metrics, and what good metadata looks like. In our usual lively way, Crossref staff introduced a variety of new services, initiatives, and collaborations.

Crossref LIVE is helping surface key issues in the cleanup of metadata mismatch, after decades of the industry working in silos. I applaud Crossref for doing this. It’s great that we’re considering how to change the way we work and collaborate as an industry to make sure that we don’t run into metadata issues in this way again.

- Keynote speaker, Kristen Ratan, Co-Founder of the Collaborative Knowledge Foundation (Coko)

In her keynote speech, ‘Publishing Infrastructure: The Good, The Bad, and The Expensive’, Coko’s Kristen Ratan challenged the industry to rethink its slow, inefficient, and expensive resignation to infrastructure; and instead consider how a collaborative approach to sharing expertise in developing community-owned infrastructure could be faster, more flexible, and less costly.

View Kristen’s talk, The Good, The Bad, and The Expensive

The collaborations

Collaboration was a running theme at LIVE18. Geoffrey Bilder provided an overview of Crossref’s selective collaborations; DataCite’s Patricia Cruse introduced ROR, the community project to develop an open, sustainable, usable and unique identifier for every research organisation in the world—and she got the crowd really engaged at the beginning of her talk by encouraging us all to ROAR out loud!; Clare Dean and Ravit David sketched out the evolution of Metadata 2020, and Shelley Stall from the AGU introduced the ways they are urging the scientific community to adopt FAIR data principles (using her first data collection as an 11-year-old as an example!)

View Geoffrey’s talk, How Crossref (selectively) collaborates with others
View Patricia’s talk, ROR: The Research Oragnization Registry (Roar!) 🦁
View Clare and Ravit’s talk, Metadata 2020: This talk is sooo meta
View Shelley’s talk, My first data collection: Was it FAIR?

The solutions

Patricia Feeney, in the newly-created role of Head of Metadata, used a zebra to illustrate that not all of a publisher’s metadata is deposited with Crossref.
View Patricia’s talk, I am the boss of your Metadata (this one has the zebras) and also her talk on New resource/record types in the works at Crossref.

New tools

Jennifer Lin introduced Event Data, the new API that Crossref and DataCite have built together, enabling organisations to capture what happens to a DOI, including all of the places it is mentioned and links from/to. She also talked about Participation Reports, the new open dashboard to help members evaluate the completeness of their own metadata deposited with Crossref.

View Jennifer’s talks on Event Data, and Simplifying our services

The community

We also heard from the community. Paul Dlug from the American Physical Society boldly gave his view on ‘Why Crossref sucks’, and, with a view to helping Crossref improve in key areas, surfaced issues that members struggle with. Ed Pentz, Executive Director, provided an overview of the direction that Crossref is headed towards. Ginny Hendricks, Director of Member & Community Outreach, updated everyone on the expanding Crossref community and all the outreach activities her team conducts to engage them. Isaac Farley, new Technical Support Manager in the community team, told of his vision for moving to a more public, open, support model. Lisa Hart, Director of Finance & Operations announcing the results of our members votes in this year’s board election.

View Paul’s talk, Crossref sucks and how to cope!
View Ed’s talk, Our strategic direction
View Ginny’s talk, Expanding our constituencies
View Isaac’s talk, Open Support: From 1:1 to everyone

The perspectives

Guest speakers provided a range of fascinating perspectives from across scholarly communications. Graham Nott, who works with eLife, outlined how they were making their JATS to Crossref schema conversion tool openly available to the community for use. Jodi Schneider, Assistant Professor of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, gave us an in-depth look at problem citations, with a focus on retractions. Bianca Kramer from Utrecht University discussed Crossref metadata use in an open scholarly ecosystem. Stephanie Haustein from the University of Ottawa gave a researcher perspective on the problems with traditional journal metrics, and how they are dependent on metadata, which is essentially flawed. She outlined her efforts to increase metrics literacy, putting metrics in context with comprehensive metadata. Geoffrey Bilder talked about Dominika’s work to evaluate our reference matching, and finally closed the show discussing the role of metadata in creating a provenance infrastructure, providing trustworthiness which is essential to progress the scholarly research cycle.

View Graham’s talk, JATS at eLife
View Jodi’s talk, Trouble at The Academy: Problem Citations
View Bianca’s talk, DOIs for whom? Crossref metadata in an open scholarly ecosystem
View Stephanie’s talk, Good metadata + metrics literacy = better academia
View Geoffrey’s talks on Reference matching, and Metadata as a signal of trust.

As LIVE18 came to a close we took the opportunity to acknowledge and thank everyone once again for helping us reach the milestone of 100 million registered content items this September. Everyone took to the stage and waved their Crossref Bigger Ambitions flags.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the event. Please save the dates for LIVE19 in Europe on 13-14 November, 2019!

Phew - its been quite a year

Ed Pentz — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As the end of the year approaches it’s useful to look back and reflect on what we’ve achieved over the last 12 months—a lot! To be honest, there were some things we didn’t get done—or didn’t make as much progress with as we hoped—but that happens when you have an ambitious agenda. However, we also got some things done that we didn’t expect to or that weren’t even on our radar at the end of 2017—this is inevitable as the research and scholarly communications landscape is rapidly changing.

In my blog post from the beginning of the year, the key projects I highlighted were Metadata Plus, Event Data, organisation IDs, Grant IDs and Metadata 2020, and that richer metadata and more record types were key goals. We did make very good progress on all of these projects as reported below.

For 2018 we were operating in the framework of the four strategic themes, or areas of focus, developed by the board and staff. These are: 1) Simplifying and enriching our services; 2) Improving our metadata; 3) Expanding constituencies, and 4) Selectively collaborating and partnering. These themes will also be guiding us in 2019.

Simplifying and enriching our services

Upgrading our tools

Over the past year, we’ve been busy streamlining our processes, developing new tools and adding new services. A key new tool is Metadata Manager which supports the Content Registration service by offering a simpler, more user-friendly, non-technical way to register and update metadata. It provides lots of context-sensitive help, registers content immediately, in real time, and provides guidance on how to make corrections—thereby ensuring each deposit is successful. Metadata Manager currently supports journal deposits (we would have liked to add more in 2018) but we will be adding other record types in 2019.

Upgrading our services

Crossref metadata has always been open through a number of interfaces without restriction, but this year we introduced an option for extra support and functionality, through Metadata Plus. Metadata Plus provides guaranteed uptime, snapshots of the complete set of metadata and enhanced support for organisations (members or not) that want to use Crossref metadata in their own services and systems.

Improving the member experience: New membership terms

This year we began to redesign the member experience and have made a lot of improvements to the sign-up and onboarding process, the most significant of which is the new click-through membership terms, introduced in July for new members and coming into effect for existing members in March 2019, which is proving to be a huge time saver for both our members and our team.

Improving our metadata

Our objective this year was to better communicate what metadata best practice is, to equip our members with all the data and tools they need to meet this best practice, and to achieve closer cooperation from service providers.

Best practice tools: Participation Reports

Released in Beta in August this year, Participation Reports provides a dashboard that gives a clear picture of the metadata that each member provides. This is a useful visualization of metadata that has long been available via our public REST API. Members can see where the gaps in the metadata are and get information on how to fill those gaps.

Communicating metadata best practice: Data Citations

The importance of linking data with literature can’t be understated. Research integrity and reproducibility depend on it. We’re committed to exposing the links between the literature and the data or software that supports it, and earlier this year we partnered with DataCite to make this a reality. All the data citations coming in from Crossref and DataCite are being pulled into Event Data.

Equipping members with all the data: Event Data

Event Data reached technical readiness. Event Data captures and records “events” such as comments, links, shares, bookmarks, and references. It provides open, transparent, and traceable information about the provenance and context of every event.

Expand constituencies

Crossref currently has 15,000 members in 140 countries. With that comes the need to increasingly and proactively work with emerging markets as they start to share research outputs globally.

Ambassador program

The Crossref Ambassador program launched in January and now has a team of 16 trusted contacts who work within our communities (as librarians, researchers, publishers, and innovators) around the world. They share great enthusiasm and belief in our work. We provide them with training and support, and they help us improve education about global research infrastructure in general and the opportunities that are enabled through richer metadata.

Funders and grant identifiers

I’m very happy to report that the Crossref board approved grants as a new record/resource type to be rolled out in 2019 - we made faster progress on this than expected. The proposal for grant identifiers was developed by staff in collaboration with the Crossref Funder Advisory Group and the Membership and Fees Committee. This means that funders will be joining Crossref and registering a standard set of metadata and a persistence identifier - a DOI - for their grants.

Collaborate and partner

So that our alliances with others have the greatest impact, we have aligned our strategic plans for scholarly infrastructure with others. Some of these alliances are led or driven by Crossref and with others we are involved but not leading.

ROR

We are working with the California Digital Library, DataCite and Digital Science as the Steering group for ROR - the Research Organization Registry - which is a new, community-led project that is developing an open, sustainable, usable, and unique identifier for research organisations based on the work done by the organisation Identifier Working Group in 2017 and 2018.

Metadata 2020

Metadata 2020 is a collaboration that advocates richer, connected, and reusable, open metadata for all research outputs, which will advance scholarly pursuits for the benefit of society. Over 140 volunteers—including publishers, librarians, researchers, platforms/tools, and other stakeholders—from 86 organisations, are working in six project groups. The projects are very strategically focused, looking at key issues like researcher communications, incentives, and shared best practices.

I can’t close off the year without mentioning the incredible milestone we reached this September when the 100th million content item was registered with Crossref. This was made possible by our members’ and the wider community’s commitment and contribution, so once again, thank you.

Roll on 2019!

Ten more days 'til Toronto

Ginny Hendricks — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Our LIVE Annual Meeting is back in North America for the first time since 2015, and with just 10 days to go, there’s a lot going on in preparation. As you’d expect with a How good is your metadata? theme—the two-days will be entirely devoted to the subject of metadata—because it touches everything we do, and everything that publishers, hosting platforms, funders, researchers, and librarians do. Oh, and it’s actually super awesome too—and occasionally fun.

Metadata is what is used to describe the story of research: its origin, its contributors, its attention, and its relationships with other objects. The more machines start to do what humans cannot—parse millions of files through multiple views—the more we see what connections are missing, and the more we start to understand the opportunities that better metadata could offer.

We love metadata so much that we’re producing an 8-foot-high depiction of the ‘perfect’ record, in both XML and JSON, for people to gape at and annotate in person. Sneak preview:

The perfect metadata record is eight feet tall. SchemaSchemer

Both days feature plenary-style talks, insights from ourselves and guests who will regale us with tales of metadata woes and wonders.

Lisa will be there at the end of Day 1 to update everyone on some recent and potential governance changes, and—the reason we started these gatherings—to reveal the results of our 2018 board election, the second contested election we’ve held, and already with twice the voters from 2017.

Our amazing guest speakers are too brilliant and too experienced to highlight in just one blog. But check out the LIVE18 schedule to see what they’ll be talking about:

Patricia Cruse, DataCite
Ravit David, University of Toronto
Clare Dean, Metadata 2020
Paul Dlug, American Physical Society
Kristen Fisher Ratan, CoKo Foundation

Stefanie Haustein, University of Ottawa
Bianca Kramer, Utrecht University
Graham Nott, Freelance developer (eLife/JATS)
Jodi Schneider, University of Urbana-Champaign
Shelley Stall, American Geophysical Union

We’ll be taking over the entire second floor of the Toronto Reference Library, whose three rooms will house a bunch of conversational sessions as well as some more formal talks:

Rally is the main room where we’ll have the plenary-style talks, a corner for Unscheduled Maintenance offering live support for your questions about billing or tech for Ryan, Shayn, Isaac, Jason, Chuck, & Mike. Running down the whole left side of this room is also the You-are-Crossref wall where the community will showcase their work with metadata through posters - feel free to bring one along and find Patricia to get the sticky tack.
The LIVE Lounge is where you can eat, drink, rest, and chat and where you’ll likely find Rosa as she laises between the caterers, the venue, AV, and all of us. The Lounge is also where we’ll gather for much-needed post-election refreshments at the end of Tuesday.
The Bigger Ambitions Room is where a lot of the Unplugged sessions will take place. This room will feature three separate stations:
- R&D & Product where you can chat with Geoffrey, Esha, Jennifer L, Patrick, and Christine about your big ideas for us, and what we’re working on already.
- Metadata discussions and annotations of the perfect record (previewed above) with Patricia, together with space to ideate around metadata principles.
- Uses and users of metadata where Jennifer K will help us understand just how far Crossref metadata can reach, and who and what people are doing with it.

We cannot wait to show you what else we have planned :-)

For those of you not able to attend, recordings of the presentations will be made available on the event page directly soon after.

Otherwise - see you there!

Crossref LIVE Brazil evoked vibrant Q&A session

Susan Collins — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

There has been a steady increase in the growth of our membership in Latin America—and in Brazil in particular—over the past few years. We currently have more than 800 Brazil-based members; some as individual members, but most are sponsored by another organisation. As part of our LIVE Local program Chuck Koscher and I traveled to meet some of these members in Goiânia and Fortaleza, where we co-hosted events with Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos do Brasil (ABEC Brasil)—one of our largest Sponsors.

These events always provide a great opportunity for us to update our members on new and upcoming Crossref developments. They are also an important way for us to discover more about the varied needs of our members’ communities and learn how we can work together better.

The LIVE Brazil events were attended by more than two hundred members and were held at the Universidade Federal de Goiás and the Universidade de Fortaleza respectively. Chuck and I enthusiastically demonstrated two new tools from Crossref— Participation Reports and Metadata Manager, we discussed our newest record types—preprints and peer review reports, and continually highlighted the importance (and the uses) of quality metadata.

We were joined by some fantastic guest speakers; Milton Shintaku from ABEC explained how to register content using the Crossref/OJS deposit plugin and Crossref ambassador, Edilson Damasio, spoke about Similarity Check and gave a demonstration of how to use the iThenticate interface when checking papers for originality.

The vibrant Q&A sessions reflected the varying needs of the audience. We talked generally about the different Crossref services and went more in-depth with discussions around submitting relationship metadata for peer review and preprints. Crossmark and its implementation was also a hot topic, as was how to benefit from Similarity Check—and in particular how to address cases of duplication in submitted manuscripts, and the setting up of plagiarism policies for each journal. There was also a lot of discussion around OJS integrations, and we were able to share that PKP/OJS is currently in the process of enhancing the Crossref/OJS integration, including the ability for publishers to deposit references.

We were also pleased to see so much interest in supplementing Crossref metadata with references, Similarity Check URLs, license information, etc. To address this we’re running a webinar in Brazilian Portuguese entitled: “Registering content and adding to your Crossref metadata in Portuguese” on 26th November. You can sign up here if you’d like to attend.

I’d like to thank Universidade Federal de Goiás and the Universidade de Fortaleza for hosting the events, providing the venues and the translation team, and of course, thanks to everyone who came!

A special mention of ABEC for their help in organizing and promoting the events. As a Sponsor, they relieve our team of an intense amount of technical support, billing, and other administrative burdens, saving us time and expense, while offering a localized service to Brazilian publishers.

Crossref staff with co-hosts ABEC and representatives from UFG who helped with the event - thank you!

It’s not about the money, money, money.

Amy Bosworth — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

But actually, sometimes it is about the money. As a not-for-profit membership organisation that is obsessed with persistence, we have a duty to remain sustainable and manage our finances in a responsible way. Our annual audit is incredibly thorough, and our outside auditors and Board-based Audit committee consistently report that we’re in good shape.

Our Membership & Fees committee regularly reviews both membership fees and Content Registration fees for a growing range of research outputs. Together with our staff, the Board regularly reviews financial projections that inform our budgeting process and approve our budget each year.

Financial sustainability means the persistence of our infrastructure and services

We run a tight ship here at Crossref. We have to. So it’s not ideal when we have to chase members and users for late payments, but it’s an important part of keeping the organisation afloat, and keeping our dedicated service to scholarly communications running. And that’s my job at Crossref.

Working here for over six years now, I’ve seen a lot of development in our finance department. We strive as a team to always improve our communication with members and users to deliver the best ‘customer’ experience. To do this, we are always tweaking our processes to improve efficiency and accuracy, and welcome all feedback.

How the invoice schedule works

Our annual membership invoices are sent out each January, and our Content Registration invoices are generated four times a year, each quarter. All invoices are emailed to the billing contact for your organisation (please be sure to update us with any contact changes!) and have a due date of net 45 days. Our invoices now have a “pay now” link in the body of the email. This offers a faster and more convenient way for you to pay, simply by clicking on the link to our payment portal. You can also view invoices as PDFs in the payment portal. An important part of our accounting process is the automated invoice reminder schedule. There are three billing reminders we send by email:

The day immediately after the invoice due date;
21 days past the invoice due date; and
45 days past the invoice due date.

We don’t want to see you go!

We understand there are many factors that can make prompt payment a challenge for some people: international transfer delays or fees; funding for your publishing operations may end; change of contacts; problems receiving our emails.

When an account is 90 days past due, a further email notifies you that your service is at risk of suspension. If an account is then suspended for non-payment it becomes at risk of being ‘terminated’. Once an account has been terminated, you will need to contact our membership specialist to rejoin Crossref. Please note that we send numerous notifications/reminders before suspension or termination takes place (we don’t want to see you go!). We can always be reached at billing@crossref.org for any invoice inquiries you may have.

Tips that work for other users

There are some things you can do to speed-up or simplify payments:

Pay with a credit card, using our online payment portal. This is fast, convenient, and lower in fees
Always reference an invoice number on the payment to ensure that it’s applied to your account efficiently
Be sure to make billing@crossref.org a ‘safe’ email address, so that you receive our invoices and reminders
Always keep us up-to-date with any contact changes at your organisation, to ensure that we have accurate information for invoicing and other communication
We recommend giving us a generic email address for your accounts payable team, such as accounts@publisher.com so that if somebody leaves that job, invoices can still get through.

Thanks for working with us! Please let me know in the comments below if you have any feedback or additional tips for your fellow Crossref community members.

A wrap up of the Crossref blog series for SciELO

Christine Cormack Wood — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref member SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), based in Brazil, celebrated two decades of operation last week with a three-day event The SciELO 20 Years Conference.

The celebration constituted an important landmark in SciELO’s evolution, and an exceptional moment for them to promote the advancement of an inclusive, global approach to scholarly communication and to the open access movement.

As part of the anniversary activities SciELO asked us to write a series of five blogs that would help the organisations of Brazil to better understand the following:

Why all articles should have a DOI
The critical role of the DOI
The basics of record types, translations, preprints, Crossmark, and more
The basics of Crossref sponsorship, and
How to make the most of your Crossref membership

Below you’ll find an abstract of each of these blog posts as well as a link to the published posts in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Why all articles should have a DOI
In today’s world, an author’s work needs a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for it to become discoverable, citable, and linkable. This unique alphanumeric string identifies the content of a research work, and remains associated with it irrespective of changes to its web location. Discover the origins of the DOI, how Crossref was founded, and why they continue to exist and persist.

Read the full blog in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, or English

The critical role of the DOI
Find out why URL links to research articles are fragile, and how DOIs are essential in building stable, persistent links between research objects. This is achieved through the metadata that members deposit with Crossref, as part of their obligations. Learn how we can all contribute to creating a global, robust research record.

Read the full blog in Spanish or English

The basics of record types: Preprints, Crossmark, translations, and more
What’s the difference between preprints and ahead of print? When should you use each; and, what are the DOI requirements? This article answers those questions and provides a basic overview of how to connect the metadata records of related record types, like translations.

Read the full blog in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, or English

The basics of Crossref sponsorship
There are many organisations that want to register content and benefit from the services Crossref provides, but may not be able to do so alone. These organisations use sponsors. Sponsors are organisations who publish on behalf of groups of smaller organisations. Nearly 650 of our 800 Brazilian members are represented by such a sponsor.

Read the full blog in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, or English

How to make the most of your Crossref membership
Since Crossref was founded in 2000, its member organisations have registered metadata and persistent identifiers (DOIs) for over 100 million content items. This information is used extensively by the research community—individuals and organisations—who need to find, cite, link and assess research outputs. As a SciELO member, the metadata you provide to Crossref when you register content is key to the discoverability of your journal content.

Read the full blog in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, or English

Join us in Toronto this November for LIVE18

Christine Cormack Wood — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

LIVE18, your Crossref annual meeting, is fast approaching! We’re looking forward to welcoming everyone in Toronto, November 13-14.

This year’s theme “How good is your metadata?” centers around the definition and benefits of metadata completeness, and each half day will cover some element of the theme:

Day one, AM Defining good metadata
Day one, PM Improving metadata quality and completeness
Day two, AM What does good metadata enable?
Day two, PM Who is using our metadata and what are they doing with it?

Both days will be packed with a mixture of plenary and interactive sessions. Speakers include:

Patricia Cruse, DataCite
Kristen Fisher Ratan, CoKo Foundation
Stefanie Haustein, University of Ottawa
Bianca Kramer, Utrecht University
Shelley Stall, American Geophysical Union
Ravit David, University of Toronto Libraries
Graham Nott, Freelance developer of an eLife JATS conversion tool
Paul Dlug, American Physical Society

A ‘meet and mingle’ drinks reception will be held directly after the election results on day one.

About the theme—how good is your metadata?

The reach and usefulness of research outputs are only as good as how well they are described. Metadata is what is used to describe the story of research: its origin, its contributors, its attention, and its relationship with other objects.

The more machines start to do what humans cannot—parse millions of files through multiple views—the more we see what connections are missing, the more we start to understand the opportunities that better metadata can offer.

LIVE18 will focus this year entirely on the subject of metadata. It touches everything we do, and everything that publishers, hosting platforms, funders, researchers, and libraries do.

Come and join the discussions

Register to join us this 13 and 14 November, at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, Toronto, Canada—we look forward to seeing you there.

Crossref at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2018

Amanda Bartell — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

How good is your metadata? Find out at the Frankfurt Book Fair…

At the Frankfurt Book Fair this year (Hall 4.2, Stand M82), the Crossref team will be on hand to give you a personal tour of our new Participation Reports tool. Or join us at The Education Stage to hear about how this new tool can help you view, evaluate and improve your metadata participation.

How good is your metadata? Join us Thursday 11th October at 15.30 at the Education Stage in Hall 4.2 to find out

Lots of reasons to visit our stand

We’ll be located in the same place as last year, Hall 4.2, Stand M82, and there are lots of reasons to visit us:

Get your metadata participation evaluated - Anna Tolwinska and Amanda Bartell will walk you through your own Participation Report and provide guidance on how to improve your results. Discover how complete your metadata is, where the gaps are, and how other publishers compare.

Discuss a technical issue that’s hindering your metadata participation (or any other technical issue) with Isaac Farley and Paul Davis from our Technical Support team.

Jennifer Kemp will also be around to answer all your metadata use and reuse questions. She’s looking forward to chatting with all kinds of service providers and toolmakers.

On the strategy side, Ginny Hendricks will be there on Wednesday 10th if you’d like to discuss any policy stuff, new ideas, or find out what Crossref is planning next.

Ask us anything

Not just Participation Reports—you can ask us about anything. Perhaps about our newer record types such as preprints, pending publications (i.e. DOIs on acceptance), or data citations. Or, ask us how you can:

Advance scholarly pursuits for the benefit of society, through Metadata 2020
Check papers for originality, with our service for editorial rigour, through Similarity Check
Discover where and how research is being discovered, through Event Data
Reveal who is citing your published papers and how platforms can display this information, with our Cited-by service
Provide evidence of trust in published outputs, revealing updates, corrections and retractions, through our Crossmark service

Let us know if you’d like to book in a meeting with one of us, or do just stop by the stand to say “Guten Tag”.

We look forward to seeing you there - bis dann!

Presenting PIDapalooza 2019

Christine Cormack Wood — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

PIDapalooza, the open festival of persistent identifiers is back and it’s better than ever. Mark your calendar for Dublin, Ireland, January 23-24, 2019 and send us your session ideas by September 21.

Yes, it’s back and – with your support – it’s going to be better than ever! The third annual PIDapalooza open festival of persistent identifiers will take place at the Griffith Conference Centre, Dublin, Ireland on January 23-24, 2019 - and we hope you’ll join us there!

Hosted, once again, by California Digital Library, Crossref, DataCite, and ORCID, PIDapalooza will follow the same format as past events – rapid-fire, interactive, 30-60 minute sessions (presentations, discussions, debates, brainstorms, etc.) presented on three stages – plus main stage attractions, which will be announced shortly. New for this year is an unconference track, as suggested by several attendees last time.

In the meantime, get those creative juices flowing and send us your session PIDeas! What would you like to talk about? Hear about? Learn about? What’s important for your organisation and your community and why? What’s working and what’s not? What’s needed and what’s missing? We want to hear from as many PID people as possible! Please use this form to send us your suggestions. The PIDapalooza Festival Committee will review all forms submitted by September 21, 2018 and decide on the lineup by mid-October.

As a reminder, the regular themes are:

PID myths: Are PIDs better in our minds than in reality? PID stands for Persistent IDentifier, but what does that mean and does such a thing exist?
PIDs forever - achieving persistence: So many factors affect persistence: mission, oversight, funding, succession, redundancy, governance. Is open infrastructure for scholarly communication the key to achieving persistence?
PIDs for emerging uses: Long-term identifiers are no longer just for digital objects. We have use cases for people, organisations, vocabulary terms, and more. What additional use cases are you working on?
Legacy PIDs: There are of thousands of venerable old identifier systems that people want to continue using and bring into the modern data citation ecosystem. How can we manage this effectively?
Bridging worlds: What would make heterogeneous PID systems ‘interoperate’ optimally? Would standardized metadata and APIs across PID types solve many of the problems, and if so, how would that be achieved? What about standardized link/relation types?
PIDagogy: It’s a challenge for those who provide PID services and tools to engage the wider community. How do you teach, learn, persuade, discuss, and improve adoption? What’s it mean to build a pedagogy for PIDs?
PID stories: Which strategies worked? Which strategies failed? Tell us your horror stories! Share your victories!
Kinds of persistence: What are the frontiers of ‘persistence’? We hear lots about fraud prevention with identifiers for scientific reproducibility, but what about data papers promoting PIDs for long-term access to reliably improving objects (software, pre-prints, datasets) or live data feeds?

We’ll be posting more information on the PIDapalooza website over the coming months, as well as keeping you updated on Twitter (@pidaplooza).

In the meantime, what are you waiting for!? Book your place now – and we also strongly recommend that you book your accommodation early as there are other big conferences in Dublin that week.

PIDapalooza, Dublin, Ireland, January 23-24, 2019 - it’s a date!

Org ID: a recap and a hint of things to come

John Chodacki — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Cross-posted on the blogs of University of California (UC3), ORCID, and DataCite: https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.5438/67sj-4y05.

Over the past couple of years, a group of organisations with a shared purpose—California Digital Library, Crossref, DataCite, and ORCID—invested our time and energy into launching the Org ID initiative, with the goal of defining requirements for an open, community-led organisation identifier registry. The goal of our initiative has been to offer a transparent, accessible process that builds a better system for all of our communities. As the working group chair, I wanted to provide an update on this initiative and let you know where our efforts are headed.

Community-led effort

First, I would like to summarize all of the work that has gone into this project, a truly community-driven initiative, over the last two years:

A series of collaborative workshops were held at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) meeting in San Antonio TX (2016), the FORCE11 conference in Portland OR (2016), and at PIDapalooza in Reykjavik (2016).
Findings from these workshops were summarized in three documents, which we made openly available to the community for public comment:
organisation Identifier Project: A Way Forward (PDF)
organisation Identifier Provider Landscape (PDF)
Technical Considerations for an organisation Identifier Registry (PDF)
A Working Group worked throughout 2017 and voted to approve a set of recommendations and principles for ‘governance’ and ‘product’:
Governance Recommendations
Product Principles and Recommendations
We then put out a Request for Information that sought expressions of interest from organisations to be involved in implementing and running an organisation identifier registry.
There was a really good response to the RFI; reviewing the responses and thinking about next steps led to our most recent stakeholder meeting in Girona in January 2018, where ORCID, DataCite, and Crossref were tasked with drafting a proposal that meets the Working Group’s requirements for a community-led, organisational identifier registry.

Thank you

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to this effort so far. We’ve been able to make good progress with the initiative because of the time and expertise many of you have volunteered. We have truly benefited from the support of the community, with representatives from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; American Physical Society, California Digital Library, Cornell University, Crossref, DataCite, Digital Science, Editeur, Elsevier, Foundation for Earth Sciences, Hindawi, Jisc, ORCID, Ringgold, Springer Nature, The IP Registry, and U.S. Geological Survey involved throughout this initiative. And we couldn’t have done any of it without the help and guidance of our consultants, Helen Szigeti and Kristen Ratan.

The way forward

The recommendations from our initiative have been converted into a concrete plan for building a registry for research organisations. This plan will be posted in the coming weeks.

The initiative’s leadership group has already secured start-up resourcing and is getting ready to announce the launch plan—more details coming soon.

We hope that all stakeholders will continue to support the next phase of our work – look for announcements in the coming weeks about how to get involved.

As always, we welcome your feedback and involvement as this effort continues. Please contact me directly with any questions or comments at john.chodacki@ucop.edu. And thanks again for your help bringing an open organisation identifier registry to fruition!

References

Bilder, G., Brown, J., & Demeranville, T. (2016). Organisation identifiers: current provider survey. ORCID. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.5438/4716

Cruse, P., Haak, L., & Pentz, E. (2016). organisation Identifier Project: A Way Forward. ORCID. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.5438/2906

Fenner, M., Paglione, L., Demeranville, T., & Bilder, G. (2016). Technical Considerations for an organisation Identifier Registry. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.5438/7885

Laurel, H., Bilder, G., Brown, C., Cruse, P., Devenport, T., Fenner, M., … Smith, A. (2017). ORG ID WG Product Principles and Recommendations. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.23640/07243.5402047

Laurel, H., Pentz, E., Cruse, P., & Chodacki, J. (2017). organisation Identifier Project: Request for Information. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.23640/07243.5458162

Pentz, E., Cruse, P., Laurel, H., & Warner, S. (2017). ORG ID WG Governance Principles and Recommendations. https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.23640/07243.5402002

Crossref LIVE and local (to you)

Vanessa Fairhurst — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The last few months have been busy for the Crossref community outreach team. We’ve been out and about from Cape Town to Ulyanovsk—and many places in between—talking at ‘LIVE locals’ to members about all things metadata. Our LIVE locals are one-day events, held around the world—but local to you—that provide both deeper insight into Crossref, and information on our services and how to benefit from them. These events are always free to attend, and whether you are a long-established member, totally new, or not even a member at all, we welcome you all to join us.

At our most recent events we collaborated with some fantastic organisations and welcomed attendees from a variety of backgrounds including editors, publishers, service providers, researchers and other metadata users.

South Africa

In April Chuck Koscher, Director of Technology, and I travelled to South Africa for two LIVE locals, one in Pretoria and the other in Cape Town—and both in collaboration with the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). ASSAf also provided two excellent speakers, Nadine Wubbeling (ASSAf) and Pierre de Villiers (AOSIS), who shared their experiences with Crossref and presented valuable insights into the work that they do.

Delivering events for a varied audience like this means there are often differing levels of knowledge and experience. So, to make sure everyone benefited from our sessions, we covered the different ways you can work with the Crossref deposit system as an XML pro, or an absolute beginner. This included a live demonstration of our new deposit tool Metadata Manager (currently in beta) which should help those less technically-minded people (like myself), and be a big improvement upon our current web deposit form.

|||

The day ended with a technical session, where attendees discussed specific issues they needed help with, which mainly focussed on retrieving metadata in the Crossref system, interpreting reports, and support with XML.

Images left to right: Dr. Pierre de Villiers talks about the Crossref Experience at AOSIS, and the stunning scenery of Table Mountain provided a nice backdrop to our Cape Town event.

Russia

Just back from a few days in Russia 🇷🇺. We ran a @CrossrefOrg LIVE local in Ulyanovsk for 60 editors, made plans to do more education and outreach in the region and caught a #FifaWorldCup2018 game... pic.twitter.com/GSdNEujJXa
— Rachael Lammey (@rachaellammey) June 22, 2018

The World Cup wasn’t the only big event in Russia last month. That’s right, we were there too—with our very first Russian LIVE local! On the 19th June, 60 attendees from a range of academic and publishing institutions joined us at The Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University. Rachael Lammey and I introduced Crossref, the role of identifiers, and how to register different resource types with us. We also discussed the use and importance of providing accurate and comprehensive metadata, and shared some interesting use cases.

Guest speaker Professor Zinaida Kuznetsova talked about her experiences of working with Crossref and the benefits of being a member. This was complimented by a talk by fellow guest speaker Maxim Mitrofanov from Crossref sponsoring organisation, NEICON. Maxim explained how NEICON works with Crossref, and provide services for the smaller members they support. Maxim is also one of our Crossref Ambassadors - and he will be running more Russian webinars on our services in the near future, so look out for those listed on our webinar page!

We’d like to say a big thank you to the team at Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University for their support and help with the event. Also thanks to our fantastic interpreters who helped us immensely by relaying the information to the audience in Russian, as well as helping to translate and answer questions.

Germany

Najko Jahn from Göttingen State and University Library talks about how he uses @CrossrefOrg metadata in his work #CRLIVEGermany pic.twitter.com/Y89ZkBMoSh
— Vanessa Fairhurst (@NessaFairhurst) June 27, 2018

One week later and we were in Hannover, Germany. Crossref’s Laura Wilkinson, Joe Wass and Jennifer Kemp joined me for this event, which was held in collaboration with the German National Library of Science and Technology (Technische Informationsbibliothek - TIB at their impressive venue in on the 27th June.

The day focused on all things metadata - how it can be used and why good metadata is important. This included taking a look at our new Participation Reports tool and a fascinating talk from guest speaker Najko Jahn from Göttingen State and University Library on the benefits of using Crossref metadata for libraries and scientists.

Datacite’s Britta Dreyer also spoke about how DataCite and Crossref support research data sharing, before Joe Wass and I presented updates to the collaborative Org ID project and Event Data service. The day concluded with us sharing more ways to participate in Crossref and other community initiatives.

Questions? Вопросов? Fragen?

Over the course of these events we were asked many questions—and here are some of the more interesting/common ones posed to the team:

Q. Do I have to join Crossref directly, or can I join as part of a group of smaller organisations?
A. You don’t have to be a direct member, you can join via a Sponsor. See our sponsors page for a list of Sponsors in your area, and for more information on becoming a Sponsor.

Q. Can I link translations of works together?
A. Yes, a journal article published in two languages can each be assigned its own DOI, and then linked in the metadata using the relationship type TranslationOf from our schema.

Q. Does the web deposit form support depositing abstracts and references?
A. No, it doesn’t. However, our new Metadata Manager tool does and if you are in interested in trying it out in beta, let us know.

Q. Can I share your new Participation Report tool with my colleagues?
A. Yes you can! It’s open and available for use, just come along and search for a member.

Q. Can I also register book chapters, dissertations and other record types under the same prefix?
A. Yes you can. You can register any of the different resource types we support under one prefix.

Q. Will you be doing more events in this region in future?
A. We hope so, and we are always happy to hear from those who wish to collaborate on future events, so just contact us to get involved.

Status, I am new

Isaac Farley — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, I’m Isaac. I’m new here. What better way to get to know me than through a blog post? Well, maybe a cocktail party, but this will have to do. In addition to giving you some details about myself in this post, I’ll be introducing our status page, too.

A little about me

In mid-April, I began as the new Support Manager. My goal is to fill the very large shoes left by Patricia Feeney moving into the Head of Metadata role. I know Patricia knows Crossref and the rich community of members (and metadata!) inside and out. I’ll get there too. For now, I have immersed myself in tackling as many of your support questions as possible, so I may have already met some of you on a support ticket. If so, thanks for your patience; you likely have already taught me a thing or two!

Isaac, on the lookout to provide you excellent support

I came to this position from one of our members – the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, where I served as the Digital Publications Manager for the last five years. Like many of you, I was always impressed, intrigued, and excited by the work underway at Crossref and wanted to be a part of the team. So, here I am, very much looking forward to the challenge ahead.

I work remotely from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I live with my wife and two daughters. Tulsa doesn’t have as many members as D.C., London, or Jakarta, but I hope to meet some of you during outreach trips, LIVE events, online in a webinar, or in our support community.

One of the things that attracts me to being a part of this community are our truths. As a quick reminder, the truths are:

Come one, come all
One member, one vote
Smart alone, brilliant together
Love metadata, love technology
What you see, what you get
Here today, here tomorrow

I am drawn to forward-thinking, action-oriented communities that value collaboration and openness. These truths, and the ten weeks I have been at Crossref, have confirmed that this is one of those communities. As your new support manager, I want to emphasize our commitment to transparency: Ask me anything; I’ll tell you what I know. In that spirit, I have the privilege of introducing our new status page—a key piece in furthering our own transparency and openness.

status.crossref.org

Our new status page provides critical, real-time information about our services—it helps us tell our overall story. If you are looking for metrics on the performance of our APIs, websites, the deposit system, or new beta services, bookmark this page. The system metrics provide daily, weekly, and monthly overviews of each of our services’ response time (in milliseconds) and uptime, or percentage of time that service has been operational during your selected time span (daily, weekly, or monthly).

From this page, we’ll announce planned maintenance and keep you regularly updated when we have an incident. And, we’ll provide regular status updates for these incidents when in progress, updated, and completed.

Our new status page – status.crossref.org

I encourage you to subscribe to the updates from the top-right corner of the page. While we’ll update this page with any service-related outages, subscribing for notifications will allow you to stay current on the latest. We’ll describe maintenance and incidents clearly, simply, and timely when we have them. And, if we don’t, call us on it.

If you have questions about the performance of our services, the status page is a great starting place. If you still have questions, ask us, we’ll tell you what we know.

Meet the members, Part 3 (with INASP)

Christine Cormack Wood — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Next in our Meet the members blog series is INASP, who isn’t a direct member, but acts as a Sponsor for hundreds of members. Sioux Cumming, Programme Specialist at INASP tells us a bit about the work they’re doing, how they use Crossref and what the future plans for INASP are.

Can you tell us a little bit about INASP?

INASP is an international development organisation working with a global network of partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia. We have a vision of research and knowledge at the heart of development, so are working to support individuals and institutions to produce, share and use research and knowledge, which can transform lives.

Our work includes strengthening research communication, which we do via AuthorAID (supporting researchers, especially early-career researchers, in getting their research published); improving information access (supporting library consortia with access to international journals and other online resources); supporting evidence use in policy making; working with higher-education institutions to improve critical thinking skills; improving gender equity in research systems; and my area, which I’ll talk more about below, supporting academic publishing in the Global South.

INASP’s approaches are based on the core pillars of capacity development, convening, influencing and working in partnership. INASP promotes equity by actively addressing the needs of both men and women across all our work and addressing issues of power within the research and knowledge system.

What’s your role within INASP?

I’m a Programme Specialist and since I started at INASP 15 years ago I’ve been responsible for our academic publishing work. This work supports increased visibility, accessibility and quality of peer-reviewed journals published in developing countries so that the research outputs that are produced in these countries can be found, shared and used more effectively.

We recognize two big challenges for Southern journals in playing their part in global research systems. The first is awareness of Southern journals, many of which were until recently only available in print. Supporting editors and national organisations to put their journals online on central platforms (the Journals Online platforms) has helped increase their visibility.

We have also provided support to the local management teams in communicating about the platforms, the journals and the research they publish, and we recently published a Handbook for Journal Editors - www.inasp.info/editorshandbook. This is intended to be a free resource for editors worldwide that can be used as a stand-alone handbook or as an accompaniment to the journal quality online course that we are currently developing.

The second challenge is supporting publishing quality and enabling Southern journals to demonstrate their quality so they will be regarded as credible. In the early days, this, for me, was largely about providing training and mentoring for journal editors and Journals Online platform managers about standard publishing practices.

More recently, as local handover progressed, our role shifted towards helping journals to demonstrate their credibility. Last September INASP and African Journals Online launched our Journal Publishing Practices and Standards (JPPS) framework for assessing the quality of Southern publishing processes. This has been really well received by the international publishing sector and by the journal editors we work with.

Tell us a bit about who you support, and how you support them

We support others communicating their research and finding out about the research of others.

The five Journals Online platforms that were handed over to local management at the end of March collectively host 397 journals from Bangladesh, El Salvador, Honduras, Mongolia, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sri Lanka.

These platforms help the research from these countries to become even more integrated in the global research community. Some fascinating and valuable research is published in the journals on these platforms. You can see some examples of this research in this article about a small piece of work we did with these platforms to commission and disseminate press releases of some of the research.

What’s your participation level with Crossref?

INASP has been a Crossref Sponsor for the Journals Online platforms since 2008 and all articles on the sites have DOIs assigned to them (approximately 50,000 articles). All the in-country training sessions for journal editors publishing via the JOL platforms have included sessions to explain how DOIs work and why they are important. We have also trained editors on how to find and include the DOIs for the references of their articles. More recently, in 2015, we provided access to the Crossref Similarity Check service to editors, which enabled them to improve the quality of their submissions by identifying instances of plagiarism before the articles were published.

What trends are you seeing in your part of the scholarly communications community?

Demonstrating credibility of journals is an important part of journal publishing today. There are so many journals worldwide and it is a tough challenge for authors and readers to navigate this sector – a challenge that we often see through the discussions in our AuthorAID network. But it is important that researchers don’t simply turn to the handful of well-known publishers in the Global North that have dominated scholarly discourse to date.

To really tackle global issues and increase equality in global research we need to work towards levelling the playing field and including all voices – and this challenge needs to be embraced across the global research and knowledge system. We have seen encouraging signs over the past couple of years of magazines, blogs, conference organizers and industry groups in the Global North approaching us to help bring in more global perspectives to scholarly discussions. However, there is plenty more to be done and we are particularly focusing on equity in our new areas of work.

Collaboration with Crossref over the past few years has been one of a number of ways that we have been able to connect small, scholar-led titles in the Global South with the latest global standards and approaches in scholarly publishing. This is important as it all helps to level the playing field.

Including DOIs in papers is one of the criteria for being awarded a JPPS star and thus the journals are incentivized to understand and use them more.

What are INASP’s plans for the future?

INASP has recently completed a major five-year programme of work with a significant focus on strengthening organisations in the countries we have been working in and handing over responsibility for managing things like the Journals Online platforms. We are now in a new phase of work, building on what has gone before but with a particular emphasis on improving equity both within and between research systems.

Many challenges remain – the global research system still tends to be biased towards the Global North. From an academic publishing perspective this is apparent both in terms of awareness of journals and also in terms of impressions of credibility. JPPS is intended to tackle the latter challenge but it is still early days – we only announced the first badges awarded a few months ago. Over the next few years we will be building on and strengthening this work and ensuring that it is an important part of the processes for journal editors and for authors and readers.

Thank you Sioux for your participation in our Meet the members series. If your organisation would like to feature in this series, please get in touch.

Crossref LIVE in Tokyo

Rachael Lammey — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

What better way to start our program of LIVE locals in 2018 than with a trip to Japan? With the added advantage of it being Valentine’s Day, it seemed a good excuse to share our love of metadata with a group who feel the same way!

We’ve worked closely with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) since 2002, and were delighted when they agreed to collaborate with us on a LIVE event at their offices in Tokyo.

With help from the team at JST, we welcomed around 80 attendees—a mix of editors, publishers and enthusiastic metadata users—who all enjoyed the talks from our guest speakers, Nobuko Miyari from ORCID, Ritsuko Nakajima from JST and Tatsuji Tomioka from Kyoto University Library (who talked about the use of DOIs and metadata in their research information repository, named KURENAI).

Vanessa Fairhurst and I also took part in the days program and talked about the different services that Crossref offers. With many of our members in Japan already well-versed in DOIs, we placed the focus of our sessions around the importance of accurate, complete metadata, and new record types (such as peer reviews and preprints). We also discussed our new community initiatives such as the OI project, identifiers for grants and Metadata2020.

We’d like to say a big thank you to Kentaro Kinoshita from JST for his help with organizing the event. We’d also like to thank the excellent team of translators who assisted us greatly by relaying the content to the audience in Japanese—being able to offer information and take questions in English and Japanese was an invaluable part of the day.

Any questions?

One day is never quite enough to cover all things Crossref, so we were happy to answer questions from the enthusiastic audience:

What metadata is required to register peer review reports with Crossref?
To answer this we pointed them to this informative blog on peer reviews.

How can I find information on using your REST API?
This is a great starting point, and most information can be found here https://api-crossref-org.pluma.sjfc.edu

Is the forthcoming Metadata Manager tool something I can use?
Yes! We hope it will make it much easier for you to deposit good metadata—and if you are in interested in participating in our open beta, let us know.

We’re looking forward to continuing to collaborate with JST, and are really grateful for their help in working with us to make the event go so smoothly. Thank you to those who joined us, and we hope to see you again soon.

Are you having an identity crisis?

Amanda Bartell — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We work with a huge range of organisations in the scholarly communications world—publishers, libraries, universities, government agencies, funders, publishing service providers, and researcher services providers—and you each have different relationships with us.

Some of you are members who create and disseminate your own content, register it with us by depositing metadata, and help steer our future by voting in our annual board elections. Some of you don’t vote in our board elections but do play a vital role by registering content on members’ behalf.

And some of you make use of the metadata provided by our members and so perform a key service by getting their published works out into the world, but don’t vote in our board elections.

After a recent review we realized our Member Types weren’t completely clear, and may in fact have led to a bit of confusion. With this in mind, we put some thought into their revision and have now given them the clarity they were missing. Over the course of this year we’ll be checking that everyone is in the right group and getting the appropriate support based on your Member Type.

Former Member Type name	New Member Type name
Publisher	Member
Sponsoring Publisher	Sponsoring Member
Represented Member	Sponsored Member
Sponsoring Entity	Sponsoring organisation
Sponsored Member	Sponsored organisation
Affiliate	Metadata User
Service Provider	(No change to Member Type name)

So, what’s different?

The changes we’ve made help to differentiate if you’re a voting member (and therefore have a say in our future direction), or not. If you are a voting member, you’ll now have the word “Member” in your title—and if you’re not—you won’t, as the diagram below indicates.

Where there are two organisations with a sponsorship arrangement in place (with a sponsoring party and a sponsored party), one of you will always be the voting party, and the other will be non-voting. These partnerships will therefore always contain one “Member” and one “organisation”.

We’ve also stopped using the word “Publisher” in our Member Types as not all our members consider themselves to be publishers — sometimes you’re libraries, funders, scholars, repositories, etc. As it says in one of our truths “Come one, come all: we define publishing broadly. If you communicate research and care about preserving the scholarly record, join us.”

How do you know if you are a voting member?

Voting members fall into three Member Types: Members, Sponsoring Members and Sponsored Members.

This means you are organisations who create and disseminate content, and therefore contribute to the scholarly record. Some of you register your content directly with us and some via a third party, but the key thing is that you’re adding to our metadata records, and as such can have a say in the future direction of Crossref. Voting members can also take metadata out of our system — and many of you do — however, your key relationship with us is as a member who is contributing to the scholarly record.

It also means you have obligations to keep your records up-to-date, and maximize links with other Crossref members.

What’s the difference between the voting categories?

Members
As a Member (formerly known as Publishers), you create and disseminate content, register your own content with us (usually under a single prefix), and are able to vote in our board elections. You pay an annual fee based on your publishing revenue, plus Content Registration fees for all new DOIs.

Sponsoring Members
As a Sponsoring Member (formerly known as a Sponsoring Publisher), you do everything a standard member does, but as well as registering your own content under your own DOI prefix, you also register content on behalf of other, smaller publishers (ideally using separate DOI prefixes so the metadata is accurate and can be reported on separately and relied upon downstream).

When you vote, you vote on behalf of the organisations that you sponsor. You pay an annual fee based on your publishing revenue/expenses plus the publishing revenue of your sponsored organisations, and you also pay Content Registration fees for all new metadata records registered. You look after deposit billing for the organisations you sponsor, and provide technical and language support for them.

Some of our larger members may be thinking that you should be in this Member Type - and you’re probably right! During the course of 2018 we’ll be working with you to transition you over to Sponsoring Membership. If you are a Member who is thinking of becoming a Sponsoring Member, please get in touch.

Sponsored Members
As a Sponsored Member (formerly known as a Represented Member), you create and disseminate content, but you don’t register your content directly with us—this is done by your Sponsoring organisation. Because of this it’s you, the one who creates and disseminates the content and thus contributes to the scholarly record, who can vote.

How do you know if you are a non-voting member?

If you haven’t spotted yourself yet, you may be one of the non-voting organisations we work with — these fall into four Member Types: Sponsoring organisations, Sponsored organisations, Service Providers and Metadata Users.

As a non-voting organisation, you may still register content with us, but you either don’t create and disseminate the content yourselves, or you’re already represented by a voting organisation. Non-voting organisations also include those whose only relationship with us is to make use of our metadata.

What’s the difference between the non-voting categories?

Sponsoring organisations
As a Sponsoring organisation (formerly known as a Sponsoring Affiliate), you don’t create and disseminate content yourself, but you do register content with us on behalf of your Sponsored Members — preferably using distinct DOI prefixes for each member. You also often look after their administrative, technical, billing and language support needs. You’ll pay us an annual fee based on the publishing revenue of all your members, and Content Registration fees for all new DOIs. You might charge the members you work with for this service. You also provide support and promotion of our services and activities.

Sponsored organisations
As a Sponsored organisation (formerly known as a Sponsored Member), you do create and disseminate content yourself, but you don’t register your own content. This is done by a Sponsoring Member, and as they have the member vote, you can’t have one too. For this reason, we’ve removed the word “Member” from your title, to make your voting position clearer. Of course, your Sponsoring Member needs to represent your needs too when voting, so make sure you make them known!

Service Providers
As a Service Provider you work closely with our members to collect and/or host and/or deposit metadata on their behalf. Unlike a Sponsoring organisation however you don’t get involved with administrative, technical, billing or language support for the members you work with, but you’re a key partner in helping them deposit quality metadata and contribute effectively to the scholarly record. During 2018 we’ll be working more closely with you to help you collaborate with us more effectively.

Metadata Users
Metadata Users (formerly known as Affiliates), you are the organisations who don’t register content with us, but you do make use of it through our free and open APIs and search interfaces, or our paid-for Metadata Plus service, giving you access to a premium version of both the REST API and OAI-PMH. Of course all members can get metadata out of our systems as well, but if the only thing you do with us is get metadata out, then you’re a Metadata User.

Don’t know which Member Type you are?

We’re hoping these new names make it clearer, but if you’re still confused, please get in touch with our membership specialist

No longer lost in translation

Christine Cormack Wood — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

More than 80% of the record breaking 1,939 new members we welcomed in 2017 were from non-English speaking countries, and as our member base grows in its diversity, so does the need for us to share information about Crossref and its services in languages appropriate to our changing audience.

So, early last year we started translating our service videos into six other languages: French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. However, the process of translating from one language to another is not always straightforward—but it is super important—as some things can get seriously lost in translation…

||||

In order to avoid such translation tragedies we created a foolproof process to get the text of the service videos translated and ready for production. (I am, I realize, exposing myself here—see what I did there? —by using a word like foolproof.)

First we produced the videos in English, setting the content to animation and sound (AKA audio visual or A/V to us marketing types), then we brought in a translation company to turn the English content into the six other languages. So far so good. However, as the above examples demonstrate, the meaning of words can get lost in translation. Also, what Crossref does isn’t the easiest thing in the world to translate (are there words for metadata delivery and full-text XML in Japanese?), so we added another stage to the process.

Next, we sent the translated scripts and their English counterparts to some very helpful international members who, as part of the scholarly research community, understand the complexities of our work and are therefore qualified to check that the text had remained in context.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t, as the text came back from them heavily edited. After round two of the editing process, the revised text was applied to the videos—but just to be 100% sure, we sent the completed videos back to our helpful international members for a final run through.

Multiply this painstaking process by 48 videos, throw numerous time zones into the mix and you can see why it took us nearly 12 months to complete them.

And so, it is with great pleasure that today we launch all eight of our service videos in six languages, just click the links below, and enjoy! Découvrez-les! ¡Que los disfrutes! Aproveite! 请欣赏! どうぞお楽しみください！ 즐거운 시간 되세요!

			View videos by language
English	French	Spanish	Brazilian Portuguese	Simplified Chinese	Japanese	Korean
English	français	español	português do Brasil	简体中文	日本語	한국어로

We’d like to thank the following for their help in checking the video translations: Fabienne Meyers from IUCAP for the French versions, our very own resident translator Vanessa Fairhurst for the Spanish versions, Edilson Damasio from the University Library of Maringá for the Brazilian Portuguese versions, Guo Xiaofeng from Wanfang Data for the Chinese versions, Nobuko Miyairi from ORCID for the Japanese versions and Junghyo from Nurimedia and Jae Hwa Chang at infoLumi for the Korean versions.

A year in the life of Crossref

Ed Pentz — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We are delighted to report that last year Crossref welcomed a record-breaking 1,939 new members and, because our member base is growing so rapidly in both headcount and geography—with the highest number of new members joining from Asia—we thought it was a good time to reiterate what Crossref is all about, as well as show off a little about the things we are proud to have achieved in 2017.

What is Crossref?

We are an organisation that runs a registry of metadata and DOIs of course, but we are much more than that—staff, board, working groups, and committees as well as a broad range of collaborators, users, and supporters in the wider scholarly communications community. Increasingly, our community includes new contributors like scholars, funders, and universities. Together, we are all working toward the same goal—to enhance scholarly communications. Everything we do is designed to put scholarly content in context so that the content our members publish can be found, cited, used, and re-used.

Here’s how we did that over the past year:

We rallied the community

Rallying the community is all about working together to forge new relationships and pave the way for future generations of researchers—in 2017 we were closely involved with the launch of Metadata 2020; a collaboration that advocates richer, connected, and reusable metadata for all research outputs.

We tagged and shared metadata

To make sure that our APIs continue to have real, genuine utility, we introduced a new service called Metadata Plus in 2017 so that platforms and tools can leverage the power of our rich, immense database to increase the value and discoverability of content.

We played with new technology

To keep pace with changes in the industry and stay true to our mission, we often play with new technology with the goal of offering a bigger and better infrastructure. In 2017 we formed a working group and an advisory group for two new identifiers that will see this infrastructure increase; organisation IDs which became ROR, and Grant IDs which became the Crossref Grant Linking System.

We made new tools and services

Combining our own knowledge and experience with input from the wider community, in 2017 we were able to launch in Beta a new and exciting tool called Event Data. Event Data provides a record of where research has been bookmarked, linked, recommended, shared, referenced, commented on etc, beyond publisher platforms—which is a great example of putting scholarly research in a wider context.

So, while richer metadata (including more record and resource types) remains our focus 2018 and beyond, we also hope that as we become a bigger and more global community we can move beyond the basics and work together to make sure that DOIs, are not the be-all and end-all when they are, in fact, just the beginning.

Bridging Identifiers at PIDapalooza

Joe Wass — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Hello from sunny Girona! I’m heading to PIDapalooza, the Persistent Identifier festival, as it returns for its second year. It’s all about to kick off.

One of the themes this year is “bridging worlds”: how to bring together different communities and the identifiers they use. Something I really enjoyed about PIDapalooza last year was the variety of people who came. We heard about some “traditional” identifier systems (at least, it seems that way to us): DOIs for publications, DOIs for datasets, ORCIDs for researchers. But, gathered in Reykjavik, under dark Icelandic skies, I met oceanographic surveyors assigning DOIs to drilling equipment, heard stories of identifiers in Chinese milk production and consoled librarians trying navigate the identifier landscape.

In addition to the usual scholarly publishing and science communication crowd, it was encouraging to see a real diversity of people from different walks of life encounter the same problems and work on them them collaboratively. The thing that brought everyone together was the understanding that if we’re going to reliably reference things – be they researchers, articles they write, or ships they sail – we need to give them identifiers. And those identifiers should be as good as possible: persistent, resolvable, interoperable.

Who cares about PIDs?

At the turn of the century, a handful of publishers came together to create Crossref (or CrossRef as it was in those days). It was becoming increasingly important to be able to store references in machine-readable format, but publishers were faced with a problem. If an author wants to cite an article, they’ll do so without worrying who published it. This means they needed an identifier system that worked across all publishers. Thus the Crossref DOI was born.

Today we’re heading toward 10,000 members, and the thing that they have in common is that they all produce scholarly content and care about how it’s referenced. As a trade association, we effectively act on behalf of all of our members, allowing them to register their content, share metadata and links, and assign an identifier.

But there’s a whole world out there. Publications have never been the be-all and end-all of scholarship, but they have been a backbone. But more and more scholarship, especially science, is done outside journal publishing. Sometimes it’s done on platforms that care about the scholarly record as much as publishers. And sometimes it isn’t.

The Twitterverse

Lots of people use Twitter to talk about science. Some are scientists, some aren’t. Scientific articles are linked from news reports and discussed on blogs. Gone are the days of scholarly articles being cited only by other scholarly articles. We see links coming in from all over the place. And, although not all of this can be counted as the “scholarly record”, some of it could be.

The barrier-to-entry for journals publishing means that science journals contain only science articles. The barrier-to-entry for Twitter means that anyone can, and does, publish there. My Twitter feed is finely balanced between bibliometrics research, marine biology and pictures of snow leopards with Japanese captions. I don’t understand all of it, but I like looking at the pictures.

Back in the days when the only references to scholarly publications were from other scholarly publications, it was easy to keep track of those references. When an article was published, its references went into a citation database. This happened because the publisher considered this important.

But Twitter, the publisher of tweets, doesn’t care. It is used for a huge variety of communications and although some people choose to use it to engage in scholarship, we’re just a blip on their radar. The same goes for Reddit, a platform that describes itself as “the front page of the Internet”. There are communities engaged in scientific discussions, but Reddit doesn’t feel the need to publish its bibliographic references.

Nor should it.

Bridging those who care with those who don’t

The barrier-to-entry for contributing to scientific discussions has lowered, meaning that the role of more non-specialist platforms has increased.

I imagine that there are other communities out there who have their own concerns about the web. Maybe there are model train enthusiasts who want to keep track of every reference to a particular model. Or political commentators who want to keep track of how certain politicians and policies are discussed. As the scholarly community embraces new platforms for communicating, we should recognise that we are part of a broader universe of people using those platforms for more diverse reasons.

Gone are the days when the only way to reply to an article was by writing a letter to the editor. But also gone are the days when you could guarantee that your letter wouldn’t appear next to cat pictures (assuming you weren’t writing to the Journal of Feline Medicine & Surgery). As a specialist community cohabiting online spaces with non-specialists, it falls to us to do whatever we need to adapt that space and make it our own. In our case, this means recording bibliographic references as and where they occur.

Something like this happened once before. As traditional publishers went online, they created Crossref to build and maintain the necessary infrastructure. We’re acting on behalf of the community again to collect links from non-traditional sources. Because we can’t go to platforms like Twitter and say “please deposit your references”, we’re doing the opposite. We identify a platform, then work out how to scrape its content and extract links.

Working at scale

So we’re broadening out the universe of references that we would like to track from “traditional scholarly publishing” to “the entire web”. There are four broad challenges inherent in this, and we think that Crossref infrastructure is the right way to meet them.

The first challenge is physically finding the links. Because social media platforms aren’t specialised for scholarly publishing, they don’t have the same mechanisms in place for capturing bibliographic references. This means that we have to do it ourselves by scraping webpages for references. As the standard-bearer for scholarly PIDs, we think we can do a good job of this.

The second challenge is doing this at the scale of the web. Because we might, in theory, find a link on any webpage, there is a literally infinite number of publishing platforms. From big websites like BBC News down to tiny blogs run out of a bedroom. It would be impossible to partner with each of these individually. The way to solve this is to run a centralised service which goes out and contacts as many sources as possible. This role is a collaborative one. Our system is open to inspection, suggestions and contributions from the community.

The third challenge is the sheer number of publishers. Because they all register content with us, we are in good position to track their DOIs. In addition to that, every member of Crossref publishes content on their own platform, and has their own set of websites to track. We monitor our members’ websites and create a central list of domains that we look for. If this wasn’t done centrally, each publisher would have to run its own web crawlers and perform the same work, only to filter out their own links.

The fourth challenge is how to get all that data to the public. Even if every publisher were able to run their own infrastructure, it would make it very difficult to consume. Through Crossref metadata services, publishers have built a system where you can look up metadata and link to articles without worrying who published them. We think that the same approach should apply to this new link data.

For these reasons, we’re building Crossref Event Data: a system that monitors as many platforms as we can think of, and brings them into one place, and serves the whole community.

Building bridges

If you’ve been following along you’ll know that my last metaphor was the process of refining crude oil. I like metaphors, and mixing them. After all, you can’t mix a good metaphor without breaking a few eggs into the mixing bowl. Today’s metaphors are bridges. And not just one.

Bridge 1: PIDs and URLs

In the world of Persistent Identifiers, we’re quite good at linking. organisations like Crossref, DataCite and ORCID run separate systems but we work together to record and exchange links. But the web is different. There’s no single organisation in control and there are many organisations working to catalogue it. Event Data is our offering: bridging the web with our identifiers.

Bridge 2: Scholarly link providers

Of course, some platforms and systems do care about persistence and Persistent Identifiers. Event Data is an open platform, and we’re collaborating with a few providers to publish links.

We’ve partnered with The Lens to include Patent to DOI references. We’re working with F1000 to include links between reviews and articles. Hopefully we’ll see more organisations use Event Data to publish their links.

Bridge 3: Crossref / DataCite

Event Data is a collaborative project between DataCite and Crossref. When Crossref Registered Content contains a reference to a DataCite DOI we put it into Event Data. DataCite do the same in reverse. This means that Event Data contains a huge number of article - dataset links.

Bridge 4: Traditional discussions vs new ones

At each moment, scholarly discussions are happening in the literature, on various social media platforms and on the web at large. They are all talking about the same thing, but are spread out. Event Data collects links wherever we find them and brings them into one place. By doing this we hope we can help bring those conversations together.

Bridge 5: Bridging bibliometricians and altmetricians to data sources

Capturing links from social media to published literature underpins the field of altmetrics. By collecting this data and making it available under open licenses, we bring it to altmetrics researchers. We don’t provide metrics, but we do provide the data points that can form the basis for research.

Without infrastructure for collecting data, researchers would have to perform the same work over and over again. Because the data is all open, we allow datasets to be republished, reworked and replicated.

Bridge 6: Bridging the Evidence Gap

Running Event Data involves collecting a lot of data - gigabytes per day - and boiling it down into hundreds of thousands of individual Events per day. People consuming the data may want to do further boiling down. At every point of the process we record the input data that we were working from, the internal thought process of the system, and the Events that were produced. A researcher can use the Evidence Logs to trace through the entire process that led to an Event.

We’re a bridge from websites and social media to data consumers. But we take the role very seriously, and there’s nothing hidden. A glass bridge, you could say.

Interesting challenges

It’s not all plain sailing. There are a few challenges along the way to collecting this data which anyone who wanted to collect this kind of information would face. By collecting it in a central place and running an open platform we can solve each problem once, and improve our process as a community.

One problem is choosing what to include. We include any link that we find from a non-publisher website. That means that invariably some of the links are from spam. This problem isn’t new: we see low-quality articles being published in traditional journals from time to time. We try to include all of the data we can find and pass it onto consumers. They might want to whitelist certain sources, or they may want all of the data because they’re trying to study scholarly spam. We have decided to provide data as Events, which strike the balance between atomicity and usefulness.

Another, which I talked about at last year’s PIDapalooza, is how we track article landing pages. Read the blog post, the user guide or hop in a time machine if you’re interested.

The thing about bridges…

… is that they help people get where they’re going. With a few notable exceptions, they’re not the main attraction. We play a humble part in scholarly publishing, helping collect and distribute metadata. Most of what we do goes unseen, and helps people create tools, platforms and research. Event Data is an API, and whilst we hope people will build all kinds of things with it, including altmetrics tools, we’re not making another metric.

PIDapalooza

All of which brings me to my talk, which I’m giving on Wednesday: Bridging persistent and not-so-persistent identifiers. I would tell you about it, but there isn’t much more left to say.

If you want to find out more, we’re currently in Beta, and open for business. Head over to the User Guide to get started!

Crossref ambassador program

Vanessa Fairhurst — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We have listened to the feedback from you, our members, and you’ve told us of a need for local experts to provide support in your timezone and language, and to act as liaisons with the Crossref team. You’ve also asked for an increased number of training events both online and in person close to you, and for more representatives from Crossref at regional industry events.

We want to make sure we can reach members around the globe, and as such, a wide team of people is required who are knowledgeable in the languages, cultures, and member needs in a variety of countries. This is why we’re launching our Ambassador Program.

What are Crossref Ambassadors?

Crossref Ambassadors are volunteers who work within the international scholarly research community in a variety of different roles such as librarians, researchers or editors to name but a few. They are individuals who are well connected, value the work that Crossref does and are passionate about improving scholarly communication and the role Crossref plays within this system.

Some of the activities our ambassadors will undertake:

Staying up-to-speed with Crossref developments, for example, by attending webinars and maintaining regular check-ins with the Crossref team.
Engaging in the online community platform; providing feedback, joining in discussions and helping other members to resolve issues posted to the group.
Writing blog posts, or contributing to newsletters.
Participating in beta-testing of new products and services.
Helping with local LIVE events; for example, providing recommendations on speakers or venues, helping with logistics and presenting at the event.
Helping with the translation of Crossref material and content into local languages.
Running webinars on different Crossref services in local languages.
Running training sessions locally with Crossref members
Representing Crossref at relevant industry events

It is important that our ambassadors enjoy the work they are doing with Crossref by contributing in ways in which they feel comfortable, according to their interests, skills and the time they feel they want to contribute. For this reason, the role comes with a high degree of flexibility.

We see our ambassadors as valued members of the Crossref network and will provide them with:

A dedicated contact for any upcoming news, or to share ideas, queries or concerns.
Help with content for proposal calls, presentations, training and written articles.
Crossref materials and giveaways (plus ambassador-branded materials).
Personal endorsement via Crossref
Training on Crossref services and on wider relevant skills as necessary.
First look at new Crossref developments
Certification from Crossref on ambassador and training status.
Personal ambassador logo or badge for use on email, website and profile on the Crossref online community forum (launching later this year).

Crossref Ambassadors will become an increasingly key part of the Crossref community - the first port of call for updates or to test out new products or services, and the eyes and ears within the local academic community - working closely with Crossref to make scholarly communications better for all.

Meet our first ambassadors!

Jae Hwa Chang has been working at infoLumi as a manuscript editor in academic journals since 2010. Prior to joining infoLumi, she was a medical librarian at International Vaccine Institute and was engaged in medical information management and service. Her interests in information control and management started when she was doing work indexing newspaper articles at JoonAng Ilbo. She was fascinated by Crossref’s persistent efforts and contribution in developing new services to “make content easy to find, cite, link, and assess” and has been introducing them to Korean scholarly publishing communities. Jae earned her MA in Library and Information Science from Ewha Womans University, Korea. She serves as a vice chair of the Committee on Planning and Administration at the Korean Council of Science Editors. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and experiencing new cultures.

장재화는 2010년부터 인포루미에서 의학학술지 원고편집을 담당하고 있다. 그전에는 국제백신연구소 도서관에서 사서로 일하면서 의학정보와 학술지논문 유통에 관심을 가졌으며, 그에 앞서서는 중앙일보에서 신문기사 DB 색인을 하면서 정보관리와 활용에 대해 연구하였다. 정보의 검색, 평가, 활용을 위해 꾸준히 새로운 서비스를 개발하는 Crossref에 매력을 느꼈고, 그 서비스들을 한국의 학술지 출판 관계자들에게 소개해왔다. 이화여자대학교에서 문헌정보학을 전공하였고, 한국과학학술지편집인협의회 기획운영위원회 부위원장을 맡고 있다. 여행과 다양한 문화 체험을 즐긴다.

Edilson Demasio has been a librarian since 1995, with PhD. in Information Science at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro-UFRJ/IBICT. He works in the Department of Mathematics Library of State University of Maringá-UEM, Brazil. With 20 years’ experience in scientific metadata and publishing. His expertise is various including knowledge in scientific communication, Crossref services, research integrity, misconduct prevention in science, publishing on Latin America, biomedical information, OJS-Open Journal Systems, Open Access journals, scientific journals quality and indexing, and scientific bibliographical databases. He is enthusiastic about presenting and disseminating information about Crossref services to his community in Brazil and working within the community, exchanging ideas and experience.

Eu sou bibliotecário desde 1995, Doutor em Ciência da Informação pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro-UFRJ/convênio IBICT. Eu trabalho na Biblioteca do Departamento de Matemática da Universidade Estadual de Maringá-UEM. Com 20 anos de experiência em metadados científicos e editoração, entre outros. Meus conhecimentos são diversos sobre comunicação científica, cientometria, metadados XML, serviços Crossref, integridade em pesquisa, prevenção de más condutas na ciência, editoração, editoração na América Latina, informação biomédica, OJS-Open Journal Systems, revistas de Acesso Aberto, qualidade de periódicos científicos e indexação, bases de dados bibliográficas. Gosto de disseminar meu conhecimento a outras regiões e pessoas e de trabalhar em comunidade junto as instituições e outros países, de planejar novas apresentações, de trocar experiências como palestrante ou convidado e trabalhar na disseminação do conhecimento para todos.

Lauren Lissaris has dedicated much of her career to the dissemination of valuable content on a robust platform. She takes pride in her achievements as the Digital Content Manager at JSTOR. JSTOR provides access to more than 10 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organisation helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.

Lauren successfully works with all aspects of journal content to effectively assist publishers with their digital content. This includes everything from XML markup, Content Registration/multiple resolution, and HTML website updates. Lauren has been involved in hosting current content on JSTOR since the program’s launch in 2010. She continues to collaborate with organisations to successfully contribute to the evolution of digital content. The natural spread from journals to books has set Lauren up for developing and planning the book Content Registration program for JSTOR. She is a member of the Crossref Books Advisory Group and she helped successfully pilot Crossref’s new Co-access book deposit feature.

If you want to find out more information on the Ambassador Program, or you would like to express your interest in being an ambassador, you can either contact us at [feedback@crossref.org](mailto:feedback@crossref.org?subject=Ambassador Program) or complete our online form.

Dr. Livingstone, I presume…a two month expedition deep into the heart of research publishing

Amanda Bartell — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Hello there. I’m Amanda Bartell, and I joined the Crossref team in mid-October as the new Head of Member Experience. My new Member Experience team will be responsible for metadata users as well as members, onboarding new accounts, supporting existing ones, and making sure that everyone can make the most of Crossref services - an an easy and efficient way. I have spent the last couple of months exploring the world of academic publishing and what our members need - and it’s been fascinating!

Expedition members

The new Member Experience team is made up of some people who are new to Crossref and Scholarly Publishing and some whose names you’ll probably recognize!

Anna Tolwinska (Member Experience Manager) will support existing members in understanding the quality of metadata they deposit with us, and how they can best make use of our other products and services.
Paul Davis (Product Support Specialist) and Shayn Smulyan (Product Support Associate) will continue to provide excellent technical support to all creators and consumers of our metadata.
Gurjit Bhullar (Membership Coordinator) will help new applicants who want to join Crossref understand the member obligations and have a smooth induction journey.

We’ll be expanding the team in 2018 to support you further - watch this space!

What a diverse ecosystem

My background is educational publishing, so this has been my first foray into the world of scholarly publishing. In my first few months I’ve been lucky enough to attend three very different events with Crossref - Frankfurt Book Fair, our annual meeting (LIVE17) in Singapore, and an OpenCon event in Oxford. Each one has given me the chance to talk to our members and other constituents, and I’ve been really struck by what a diverse bunch you are: from small volunteer-led society journals through universities to commercial behemoths; from Albania to Zambia (and 125 countries in between); covering everything from Ancient History to X-Ray Spectrometry.

Expedition equipment to suit the climate

This diversity gives my team a huge responsibility. We need to make sure that the support we provide to you can meet the needs of everyone - whether you’re a multinational publisher with a large team of xml specialists, or a small team of enthusiastic academics. Everyone should be able to clearly understand and take advantage of what Crossref offers both to you as an organisation and to the wider scholarly community.

With this in mind, we’re going to be making a few changes to the support materials we provide over the next 12 months—rewriting them so they’re clearer for everyone, re-structuring our support center so there’s a separate route through depending on your level of technical expertise and closer links with our main website, plus providing support in different languages and different formats.

Sticking together in a harsh environment

As someone who has previously worked in commercial publishing, something else that has struck me about working in a member organisation is the difference between members and traditional “customers”. It’s been fantastic to see how involved many of you are in Crossref. From taking part in our various committees and working groups, to helping to organize LIVE Local events, to attending webinars and training, it’s obvious that you feel a real sense of ownership over Crossref and our shared mission.

We’re hoping to make use of that great sense of community in 2018 by improving our member center, giving you more access to see the level of metadata you’re sharing with the community (and that others are sharing) and providing more options for you to communicate with, and support each other. We’re also going to be improving the education we offer for new members, to make sure that everyone is aware of the joint mission we all have to improve research communications. Most long time members know it’s so much more than just having a DOI, and we need to make sure that our new members are aware of this too and share our vision.

Leaving no-one behind

We have a lot of plans for the Member Experience team in 2018, but it’s key that everything we do meets the needs of all our members. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve your member experience, [do let me know](mailto:feedback@crossref.org?subject=Member Experience suggestion).

Global Persistent Identifiers for grants, awards, and facilities

Ginny Hendricks — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref’s Open Funder Registry (neé FundRef) now includes over 15 thousand entries. Crossref has over 2 million metadata records that include funding information - 1.7 million of which include an Open Funder Identifier. The uptake of funder identifiers is already making it easier and more efficient for the scholarly community to directly link funding to research outputs, but lately we’ve been hearing from a number of people that the time is ripe for a global grant identifier as well.

To that end, Crossref convened its funder advisory group along with representatives from our collaborator organisations, ORCID and DataCite, to explore the creation of a global grant identifier system.

We thought you might like to know about what we’ve been discussing…

The First Rule of Grant Identifiers

The first rule of grant identifiers is that they probably should not be called “grant identifiers”. Research is supported in a variety of ways—through grants, endowments, secondments, loans, use of facilities/equipment and even crowd-funding. In any of these cases, it is important to be able to link researchers and research outputs to details about the sources of support. This is true for prosaic reasons—to understand ROI, to map the competitive landscape, to ensure that mandates are fulfilled, to avoid double payment. But it is also true for epistemic reasons; understanding how research was funded can help contextualise that research, and help expose potential conflicts of interest or specific agendas.

The Open Funder Registry which provides a coarse mapping between research outputs and funders, but it is becoming clear that we need more fine-grained mapping directly to information about the kind of support that was provided.

Awkwardly, none of us had any great ideas about alternative nomenclature, so we’ve made the eminently practical decision to continue to use the term “grant identifier” whilst being aware that our aim is to define a system that applies more broadly to any form of funding or support of research. So +1 for practicality.

Why do we need an open, global, grant identifier?

With the steady increase in research outputs, and the growing number of active researchers from both academia and industry, research stakeholders find they need to be able to automate workflows in order to scale their systems efficiently. Funders want to be able to track the outputs that arise from research they have funded. As a result, institutions find themselves having to regularly analyse and summarise the research their faculty produces. Faculty, in turn, face increasing accounting bureaucracy in order to meet all the reporting requirements that are cascading through the system. And finally, publishers are seeking to make the manuscript submission and evaluation process more efficient as well as to increase the discoverability and contextual richness of their publications.

Most funders already have local, internal grant identifiers. But there are over 15K funders currently listed in the aforementioned Open Funder Registry. The problem is that each funder has its own identifier scheme and (sometimes) API. It is very difficult for third parties to integrate with so many different systems. Open, global, persistent and machine-actionable identifiers are key to scaling these activities.

We already have a sophisticated open, global, interoperable infrastructure of persistent identifier systems for some key elements of scholarly communications. We have persistent identifiers for researchers and contributors (ORCID iDs), for data and software (DataCite DOIs), for journal articles, preprints, conference proceedings, peer reviews, monographs and standards (Crossref DOIs), and for Funders (Open Funder Registry IDs).

And there are similar systems under active development for research organisations, conferences, projects and resources reported in the biomedical literature (e.g. antibodies, model organisms). At a minimum, open, persistent identifiers address the inherent difficulty in disambiguating entities based on textual strings (structured or otherwise). This precision, in turn, allows automated cross-walking of linked identifiers through APIs and metadata which enable advanced applications.

For example, the use of identifiers can simplify user interfaces and save users time. Almost everybody in scholarly communications spends a frustrating portion of their lives copying information from one system to another. This process is not just tedious, it is also error-prone. But we are increasingly seeing systems make use of identifiers to eliminate the need for a lot of this manual copying. For example, researchers using an ORCID iD when they submit a manuscript can start to expect that their relevant ORCID biographical data will simply be imported into the manuscript tracking system so that it doesn’t have to be manually copied over. And if said researcher has their manuscript accepted, they can also expect that their ORCID record will automatically be updated with the publication information and that their institution and/or their funder can be automatically notified of the impending publication so that relevant repositories and CRIS systems can be populated automatically.

Additionally, there is a growing list of services that have been built on top of these standard identifiers. Profile systems (e.g. VIVO, Impact Story, Kudos) can automatically retrieve the latest information from a researcher’s ORCID record. Bibliographic management tools (EasyBib, Zotero, Papers) allow researchers to cite content with the latest metadata. And similarity checking services can harvest and index the latest scholarly literature for inclusion in the tools they have developed for detecting plagiarism and fraud. Funder identifiers are already playing an important role in this metadata workflow. As of November 2017, there are 1.7 million Crossref publication DOIs that are explicitly linked to an Open Funder Registry ID. These linkages serve as a foundation for initiatives like SHARE, CHORUS, and the Jisc Publications Router. But there are another 1+ million records that have funding information without an associated ID and, of course, 90+ million records that have no funding information at all.

So If we have global funder identifiers and they are already working, why do we need global grant identifiers as well? Don’t we just need to increase uptake of funder identifiers? How will grant identifiers help?

First, global grant identifiers could greatly reduce the UX complexity of gathering funder information. This, in turn, would boost the collection of funding information from researchers and ensure that the information that they provide to publishers, institutions and other funders is accurate and complete.

Second, the introduction of global grant identifiers would further increase the utility of links between research outputs and funding information. A grant identifier provides more granular information about the funding. Instead of just linking to information about the funder, a grant identifier would allow linking research outputs to particular research programs along with the information relating to those programs, such as grant durations, award amounts, etc. It would also allow analysis of relationships between multiple co-funding bodies.

To DOI or not to DOI?

Clearly, we think DOIs are pretty good things. But we also aren’t zealots. Sometimes DOIs are appropriate and sometimes they are not. For example, we were instrumental in defining the structure of the ORCID identifier and, in that case, we decided that DOIs were not appropriate.

But in the case of a global grant identifier system, we think there are a number of reasons adopting DOIs would be useful:

It is easy to “overlay” the global DOI system onto existing local identifier systems. An organisation does not need to abandon their internal identifier scheme in order to use DOIs. They can instead incorporate their local scheme into the DOI structure via the simple mechanism of prepending their existing identifiers with an assigned DOI prefix and registering relevant metadata with a DOI registration agency like Crossref or DataCite.
DOI links are “persist-able”. That is they can resolve to different online locations even if domain names change and/or the DNS system itself is replaced. This characteristic is important for a grant identifier because funding agencies - particularly government funding agencies - tend to undergo frequent reorganisations (e.g. splitting, merging, restructuring) and renaming. An indirectly resolvable identifier like a DOI (or ARK, Handle, etc.) is critical to ensure the long-term integrity of identifiers in these situations.
There are 15K+ funders currently listed in the Open funder Registry. Each has their own grant identifier scheme and different levels of technical support for them (APIs, etc.). This makes it very difficult for 3rd parties to build tools that work “generically” with grant identifiers. But once a local identifier scheme had been “globalised” by making it a DOI, third parties can build tools without having to worry about the differences between individual funder systems.
Crossref and DataCite DOIs are deeply embedded in the tools and workflows of scholarly communications. Manuscript tracking systems, bibliographic management systems, metrics systems, CRIS systems, profile systems, etc. often have built-in mechanisms for consuming and making use of DOIs and their associated metadata.
Crossref and DataCite DOIs are cross-disciplinary. They are used in the humanities, social sciences, sciences and in a host of communities that frequently interact with the scholarly literature for example- NGOs, IGOs, patent systems, and standards bodies.
Crossref and DataCite provide a variety of APIs (e.g. REST, OAI-PMH) and services (e.g. search, Crossmark, Similarity Check, Scholix) built around DOIs.
DOI’s have a useful characteristic, which is that the “prefix” of a DOI can be used to determine who originally created the record with which the DOI is associated. In the case of grant identifiers, this means that the prefix of a DOI-based grant identifier could be used to automatically determine the correct funder responsible for the initial grant. This means that the UIs for entering funder/grant information could be both simplified and made more robust—which would likely increase the number of parties that collect and propagate id-based funder information.

But the use of DOIs as the basis for grant identifiers also introduces some potential barriers to adopting a standard funding identifier. For example:

Funders would need to be able to join a suitable DOI registration agency (e.g. Crossref, DataCite). Some funders (e.g. government agencies) may be restricted in their ability to “join” external organisations.
Funders would need to be able to create new DOIs and register associated metadata with their chosen registration agency in a timely manner. Some funders may be unable to generate metadata or may not have the technical capacity to automatically register metadata.
Funders would need to be able to provide an openly available (e.g. not behind access control) online resource to which the DOI would resolve. For example, a landing page describing the grant or a digital copy of the grant itself. Again, some funders may face technical barriers to providing an online resource to resolve to. In other cases there may be privacy or security reasons for not providing an open resource to which a DOI can resolve.

Still, the advisory group consensus has been that these barriers are generally surmountable. Most of the questions they had revolved around understanding what a DOI-based workflow would look like from the funder’s perspective, and so we outlined the steps a funder would need to take in order to adopt DOI-based global identifiers.

The DOI-based grant identifiers workflow

A funder registering metadata and creating DOIs for grants would need to support the following workflow:

When a grant is submitted, the funder would assign their own internal identifier for tracking, etc. For example 00-00-05-67-89.
If the grant is accepted, the funder would:

generate a global public identifier for the grant based on the DOI. For example, assuming their prefix was 10.4440, then the global public identifier might become https://doi-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/10.4440/00-00-05-67-89.
create a “landing page” on their website (or wherever they make their grants available online) to which the global public identifier will resolve. The landing page would display a TBD set of metadata describing the grant, as well as a link to the grant itself.
register the generated DOI and a TBD set of metadata with their registration agency (RA) (e.g. Crossref or DataCite). This metadata would include the URL of the landing page defined above.

Once metadata and DOIs are registered with an RA, the funder would have a series of ongoing obligations:

Update locations: If the location of the landing page changes (for example, because of a site restructuring, merger of split of the funding organisation, etc.), the funder would need to update their metadata records to point the DOI to the new location.
Update metadata: If metadata becomes out-of-date (e.g. the status of a grant changes, additional grant-related metadata is added, etc.), the funder would update the relevant records.
Promote the use of the the DOI as the preferred global, public identifier for the grant. That is - the one that people should use when referring to or citing the grant (the funder can continue to use the original local identifier for their internal systems, etc.).

Again, the advisory group thought that this workflow seemed tractable and agreed that the best way to ensure that would be to proceed to creating a working pilot of a global grant identifier system based on the DOI.

Next steps

Crossref is starting a grant identifier pilot. We will create two sub-groups of the funder advisory group.

Group for “Governance, membership, and fees”

This group will look at governance and financial issues raised by the introduction of grant identifiers. For example, it will look at whether Crossref’s membership model works as is or might need to be adjusted in order to accommodate a new constituency. We know, for example, that some funders find it hard to become “members” of organisations. We might need to create other participation categories in order to accommodate these restrictions. Similarly the group will look design a pricing model of DOIs for grants in order to make sure that they cover the costs of modifying and sustaining the system for them, as well as to ensure that the pricing incentivises funders to participate. This sub-group will work closely with Crossref’s membership and fees committee.

Group for “Technical and metadata”

This group will look at any technical changes that need to be made to registration process in order to accommodate the new participants. If there are, they are likely to center around specific metadata requirements for grants. As such, the group will likely spend most of its time agreeing to a practical metadata schema for capturing relevant information about the myriad of ways in which organisations support research. This group will also liaise with other relevant technical working groups, such as those who are looking at organisational identifiers and conference identifiers.

The two sub-groups will first meet in January and, after a few meetings, will report back the advisory group with recommendations. Using these recommendations, we will develop an implementation plan which will include testing the infrastructure, testing metadata deposits, fee modelling, etc, with a small group of participants.

If you are a funder, and you would like to have somebody from your origanization participate in one of these working groups, please contact Ginny Hendricks. Note that joining the above groups does not commit you to anything other than engaging in the discussion. We want to make sure we create a system that works for a range of funders, not just those who can start testing something right away.

And our survey says...

Christine Cormack Wood — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year we sent out a short survey inviting members to rate our performance. We asked what you think we do well, what we don’t do so well, and one thing we could do to improve our rating.

We were delighted to receive 313 responses and relieved that 93% of those were positive (phew!). It was very useful to hear your thoughts and to get such a variety of comments covering Product, Outreach, Marketing and Member Experience. There were a few recurring themes, three of which we’d like to address here:

1. Providing information in different languages

Not surprisingly, given the growing diversity of our member base, some respondents asked us to share information in languages other than English. We have been aware of this growing need for some time and have been working on a few developments in this area:

In January 2018 we will be launching a series of seven service videos in six different languages—French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
January also sees the launch of a new initiative called the Ambassador Program. Ambassadors will work closely with Crossref to help spread the word about our services, and support our global members in their own languages.
During 2017 we hosted two webinars in Brazilian Portuguese and one in Turkish, and aim to increase this in 2018.

2. Member-to-member discussion forum

Some respondents asked for a facility to enable members to reach out to each other, giving direct opportunity for discussions and/or sharing experiences online (and in their own languages). We have been working for a few months now to provide a member-to-member discussion area, which is planned for 2018. Following a soft launch covering a few areas/topics, we’ll broaden the scope to include technical support, too.

3. Registering metadata more easily using the web deposit form

Many respondents requested a more user-friendly process for registering metadata through our webform. Our Product and DevOps teams have been working on this for some time and have created a new interface called the Metadata Manager, which is currently in Beta but scheduled to launch in Q1 of 2018.

Finally, we’d like to thank you for participating in our survey. Your valuable feedback and suggestions help us understand your experience, improve our service, shape the course of particular projects and even direct our future strategy.

As this survey was anonymous, we are unable to respond to anyone on an individual basis, however, if you’d like to have your particular comments addressed, we would love to hear from you directly.

Working with universities at Crossref LIVE Yogyakarta

Rachael Lammey — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Following on from our LIVE Annual Meeting in Singapore, my colleague, Susan Collins, and I held a local LIVE event in Yogyakarta thanks to support from Universitas Ahmad Dahlan (UAD), Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo and one of Crossref’s new Sponsoring Affiliates, Relawan Jurnal Indonesia.

Over the past two years, we’ve seen accelerated growth in our membership in Asia Pacific (making up a quarter of all new members in the last two years). A lot of those new members have come from Indonesia, so it was great to have the opportunity to meet up, answer questions and to share knowledge between all our different organisations.

We welcomed speakers such as Dr. Muhammad Dimyati, from the Directorate General of Strengthening for Research and Development, Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education. Dr. Dimyati talked about the importance of Indonesian research and presented statistics on its growth, but also its coverage in different databases like Scopus and DOAJ.

Dr. Lukman from LIPI, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences also joined us to explain the importance of identifiers within the research ecosystem. As any identifier buff will know, we’re keen to talk more about how organisations are using Crossref metadata and identifiers, and the importance of providing good, complete metadata (Metadata2020) so this, plus a remote presentation from Nobuko Miyari from ORCID helped provide great context for the day.

Metadata and identifiers are of course just one part of the process, and Mr. Tole Sutikno from UAD gave an overview of good practice publishing by looking at some of the wider issues that journal editors (and researchers) need to know.

We had time in the afternoon to talk to our audience about Crossref - our different services, OJS integrations, funding data and our APIs, and thanks to our moderators we were able to take lots of questions from members who had specific questions about Crossmark, Cited-by and depositing references.

A few weeks later, and I’m still absorbing all of the things that happened on our (too) quick trip to Yogyakarta.

Thanks again to our members and hosts for attending the event and sharing their questions, ideas and plans with us, and we plan to come back to continue to build on these in future.

The PIDapalooza lineup is out; come rock out with us at the open festival of persistent identifiers

Ginny Hendricks — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

PIDs’R’Us and if they’re you, too, please join us for the second PIDapalooza, in Girona, Spain on January 23-24, for a two-day celebration of persistent identifiers.

Together, we will achieve the incredible - make a meeting about persistent identifiers and networked research fun! Brought to you by California Digital Library, Crossref, DataCite, and ORCID, this year’s sessions are organized around eight themes:

PID myths
Achieving persistence
PIDs for emerging uses
Legacy PIDs
Bridging worlds
PIDagogy
PID stories
Kinds of persistence

The program is now final and there really is something for everyone (well, every PID geek)

Hmm, Do Researchers Need to Care about PID Systems? Excellent question.
We’ll hear Stories from the PID Roadies: Scholix.
Nevermind the The Bollockschain and other PID Hallucinations.
An intriguing session on #ResInfoCitizenshipIs?.
There will be a plenary by Johanna McEntyre on As a biologist I want to reuse and remix data so that I can do my research.
And we’ll enjoy another plenary from Melissa Haendel (title to be confirmed).

With half the places already booked, now’s the time to register and plan your trip. We hope to see fellow festival-goers there for some PIDtastic party time (and actually some epic serious conversations).

Contact me via the steering committee at PIDapalooza@datacite.org with any questions, music requests, or backstage passes.

Full lineup

View the Crossref LIVE17 agenda.

What happened at last month's LIVE local in London

Vanessa Fairhurst — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

So much has happened since we held LIVE16 (our annual meeting) in London last year that we wanted to check-in with our UK community and share the year’s developments around our tools, teams and services ahead of LIVE17 next month in Singapore.

And so, on 26th September we held a half-day ‘LIVE local’, covering a wide range of strategic topics, well-attended by a diverse representation of our UK community of publishers, funders, researchers, and tool-makers.

What we discussed on the day:

Ed Pentz, Crossref’s Executive Director, kicked the day off with ‘What’s new at Crossref’
Geoffrey Bilder, Strategic Director, talked us through ‘Crossref’s Strategic Initiatives’
Ginny Hendricks, Director of Member and Community Outreach introduced ‘Metadata 2020’
Rachael Lammey, Head of International Outreach discussed the ‘Global reach of Crossref metadata’
Jure Triglav from Coko Foundation presented some interesting ‘Metadata Use Case Studies’
Jennifer Lin, Director of Product Management, spoke about Crossref’s ‘New Product Developments’
Ed Pentz concluded the day leading a discussion on ‘Crossref’s Future Direction’

This event was one in a series of smaller, regional events which aim to better cater to our global membership and provide a tailored program of activities. You can read more about this series of events on our LIVE locals page, and if you are interested in hosting an event near you or have suggestions for one in your region then please contact me to get involved.

BestBlogsRead

Christine Cormack Wood — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

We know that research communication happens everywhere, and we want your help in finding it!

From October 9th we will be collecting links sent in by you through a social campaign across Twitter and Facebook called #BestBlogsRead.

Simply send us links to the blogs YOU like to read It’s easy to participate, all you have to do is watch out for the daily tweets and facebook posts and then send us links to the blogs (and news sites) you read.

From gardening to gaming, recipes to rock climbing, tennis to taxidermy - whatever blogs you read, we want to hear about them!

Because research happens everywhere! And you’ll be surprised where it is mentioned - for example:

We found a Wiley article mentioned in a blog about the eclipse
An American Chemical Society article in a blog about food allergies
A blog about Neanderthals on the Atlantic links to and article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science

So, watch out for the campaign on Twitter and Facebook, and tell us about your #BestBlogsRead.

Crossref at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Christine Cormack Wood — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

We’ll be at booth M82 in the Hotspot area of Hall 4.2 and would love to meet with you. Let us know if you’re interested in chatting with one of us - about anything at all.

Kirsty Meddings, Product Manager: Here to help with Crossref services such as Crossmark and funding data, and happy to talk about your metadata and how you can deposit more.

Paul Davis, Support Specialist: Any issues with metadata deposit, or anything technical, I’m your man.

Susan Collins, Publisher Outreach Manager: If you’re a member and have questions about how things are going, or try out additional services, I can help.

Jennifer Kemp, Affiliate Outreach Manager: Come to me if you want to get Metadata from Crossref, or discuss our imminent new service for social mentions and data links: Event Data (in Beta).

Ginny Hendricks, Member & Community Outreach Director: I’d love to talk to publishers and platforms about the new Metadata 2020 initiative.

Amanda Bartell, Head of Member Experience: This will be my first day at Crossref! If there is something you’d like the Membership team to do or change, please let me know.

Chrissie Cormack-Wood, Head of Marketing Communications: I’ll be acting as “host” so ask me anything about our booth and activities at the Fair. Ideas for joint campaigns or co-promotion are welcome too.

If some of these topics are on your agenda, or if you’re not sure who to contact, please let me know and I’ll set up a 30-minute meeting at our booth, M82 in Hall 4.2.

And, if you don’t get a chance to visit us at our stand, make sure you don’t miss Ginny’s Metadata 20/20 talk at 2.30pm on Wednesday 11th, at the Hot Spot stage in the corner of Hall 4.2, area N99.

We hope you have a great Book Fair!

Organisation Identifier Working Group Update

Ed Pentz — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

About 1 year ago, Crossref, DataCite and ORCID [announced a joint initiative] (https://orcid.org/blog/2016/10/31/organisation-identifier-project-way-forward) to launch and sustain an open, independent, non-profit organisation identifier registry to facilitate the disambiguation of researcher affiliations. Today we publish governance recommendations and product principles and requirements for the creation of an open, independent organisation identifier registry and invite community feedback.

The organisation Identifier (OrgID) Working Group was established as a joint effort by Crossref, DataCite and ORCID in January 2017. The members of the group bring a broad range of experience and perspectives, including expertise in research data discovery, data management, persistent identifiers, economics research, funding, archiving, non-profit membership organisations, academia, publishing, and metadata development.

The Working Group was charged with refining the structure, principles, and technology specifications for an open, independent, non-profit organisation identifier registry to facilitate the disambiguation of researcher affiliations.

The group has been working in three interdependent areas: Governance, Registry Product Definition, and Business Model & Funding, and today releases for public comment its findings and recommendations for governance and product requirements.

We invite your feedback!

Please send comments by October 15th, 2017.

PIDapalooza is back and wants your PID stories

Ginny Hendricks — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Now in its second year, this “open festival of persistent identifiers” brings together people from all walks of life who have something to say about PIDs. If you work with them, develop with them, measure or manage them, let us know your PID adventures, pitfalls, and plans by submitting a talk by September 18. It’ll be in Girona, Spain, January 23-24, 2018.

One of the great strengths of last year’s PIDapalooza was the number of people who spoke and all the conversations that were kindled. So if you’re thinking of going, we encourage you to propose a talk, so we can hear what you’re working on and you can get some feedback.

At the inaugural PIDapalooza event Crossref took to the stage twice, with Ed Pentz covering Org IDs and Joe Wass talking about Event Data.

Here we have Joe’s memories of the event and Ed’s update on the Org ID status.

Joe Wass reflects:

At Crossref, the subject of Persistent Identifiers is something we care deeply about, and linking between DOIs, ORCID iDs and other identifiers is the reason we get up in the morning. But a whole conference dedicated to them? If I’m honest, the first time I heard about PIDapalooza I thought the subject was rather niche.

How wrong I was. It turns out there are people from all walks of life who care about “things” using persistent identifiers to link, describe and reference them. There was a great balance between presenters and attendees, and the programme meant that lots of people had a chance to speak. We heard about identifiers for research vessels, pieces of scientific equipment, individual bottles of milk, plus the usual subjects like scholarly publishing, datasets, organisations and funders, and how to cite them.

Between sessions we chatted over a wide range of subjects, noted similarities between subject areas, offered advice and exchanged ideas. Who knew this stuff was all related?

Ed Pentz on plans for the new organisation IDs

An important presentation at the 2016 PIDapalooza meeting was on organisation identifiers. A week before the conference Crossref, DataCite and ORCID released three documents for public comment outlining a proposed way forward. The goal is launch and sustain an open, independent, non-profit organisation identifier registry to facilitate the disambiguation of researcher affiliations. At the packed PIDapalooza session Crossref, DataCite and ORCID gave an update on their work over the previous year and their proposals going forward.

There was a lively discussion and debate about the issues. Following the meeting the three organisations set up the OI Project Working Group with a broad group of stakeholders. The group has been meeting over the last year and will release two documents next week - a set of Governance Recommendations and Product Principles and Recommendations for community feedback. So watch this space.

The PIDapalooza conference really helped galvanize the work in this area by bringing together a broad range of people interested in persistent identifiers. If you have an idea about PIDs, please come and tell us about it.

Check out the decks from last year's talks, the PIDapalooza website with all the info, and sumbit a proposal for your talk before September 18.

LIVE17 in Singapore is taking shape!

Ginny Hendricks — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Our annual meeting on 14th and 15th November, LIVE17 is shaping up nicely with an exciting line-up of respected speakers talking around the theme of “Metadata + Infrastructure + Relations = Context”, with each half day covering some element of the main theme.

Day one, AM: Metadata enables connections
Day one, PM: How research and infrastructure is changing
Day two, AM: Social challenges in the scholarly community
Day two, PM: Who is using your metadata and what are they doing with it?

This years updated format means both days will be packed with a mixture of plenary and breakout sessions and interactive activities. A cocktail reception with entertainment will be held in the Grand Marquee on the first evening.

A comprehensive agenda of the two-day event will be available shortly, but in the meantime we’ve provided a few talk teasers from six of our plenary speakers to whet your appetite:

Speaker	Title and organisation	Talk title
Theodora Bloom	Executive Editor, The BMJ	Preparing to handle dynamic scholarly content: Are we ready?
Casey Green	Assistant Professor, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania	Research and literature parasites in a culture of sharing.
Leonid Teytelman	Co-founder and CEO, Protocols.io	A call to reduce random collisions with information; we can automatically connect scientists to the knowledge that they need.
Nicholas Bailey	Data Science Team, Royal Society of Chemistry	What does data science tell us about social challenges in scholarly publishing?
Miguel Escobar Varela	Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies, National University of Singapore	Digital Humanities in Singapore: some thoughts for the future.
Kuansan Wang	Managing Director, Microsoft Research Outreach	Democratize access to scholarly knowledge with AI.

Theodora Bloom - Preparing to handle dynamic scholarly content: Are we ready?

Historically, journals might expect a few ‘Letters to the Editor" to discuss ‘matters arising’ after an article was published. But scholarly communications are becoming much more dynamic, with versions posted as ‘preprints’ before publication, corrections after publication, and potentially multiple versions of the same study appearing at different times. How should we handle this changing landscape for the benefits of researchers and consumers of the literature?

About Theodora Bloom

Theodora Bloom has been executive editor of The BMJ since June 2014. She has a PhD in developmental cell biology from the University of Cambridge and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. She moved into publishing as an editor on the biology team at Nature, and in 1992 joined the fledgling journal Current Biology. After a number of years helping to develop Current Biology and its siblings Structure and Chemistry & Biology, Theo joined the beginnings of the open access movement. As the founding editor of Genome Biology she was closely involved in the birth of the commercial open access publisher BioMed Central. She joined the non-profit open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS) in 2008, first as chief editor of PLOS Biology and later as biology editorial director. She took the lead for PLOS on issues around data access and availability and launched PLOS’s data sharing policy. At The BMJ she is responsible for operations, delivering the journal online and in print.

Casey has been a strong champion of preprints and will discuss his efforts in this area including resources that he has shared to help advance the spread of preprints not only amongst researchers but publishers. These include letters to respond to journals that invite reviews but have unclear preprint policies. His lab members have also analyzed the licensing of preprints and the coverage of literature provided by the pirate repository, Sci-Hub. His talk will touch on each of these areas, and also a discussion of the Research Parasite and Symbiont Awards, which aim to advance recognition for data sharing and reuse.

About Casey Greene

Casey is an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the Childhood Cancer Data Lab for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. His lab develops deep learning methods that integrate distinct large-scale datasets to extract the rich and intrinsic information embedded in such integrated data. Before starting the Integrative Genomics Lab in 2012, Casey earned his PhD for his study of gene-gene interactions in the field of computational genetics from Dartmouth College in 2009 and moved to the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow from 2009-2012. The overarching theme of his work has been the development and evaluation of methods that acknowledge the emergent complexity of biological systems.

Leonid Teytelman - Call to reduce random collisions with information; we can automatically connect scientists to the knowledge that they need.

Every scientist knows that virtually all papers, including their own, contain mistakes. A key motivation for creating protocols.io was to make it possible to share corrections and optimizations of published research protocols and to have this information automatically reach the scientists using these methods. While pushing relevant knowledge to the users is built into all aspects of protocols.io, we can do a lot more. If publishers, Crossref, and reference management platforms collaborate, we can move beyond the search towards a point where important information automatically reaches the appropriate researchers.

About Leonid (Lenny) Teytelman

Lenny is the Co-founder and CEO of protocols.io, an open access platform to share and discover research protocols. It enables scientists to make, exchange, improve and discuss protocols and it is poised to dramatically accelerate and to increase reproducibility of scientific research. Lenny did his graduate studies at UC Berkeley and finished his postdoctoral research at MIT. Lenny has a strong passion for sharing science and improving research efficiency through technology.

How can we facilitate the fair advancement and dissemination of knowledge? The risks and shortcomings within scholarly publishing are always under scrutiny, but some problems don’t seem to be going away. What should we do about obvious gender inequality within some disciplines, or the weight given to Impact Factor as a measure of quality? The Royal Society of Chemistry has a royal charter to publish scientific content in a way that serves the public interest, and as such its Data Science team devotes part of its time to analysing the social challenges facing scholarly publishing. In this talk, Nicholas Bailey will share some examples.

About Nicholas Bailey

Nicholas Bailey is a web analytics expert, a swimmer, a father, and a data geek. After spending several years in the Marketing team at the Royal Society of Chemistry, ultimately managing the database marketing team, he moved out of Marketing and into the Data Science team in order to work more closely with agile teams of developers and strengthen his data analysis and coding skills. Nicholas has a lot to say about measuring digital products, machine learning, and the potential of data science to contribute to positive social outcomes.

Miguel Escobar Varela - Digital Humanities in Singapore: some thoughts for the future.

Singapore-based researchers from a variety of disciplines are currently using digital tools to study the humanities, in areas as diverse as history and dance studies. This talk will present an overview of current projects and suggest a path for the growth of this field in Singapore. It argues that the future of DH requires better inter-institutional infrastructure for long-term data storage, clearer protocols for interoperability and more freely available and reusable datasets. This is easier said than done, but looking at the examples of other countries can provide some sources for inspiration.

About Miguel Escobar Varela

Miguel Escobar Varela is an assistant professor in the University Scholars Programme (USP) at the National University of Singapore. At the USP, Dr. Varela teaches in the domain of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is a theatre researcher and software programmer. His interests are in teaching theatre through interactive websites and applying computational methods to study performances in Singapore and Indonesia.

Kuansan Wang - Democratize access to scholarly knowledge with AI.

With the advent of big data and cloud computing, artificial intelligence has made tremendous strides in recent years. Not only has machine surpassed humans in playing the chess game Go and Jeopardy game shows, reports of superhuman performance in other highly cognitive tasks, ranging from image classification to speech recognition, also abound. Have we reached a stage where the advancements in AI can help tackle a problem in scientific pursuits, namely, the access and the dissemination of scholarly knowledge? This talk describes Microsoft Academic, a project inside Microsoft Research that uses the state-of-the-art AI in natural language understanding and knowledge acquisition to harvest knowledge from scholarly communications and make it available on the web. The talk will describe the technical challenges that have been overcome, the world-wide research collaborations that have since been enabled, and discuss the potentials of making knowledge more readily available to the mass.

About Kuansan Wang

Kuansan Wang is the Managing Director at Microsoft Research Outreach (MSR), where he started in March 1998 as a Researcher in the speech technology group working. In 2004, he moved to the speech product group and became a software architect where he helped create and ship the product Microsoft Speech Server, which is still powering the corporate call center for Microsoft. Since September 2007, he has been back at MSR, joining the newly founded Internet Service Research Center with a mission to revolutionize online services and make Web more intelligent. In March 2016, he took on an additional role as a Managing Director of MSR Outreach, an organisation with the mission to serve the research community.

Coming to a venue near you

Vanessa Fairhurst — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

First of all – hello! I’m Vanessa. I’m fairly new to Crossref, having just joined our outreach team a few weeks ago. I previously worked in International Development, enabling individuals and institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America to access cutting edge scholarly research and knowledge, supporting national development and transforming lives.

A firm belief in the importance of connecting research and information around the world led me to Crossref where my role of International Community Outreach Manager connects me with a range of different people working across diverse disciplines and sectors. I’ll be supporting the coordination of our local LIVE events and helping to set up an ambassador program (more information on this coming soon) to deepen regional connections around the globe. You can read more about myself and my colleagues at Crossref on our People page.

As Crossref membership continues to grow globally, it becomes increasingly important for us to look at new ways to engage with our international membership base.

You may have heard about our LIVE local events, or even attended one in person before. These are free-to-attend, one day, regional events (local to you), providing a tailored program of activities which include information on the key concepts of Crossref, the services we offer and our future plans.

In the past year we have held LIVE local events in Brazil, Beijing, Boston and most recently Seoul. We also have a London LIVE event coming up soon. Next year we are aiming to be even more ambitious, hoping to expand our activities to a number of different countries around the world.

Images left to right, Crossref LIVE participants in Seoul, Crossref LIVE speakers in Brazil, and literature we use at our LIVE events

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When running our LIVE local events, we collaborate with local organisations to ensure they are appropriate, accessible, and applicable to the country context. Members support us by lending their local expertise with regards to venue selection, suggestions for speakers, tailored content, translation of materials and participant enrolment. We collaborate on logistics, content, Crossref speakers and the promotion of the event to our members and the wider community.

When running our LIVE local events, we collaborate with local organisations to ensure they are appropriate, accessible, and applicable to the country context. Members support us by lending their local expertise with regards to venue selection, suggestions for speakers, tailored content, translation of materials and participant enrollment. We collaborate on logistics, content, Crossref speakers and the promotion of the event to our members and the wider community.

We will release more information of upcoming regional events in due course, but we are working on the following countries as priorities for 2018-19:

Asia-Pacific: Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia
Central Asia: India
Latin America: Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil
Middle East: UAE (Dubai or Abu Dhabi)
Africa: South Africa, Kenya
Eastern Europe: Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Poland
Western Europe: Germany, Spain, UK
North America: Canada, USA

If you are interested in hosting a LIVE local event or have any suggestions for one in your region, then we would love to hear from you. View more information on our LIVE locals page or contact us to hear more or get involved.

Crossref and colleagues in South Korea

Ginny Hendricks — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Connecting Crossref, ORCID, DataCite, and our communities

Q: What do you get if you combine our three organisations for a week to catch up with our Korean community - publishers, librarians, universities, researchers, and service providers? A: Two events, plenty of meetings, great conversations and feedback, fabulous Korean hospitality, and a little jet-lag.

Over the past few years, Crossref has seen huge growth in our members in Korea. We have nine Sponsoring Affiliates (who look after nearly 1,000 members between them), two Sponsoring Members and nearly 80 Library members. With the International DOI Foundation (IDF) strategy meeting taking place in Daejon, it seemed sensible to combine that with our own events and meetings with key organisations. This also fitted nicely with some plans that ORCID and DataCite had, so we combined forces.

We (that’s me, Rachael Lammey, Ed Pentz, and Geoffrey Bilder) hosted a Crossref LIVE local event on Monday 12th June for around 80 members and affiliates. We were joined by Alice Meadows and Nobuko Maiyairi (ORCID), Martin Fenner (DataCite), and Professor Sun-Tae Hong (Seoul National University) as co-presenters. We looked at the global reach of Korean research, and how registering content with Crossref and participating in services like Reference Linking helps create valuable connections between research outputs. With so many established members in Korea, we were able to go beyond the basics and emphasize the importance of metadata input, metadata delivery, and preview our upcoming Event Data service. We also talked data-sharing and the value of integrating ORCID iDs into publisher and institution workflows.

_Growth in research outputs in Asia Pacific 2009-2017. Source: Web of Science databases SCI-E, SSCI and AHCI only, downloaded 19/4/2017. Data provided by Wiley (thank you!)_

Later in the week we took a multi-pronged approach to highlight the many shared principles of our organisations and discuss the specific initiatives we’re collaborating on. We held the Joint Global Infrastructure Conference covering the global nature of what we do and the connections/interoperability between ORCID, DataCite and Crossref. This interoperability and our governance structures lend themselves to cooperation on other initiatives such as Metadata 2020 and The OI Project, which we were able to share.

Check out all #jgic_seoul tweets.

Guest speakers volunteered to talk about how they work with our organisations - we were joined by Choon Shil Lee from the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) to demonstrate their ORCID integrations, and Hideaki Takeda from the Japan Link Centre (JaLC) who discussed the infrastructure and services they use to register and disseminate content globally. User stories like this are great - they highlight how people work with our services, give others ideas, and also flag up where we can do more.

Part of doing more involved providing clarification on Crossref’s position alongside other DOI Registration Agencies. With a new Registration Agency in Korea, we needed to communicate the global nature of what we do to help our members achieve their discoverability goals, as not all DOIs are made equal. Through working with ORCID and DataCite colleagues we were able to place great importance both on our work worldwide, and on the benefits to Korean societies in collaborating outside national boundaries.

Combining talks from our three organisations was a great opportunity to emphasize the importance of shared global infrastructure. Geoffrey Bilder’s plug socket analogy is apt - services that work cross-border, cross-language, and cross-subject areas streamline processes for all of our different communities and enable research to travel beyond national boundaries and help it be found, linked, cited and assessed.

Want to find out more? Slides from both meetings are available here and here, and watch out for further collaborative events.

The OI Project gets underway planning an open organisation identifier registry

Ed Pentz — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

At the end of October 2016, Crossref, DataCite, and ORCID reported on collaboration in the area of organisation identifiers. We issued three papers for community comment and after input we subsequently announced the formation of The OI Project, along with a call for expressions of interest from people interested in serving on the working group.

We had a great response and are happy to report that the Working Group has now been established, and is already underway with work to develop a plan for an open, independent, not-for-profit, sustainable, organisation identifier registry.

There is information about the OI Project Working Group on the ORCID website including a list of the 17 working group members. They represent a broad range of scholarly communications stakeholders. Our scope of work includes three separate but interdependent areas:

Governance;
Registry Product Definition; and
Business Model & Funding.

The initial goal of the Working Group is to create a thorough and robust implementation plan by the end of 2017.

Please take a look at the website for more information and we’ll provide updates as things progress throughout the course of the year.

Please contact us with any questions.

Call for participation: Membership & Fees Committee

Ed Pentz — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref was founded to enable collaboration between publishers. As our membership has grown and diversified over recent years, it’s becoming even more vital that we take input from a representative cross-section of the membership. This is especially important when considering how fees and policies will affect our diverse members in different ways.

About the M&F Committee

The Membership & Fees Committee (M&F Committee) was established in 2001 and plays an important role in Crossref’s governance. Made up of 10-12 organisations of both board members and regular members, the group makes recommendations to the board about fees and policies for all of our services. They regularly review existing fees to discuss if any changes are needed. They also review new services while they are being developed, to assess if fees should be charged and if so, what those fees should be. For example, the committee recently made recommendations to the board about the fees for a new service called Event Data that we’ll launch soon, and the Content Registration fees for preprints. In addition, the board can also ask the committee to address specific issues about policies and services. Increasingly, the committee works with the outreach team to include research and survey insights.

About committee participation

The M&F Committee meets via one-hour conference calls about six times a year, although this can vary depending on what issues the committee is considering. Often proposals are developed by staff and then reviewed and discussed by the committee - so there is reading to do in preparation for the calls.

This is very important work and in order to ensure that the committee is broadly representative of Crossref’s diverse membership we are seeking expressions of interest from members who would like to serve on the M&F Committee for 2017. Appointments are for one year and members can serve multiple terms.

About you

In view of our commitment to be representative of the membership we are refreshing the committee and want to have engaged and interested people from a diverse set of members join.

If you are interested in joining the committee and helping Crossref fulfil its mission please email feedback@crossref.org with your name, title, organisation and a short statement about why you want to serve on the committee by December 19th, 2016.

Scott Delman, Director of Group Publishing, ACM is the current Chair of the committee and will review the expressions of interest with me, Ed Pentz, Executive Director, to form the committee.

Thanks for your interest.

A look back at LIVE16

April Ondis — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref LIVE16 opened with a Mashup Day on 1st November 2016 in London. Attendees from the scholarly communications world met to chat with Crossref team members in an open house atmosphere. The Crossref team put their latest projects on display and were met with questions, comments, and ideas from members and other metadata folks. Here’s what it looked like — you may recognize a few familiar faces.

Crossref LIVE16 in London

LIVE16 continued with the Conference Day on 2nd November, a plenary session with invited speakers and presentations by the Crossref team. Here are the presentations, in chronological order.

Dario Taraborelli speaks on “Wikipedia’s role in the dissemination of scholarship”
Ian Calvert speaks on: “You don’t have metadata (and how to befriend a data scientist)”
Ed Pentz speaks on “Crossref’s outlook & key priorities”
Ginny Hendricks speaks on “A vision for membership”
Geoffrey Bilder speaks on “The case of the missing leg”
Lisa Hart Martin speaks on “The meaning of governance”
Jennifer Lin speaks on “New territories in the Scholarly Research Map”
Chuck Koscher speaks on “Relationships and other notable things”
Carly Strasser speaks on “Funders and Publishers as Agents of Change”
April Hathcock speaks on “Opening Up the Margins”

Your survey feedback

We’re serious about making Crossref LIVE a useful and welcoming annual event for the Crossref membership as well as members of the wider scholarly communications community. That’s why we appreciate responses from the attendees who answered our survey. Here’s what we have learned from your feedback:

Content

You want speakers to tell you something new, even if you don’t agree with their points of view
Your favorite speakers were those who inspired you
You prefer an unscripted presentation style that makes complex topics accessible to all
You’re not as interested in the mechanics of Crossref’s annual election as we are

Format

You enjoyed the diversity of presenters and would like even more external speakers
You want more opportunity to ask us technical questions on the Mashup Day
You want to see panel discussions in addition to individual presentations on the Conference Day
Those who attended the Conference Day only wished they had also attended the Mashup Day

Atmosphere

You liked the casual atmosphere but wanted more seating and more dessert. So noted!

LIVE17 will be held next November 14-15 in Asia. Until then, we hope you’ll have the chance to see us at the regional Crossref LIVE events we are planning around the world throughout the year. Our next local event is Crossref LIVE in Brazil, held 13 December in Campinas and 16 December in Sao Paulo.

Smart alone; brilliant together. Community reigns at Crossref LIVE16

Ginny Hendricks — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A bit different from our traditional meetings, Crossref LIVE16 next week is the first of a totally new annual event for the scholarly communications community. Our theme is Smart alone; brilliant together. We have a broad program of both informal and plenary talks across two days. There will be stations to visit, conversation starters, and entertainment, that highlight what our community can achieve if it works together.

Check out the final program.

We’re now opening the doors to all parties—our 5,000+ members of all shapes and sizes—as well as the technology providers, funders, libraries, and researchers that we work with. Our aim is to gather the ‘metadata-curious’ and have more opportunities to talk face-to-face to share ideas and information, see live demos, and get to know one another.

Mashup Day - Tuesday 1st November 12-5pm. An ‘open house’ vibe, we’ll have several stations to visit each Crossref team, a LIVE Lounge, good food, and guest areas run by our friends at DataCite, ORCID, and Turnitin. We’ll have some special programming too, on-the-hour lightning talks, including a wild talk at 2pm from a primatologist who speaks baboon!

Conference Day - Wednesday 2nd November 9am-5pm. There is more of a formal plenary agenda this day, with keynote speakers from across the scholarly communications landscape. Our primary goal is to share Crossref strategy and plans, alongside thought-provoking perspectives from our guest speakers. We’ll hear from many corners of our community including:

Funder program officer, Carly Strasser (Moore Foundation) on “Publishers and funders as agents of change“,

Data scientist, Ian Calvert (Digital Science) on “You don’t have metadata“,

Open knowledge advocate, Dario Taraborelli (The Wikimedia Foundation) on “Citations for the sum of all human knowledge“, and

Scholarly communications librarian, April Hathcock (New York University) on “Opening up the margins“.

For our part, we will set out Crossref’s “strategy and key priorities” (Ed Pentz), “A vision for membership” (me, Ginny Hendricks), “The meaning of governance” (Lisa Hart Martin), “The case of the missing leg” (Geoffrey Bilder),”New territories in the scholarly research map” (Jennifer Lin), and “Relationships and other notable things” (Chuck Koscher).

We will also set aside thirty minutes for the important Crossref annual business meeting, when we will announce the results of the membership’s vote, and welcome new board members.

I can’t wait to welcome you all.

Have you voted?

If you’re a voting member of Crossref you’ll have cast your vote already I hope! I’m so happy to see that people have voted in record numbers although it’s under 7% of our eligible members which is not high… more on member participation next week.

Crossref’s Annual Meeting is now Crossref LIVE16

April Ondis — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone is invited to our free annual event this 1-2 November in London. (Register here)!

In years past, only Crossref members typically attended the [Crossref Annual Meeting](/crossref-live-annual). This year, we looked at the event with new eyes. We realized that we’d have even richer conversations, more creative energy, and the meeting would be even better for our members if we could rally the entire community together. So we decided to re-develop our annual event from the ground-up.

The result is Crossref LIVE16, an event with a new format and a new focus on the entirety of the scholarly communications community. We are opening doors for the whole community, welcoming publishers, librarians, researchers, funders, technology providers, and Crossref members alike.

1st November - Mashup Day, from 12 noon: an afternoon of interactive activities including mingling with the Crossref team and special guests, trying out our services, live troubleshooting, and exclusive previews of some exciting things we’re working on. Plus entertainment and refreshments at an early evening reception.

2nd November - Conference Day: a full-day plenary session with distinguished keynote speakers including April Hathcock (NYU), Carly Strasser (Moore Foundation), Ian Calvert (Digital Science), and Dario Taraborelli (Wikimedia Foundation). We will provide the most important updates about our services, and share our vision and strategies for the future.

Note: You are welcome to join us for both days or just one day, as you like.

Location: The Royal Society, London, UK.

We hope you will join us, and extend this invitation to your colleagues.

This is going to be fun.

Register here

2016 upcoming events - we’re out and about!

Rosa Morais Clark — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Check out the events below where Crossref will attend or present in 2016. We have been busy over the past few months, and we have more planned for the rest of year. If we will be at a place near you, please come see us (and support these organisations and events)!

Upcoming Events
SHARE Community Meeting, July 11-14, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Crossref Outreach Day - July 19-21 - Seoul, South Korea
CASE 2016 Conference - July 20-22 - Seoul, South Korea
ACSE Annual Meeting 2016 - August 10-11 - Dubai, UAE
Vivo 2016 Conference - August 17-19 - Denver CO, USA
SciDataCon - September 11-17 - Denver CO, USA
ALPSP - September 14-16 - London, UK
OASPA - September 21-22 - Arlington VA, USA
3:AM Conference - September 26 - 28 - Bucharest, Romania
ORCID Outreach Conference - October 5-6 - Washington DC, USA
Frankfurt Book Fair - October 19-23 - Frankfurt, Germany (Hall 4.2, Stand #4.2 M 85)
Crossref Annual Community Meeting #Crossref16 - November 1-2 - London, UK**
PIDapalooza - November 9-10 - Reykjavik, Iceland
OpenCon 2016 - November 12-14 - Washington DC, USA
STM Digital Publishing Conference - December 6-8 - London, UK

The Crossref outreach team will host a number of outreach events around the globe. Updates about events are shared through social media so please connect with us via @CrossrefOrg.

Outreach Day DC. Next Up? You Tell Us

Jennifer Kemp — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Rallying the community is a key Crossref role. Sometimes this means collaborating on new initiatives but it is also an ongoing process, a cornerstone of our outreach efforts. Part of rallying the community is bringing people together, literally, in a series of outreach days around the globe. It means we encourage dialog with us and among members and non-publisher affiliates. We want to hear from the community and we hope to facilitate conversations in it. Not just about Crossref, but larger issues of scholarly communications and your particular part in it. The Crossref outreach team is doing a number of events around the world to bring together the community for updates, feedback and discussion.

On 16 June, Crossref hosted an all day session in Washington, DC where we were joined by about 35 attendees from the region, mostly publishers. The size of the group made for lots of discussion, and we are grateful for the feedback. Here is what we took away from the event:

We all need a better understanding of who is using Crossref metadata and how

Sure, we all know that, for example, submission systems, libraries and hosting platforms use Crossref metadata (‘metadata out’), but pinpointing where in workflows (often multiple instances) and the interplay between publishers and these systems? Not so much. Help us change that: take this short survey to tell us how publisher metadata quality affects your systems and workflows and we will, in turn, make use cases (anonymized if you wish) available as part of an ongoing effort to promote the value of more, better and enriched metadata.

Here I must say a big thank you to our guest speaker for the day, Carly Robinson, who provided an excellent presentation on the work of OSTI, of the U.S. Department of Energy. Carly shared examples of how OSTI uses the Crossref metadata in their systems to aid compliance and compliment the DOE public access model. A live use case is a welcome way to partner with our community!

The more things change, the more they emphasize core best practices

A good part of the day was spent on new initiatives such as: DOIs for preprints, auto-update of ORCID records, ‘early content registration’ , linked clinical trials and more. All good stuff-the industry evolves and workflows must keep pace-but none of which generated a great deal of questions or expressed concern.

One session that did spur a lot of discussion was a simple overview of where Crossref services sit in the publishing process (including pre- and post-). Perhaps this is because it was early in the day but the much-appreciated discussion underscored the need to make the case for enriched metadata in a well-understood workflow that reflects the roles of publishers and affiliate users of metadata.

Outreach is an experiment in which we are all subjects

Finally, it must be noted here that we actively seek feedback on our Community Outreach days! We are not a large team and we can’t do as many outreach days as we’d like, but we are very open to hearing from you: So, tell us in this quick survey: what should we discuss? And where should we head next?

Our memories of #SSP2016

April Ondis — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Last week a bunch of Crossref’s staff traveled to the 2016 Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC. After we returned en masse, all nine of us put our heads together to share some of our personal memories of the event.

Crossref’s Rosa and Susan at the Fun Walk/Run sponsored by High Wire. 5K before breakfast!

On Cybersecurity and the Scholarly World —“The session described the many and complicated security threats that IT systems face and how threat detection and defense is a constantly ongoing activity. Certainly system administrators are challenged with the technology issues that build firewalls, block intrusions and divert disruptive activity. But perhaps even more important are the social issues that must be managed to develop an informed user community that is immune to the less technical but probably more effective hacks like phishing for user passwords.”

On Persistent Identifiers in Scholarly Communications: What, Why, How, Where, and Who? “Everyone from Crossref loved this panel, which should come as no surprise (wink). Persistent identifiers such as DOIs and ORCID iDs enable machine and human readers to discover, cite, link, and correctly attribute works across different platforms. David Crotty of the Oxford University Press said it best with ‘If you’re not actively building these persistent identifiers into your systems, get busy!’ Alice Meadows of ORCID represented the scholarly communications infrastructure with an image of shiny copper plumbing - don’t tell me we don’t have glamorous jobs! Laura Rueda of DataCite had particularly helpful diagrams to explain how persistent identifiers ease and speed the workflow of a research object as it travels from researcher to publisher to the greater community.”

On Crossing Boundaries: Encouraging Diversity in Scientific Communication with Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour — “I decided to attend this keynote when I saw that men as well as women were in the audience. Dr. Armour had great anecdotes that supported formal data on women’s roles in STEM. It made me reflect on how the path to a career in scholarly publishing is often not direct, and relies on personal networking. She was very witty and deserved her standing ovation.”

On Standards and Recommended Practices to Support Adoption of Altmetrics — “Todd Carpenter summed up the intent behind many altmetrics initiatives when he said that understanding how many people are using and reading scholarly content is important because ‘we all want to know how we’re doing’ but ‘this project should never become the number’ because the intent is about ‘trying to add flavor and nuance to the conversation in a meaningful way’. Stuart Maxwell of Scholarly IQ also made a really astute observation that “all assessment is in some way subjective - impact is relative to how you compare yourself to other researchers in your field.” What especially appealed to me about this session was learning that NISO extends its remit to include the data quality performance of altmetrics aggregators themselves. Asking each aggregator to self-report a publicly available, annual accounting of how they comply with the Altmetrics Data Quality Code of Conduct will likely increase consistency, transparency and trust.”

SSP receptions & evening events, where mashed potato sundaes were a thing

Yes, the sessions are great, but some of the really interesting sights, sounds and discussions occur at the evening events. It’s impossible for one person to cover all of them (or is it?), but our idea of a few memorable highlights from this year’s SSP are, in no particular order:

“Tuesday’s reception—bar conveniently located just steps from the Crossref booth meant lots of good traffic! The convivial atmosphere made it easy to ignore that we were all tantalizingly close to the glorious view just outside the hotel doors. Wednesday’s reception was a chance to meet all the folks who didn’t make it in Tuesday. Though it seems most of us were delayed arriving in Vancouver, it was well worth the trip and arriving to find a few hundred colleagues all enjoying happy hour is a fine way to start a meeting.”

“HighWire’s reception at the Vancouver Rowing Club provided a lovely walk on the way there, a great band at the party and a shrimp tower almost (but not quite) too good looking to eat. The pouring rain on the walk back made for a memorable bonding experience.”

“Wildebeest was the atmospheric site of the Silverchair reception and great chance to see a bit of downtown before enjoying some good cheese and fine company. At least two of us attending made plans to save the world through better metadata. Over sparkling rose wine no less.”

“Dolphins and sea otters made merry in a pool outside the Sheridan Group reception at the Vancouver Aquarium, while we noshed and drank with the fishes inside. But the food rivalled the undersea sights. A very nice gentleman with an ice cream scoop filled a parfait glass with a perfectly round dollop of mashed potatoes and told me to help myself to toppings. Shut the front door! I got the works. Delicious creamy mashed (whipped) potatoes of a perfect consistency, a ladle full of warm brown gravy topped with a generous sprinkle of finely sliced green onions (scallions), and a healthy spray of large, crispy bacon pieces!! It looked like a sundae … that you eat with a fork!!”

“The President’s reception was in the world’s largest hotel suite (approximately), with some very photogenic desserts and a lot of happy people who know that it’s well worth sacrificing some sleep for the event.”

Of course, the hotel bar in the evenings had some memorable discussions too but what happens in the bar stays in the bar, right? And we should probably all be grateful for the early last call …

’Til next year!

Dr Norman Paskin

Ed Pentz — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Dr Norman Paskin

It was with great sadness and shock that I learned that Dr Norman Paskin had passed away unexpectedly on the 27th March. This is a big loss to the DOI, Crossref and digital information communities. Norman was the driving force behind the DOI System and was a key supporter and ally of Crossref from the start. Norman founded the International DOI Foundation in 1998 and ran it successfully until the end of 2015 when he moved to a strategic role as an Independent Board Member.

Norman was an early proponent of the value of persistent digital identifiers paired with standardised metadata and laid the groundwork for the system and infrastructure that has made Crossref and eight other Registration Agencies so successful. Norman was also a key adviser and participant in many standards organisations and initiatives where he regularly provided key intellectual input to help improve digital communications.

Personally, it was a great pleasure to work with Norman over the last twenty years and I greatly appreciated his intelligence, humour, advice, and particularly his help and generous support when I relocated to Oxford.

The International DOI Foundation has posted a notice, and has created condolences@doi.org for people to send messages.

Watch Speaker Videos from the 2015 Annual Meeting

April Ondis — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

You might have missed it, but you haven’t missed out. If you want to watch – or savor re-watching – the presentations from last week’s 2015 Crossref Annual Meeting, we’ve embedded each video below in chronological order. Sit back, relax, and take it all in (again) just as though you were in an air-conditioned ballroom at the Taj.

Note: You can find the playlist containing all the videos on our YouTube channel.

Ed Pentz, Crossref Executive Director, focuses on the best practice of writing DOIs as actionable hyperlinks in his presentation, Crossref Best Practice: http://www.slideshare.net/Crossref/ed-pentz-crossref15-55435481 (slides only)

Martin Paul Eve senior lecturer at Birkbeck University, London, delivers a trenchant criticism of the process small publishers must go through when getting and depositing their first Crossref DOI in his presentation, Crossref Deposit: A Scholar-Publisher Experience:

Anne Coghill, Manager of Peer Review Operations for the American Chemical Society, detailed their process for deciding where in the manuscript workflow to insert CrossCheck plagiarism screening in her presentation, American Chemical Society Publications and CrossCheck: http://www.slideshare.net/Crossref/ann-coghill-crossref15 (slides only)

Ben Hogan, Regional Manager in Wiley’s Peer Review Management team, shares Wiley’s pain points as well as its positive experiences in using CrossCheck to detect plagiarism in his presentation, _CrossCheck Usage and Case Studies: _

Jure Triglav, Lead Developer for the PubSweet Publishing Framework at the Collaborative Knowledge Foundation, demonstrates how to mine data from the corpus of open science using Crossref’s metadata via its API and open source tools from the Collaborative Knowledge Foundation in his presentation, Making Science Writing Smarter:

Scott Chamberlain, open science researcher, shows the several advantages of using programmatic tools such as R, Python, and Ruby to mine text and data, including Crossref metadata, in his presentation, _Text and Data Mining: _

Helen Duriez, ePublishing Manager at the Royal Society, describes the Royal Society’s experience with providing Crossmark data as a means of communicating document version information in her presentation, Crossmark – a journey through time (and space?) 2015

John Chodacki, chair of Crossref’s DET committee, describes the future state of the DOI Event Tracker as an open hub for collecting and sharing data around web events that involve DOIs in his presentation, DOI Event Tracker 2015:

Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, makes you LAUGH, then THINK with his keynote speech, Improbable Research, the Ig Nobel Prizes, and You:

Juan Pablo Alperin describes the ways that Crossref and the Public Knowledge Project can work together to support common goals, in his presentation, _PKP and Crossref: Two P’s in a Cross

Ed Pentz, Crossref Executive Director, summarizes the organisation’s expansion over the past year with his presentation, Crossref Growth and Change:

Ginny Hendricks, Director of Member & Community Outreach, details the findings of Crossref’s recent stakeholder research and the organisation’s future plans to enhance member experience with her presentation, Member & Community Outreach:

Jennifer Lin, Director of Product Management, visualizes Crossref’s role as a map maker for the scholarly web in her presentation, Crossref: Building an Open Map for the Scholarly Enterprise:

Chuck Koscher, Director of Technology, gives us performance stats for the Crossref system, including aggregate uptimes and how long it takes to deposit metadata, in his presentation, Crossref System Performance:

Geoffrey Bilder, Director of Strategic Initiatives, sheds light on the status of current and future research projects that are part of Crossref’s new product development process in his presentation, Strategic Initiatives Update:

Scott Chamberlain, open science researcher, proposes the use of programmatic tools, such as the R programming language working with the Crossref search API, to undertake scientific research in his presentation, Thinking Programmatically:

Martin Paul Eve, senior lecturer at Birkbeck University, London, bears us back to the origins of the scholarly mission, considers the implications of the notion that researchers work within a symbolic economy, and looks at the practical challenges brought about by open access modes of publication for works in the Humanities in his wide-ranging presentation, Open Access & the Humanities: Digital Approaches:

Slideshare, Too!

Finally, each speaker has generously made their slides available here: http://www.slideshare.net/Crossref/tag/crossref15

_ _

The logo has landed

Ginny Hendricks — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The rebranding of Crossref was top priority when I joined in May in a new role called “Director of Member & Community Outreach”. Since then I’ve been working to understand the array of services, attributes, and audiences we have developed; to answer the questions “What do we do, for whom, and why?”

As Crossref prepares to celebrate turning fifteen at our annual meeting next week, I am thrilled to present our new brand identity with key messages and logo. And along with “thrilled” you may also detect “nervous excitement”.

Over the last few months we have reviewed earlier research and talked with a number of members, affiliates, and academics. Turns out we’re the plain talkers of the industry, the do-ers, the scrappy people who get stuff done, chivvy others along, and in some cases we are—dare I say it—the voice of reason!

While balancing differing views within the scholarly community, we’re all about making connections – literally and figuratively. We help bring together people and metadata in pursuit of an excellent research communications system for all. And, to mirror one of Ed Pentz’s new catchphrases, we are “keeping it real”; with down-to-earth language.

Crossref Key Messages

New logos and names for all our products will come soon (in some cases it’ll be a ‘de-brand’ rather than a re-brand!). We’ll gradually phase in the new identity over the next month or two, starting with our annual meeting, and with a complete website relaunch following in 2016. We will contact all of our members and partners in the coming weeks with information about using the new logo, using a content delivery network (CDN) so that sites can reference the correct file.

Why rebrand?

We have not rebranded because we plan on doing something different but rather to better express the things we already do. Our ‘problem’ was that often people didn’t know Crossref was behind initiatives like CrossCheck, Crossmark and FundRef. Our products had become unlinked from the organisation. And since we’re all about linking things together, that just made no sense.

We needed an icon to give more flexibility across the web that a word mark cannot do alone. The icon is made up of two interlinked angle brackets familiar to those who work with metadata, and can also act as arrows depicting Metadata In and Metadata Out, two themes under which our services can generally be grouped.
Sentence case helps to avoid splitting the word; we do not want to tempt the Cross and the Ref to divide again. So that lowercase R you see in the middle of our name is indeed an official change. (Hopefully we can change the habit!)
The palette gives a nod to the history of Crossref with red & dark grey, but brings in contemporary colors for a fresh palette that is distinctive in our industry (we researched a lot - everyone has circles, and traditional shades abound). Our aesthetic embodies classic Swiss design principles and is minimalist in keeping with our straight-talking personality.

So, in the words of Board Chair, Ian Bannerman, it’s time for Crossref to step forward.

About Crossref

I’m looking forward to revealing more of the story at our annual meeting next week!

2015 Annual Meeting: Speakers Announced

April Ondis — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Curious about who will be speaking at Crossref’s Annual Meeting this year? We have a flock of scholarly communications talent gathering at the Taj Hotel in Boston from November 17-18, 2015. In addition to our line-up of keynote speeches and technical workshops, we will be celebrating Crossref’s 15^th Anniversary with a quindecennial fête on Wednesday evening, November 18^th. There’s still time to register, so please join us!

Distinguished Guest Speaker Bios:

Marc Abrahams will be a keynote speaker at Crossref’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Marc writes about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK. He is editor and co-founder of the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), host and main writer of the Improbable Research weekly podcast (distributed by CBS), and author of This is Improbable Too and other books. He edits and writes much of the web site and blog www.improbable.com, and for thirteen years wrote a column (called “Improbable Research”) for The Guardian newspaper.

Marc is the father and Master of Ceremonies of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, honoring achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. The Prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates at a gala ceremony held each autumn at Harvard University and broadcast on the internet and on National Public Radio.

Marc is author of the books The Ig Nobel Prizes, The Man Who Cloned Himself, Why Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans, This Is Improbable, This is Improbable Too, The Ig Nobel Cookbook, volume 1 (co-authored with Corky White and Gus Rancatore). He edited (and wrote much of) the science humor anthologies The Best of Annals of Improbable Research and Sex As a Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble (and other improbabilities).

Marc has a degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College, spent several years developing optical character recognition computer systems (including a reading machine for the blind) at Kurzweil Computer Products, and later founded Wisdom Simulators, a creator of educational software.

Juan Pablo Alperin will be a keynote speaker at Crossref’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Juan is an Assistant Professor and a Research Associate with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) at Simon Fraser University. Juan started working with the PKP in 2007, and has continued to be involved as systems developer, project manager, and researcher. Juan leads and advises on several of PKP’s R&D and Scholarly Inquiry initiatives as a complement to his research and work on scholarly communications more broadly. He can be reached via @juancommander. ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0002-9344-7439.
Scott Chamberlain will be a keynote speaker as well as a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Scott is a scientific programmer who contributes to the field of scholarly literature by developing software for accessing open data on the web. He co-founded a developer collective called rOpenSci to help connect open source data into the R environment, a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics that runs on all major platforms. Scott maintains a few clients to work with Crossref APIs, and a text mining client that leverages Crossref’s TDM service. In addition, Scott maintains clients in R, Ruby, and Python to interact with Legotto, a platform for collecting and delivering altmetric data. A former ecologist, Scott is currently working full time on rOpenSci at the University of California at Berkeley. He can be reached via @recology_/@opensci. ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1444-9135.
John Chodacki will be a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 tech workshops. John is Director of University of California Curation Center (UC3) at California Digital Library (CDL). At UC3, John works with UC campuses and the broader community to ensure that CDL’s digital curation services meet the emerging needs of the scholarly community, including digital preservation, data management, and reuse. Prior to joining UC3, John was Product Director at PLOS where he led cross-departmental strategic projects such as the Article-Level Metrics (ALM) initiative. He has served on the Crossref board and is currently the Committee Chair for DOI Event Tracker (DET). He can be reached via @chodacki. ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0002-7378-2408.
Anne Coghill will be a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Anne is Manager, Peer Review Operations, in the American Chemical Society Publications Division. She and her colleagues manage the manuscript submission and peer review environment for ACS’ scholarly journals and books publishing program. Anne holds a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Illinois State University and a Master in Science in Management Studies from Northwestern University. She is also the co-editor of The ACS Style Guide, third edition. She can be reached via @AnneCoghill. ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0002-2773-2282.
Helen Duriez will be a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 tech workshops. Helen is the ePublishing Manager at the Royal Society, responsible for developing the Society’s digital journals strategy as well as the day-to-day management of its journal websites. Since digital innovation transcends the traditional boundaries of scholarly publishing, she spends a lot of time pondering a variation of Freud’s musings, ‘what do researchers want?’ Helen can be contacted via @HDuriez and @RSocPublishing.
Martin Paul Eve will be a keynote speaker as well as a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Martin is Senior Lecturer in Literature, technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London and a founder of the Open Library of Humanities. He is the author of three books: Pynchon and Philosophy: Wittgenstein, Foucault and Adorno (Palgrave, 2014); Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Password [a cultural history (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2016) and many journal articles. A strong advocate for open access to scholarly material, Martin has given evidence to the UK House of Commons Select Committee Inquiry into Open Access; served on the Jisc OAPEN-UK Advisory Board, the Jisc National Monograph Strategy Group, and the Jisc Scholarly Communications Advisory Board; been a member of the HEFCE Open Access Monographs Expert Reference Group; and is a member of the SCONUL Strategy Group on Academic Content and Communications. Martin is also a qualified computer programmer (Microsoft Professional in C# and the .NET Framework) and is the author of the digital publishing tools meTypeset and CaSSius. He can be reached via @martin_eve. ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0002-5589-8511.
Ben Hogan will be a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 tech workshops. Ben is a Regional Manager in Wiley’s Peer Review Management team, responsible for leading the North America and Open Access teams. He works with internal and external stakeholders to bring in new work and refine the peer review experience to be as efficient as possible for authors and editorial offices. Ben’s worked in publishing since 2007 in a variety of capacities, including books and journals production, training, and peer review. His interests include user experience and publication ethics.
Jure Triglav will be a presenter at Crossref’s 2015 tech workshops. His presentation,Using Crossref’s API to Make Smarter Science Writing , will explore how continuously talking to Crossref’s API can help us write better scientific content. Topics will include calling the API from JavaScript, combining Crossref data with modern web-based text editors, and more.Jure is an open science software developer. Jure graduated from medical school 4 years ago, but started working as a developer for Academia.edu shortly after. Now he focuses on technology issues present in open science and runs several projects in this space: @ScienceGist, @ScienceToolbox and @ScholarNinja. Jure also works with open science organisations like PLOS, working on software that will power the future of scientific publishing. He can be reached via @juretriglav.

Crossref Staff Speaker Bios:

Geoffrey Bilder is Director of Strategic Initiatives at Crossref, where he has led the technical development and launch of a number of industry initiatives including CrossCheck, Crossmark, ORCID and FundRef. He co-founded Brown University’s Scholarly Technology Group in 1993, providing the Brown academic community with advanced technology consulting in support of their research, teaching and scholarly communication. He was subsequently head of IT R&D at Monitor Group, a global management consulting firm. From 2002 to 2005, Geoffrey was Chief Technology Officer of scholarly publishing firm Ingenta, and just prior to joining Crossref, he was a Publishing Technology Consultant at Scholarly Information Strategies. He can be reached via @Geoffrey Bilder. ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0003-1315-5960.
Ginny Hendricks is Director of Member & Community Outreach for Crossref, and is responsible for Crossref’s communications, business development, member services, and product support initiatives. Before joining Crossref, she ran Ardent Marketing for nine years, where she consulted with publishers to craft multichannel marketing strategies, develop, brand, and launch online products, and build engaged communities. She previously managed Elsevier’s launch of Scopus, the abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. While at Elsevier, she established advisory boards and outreach programs with library and scientific communities. In 1998, Ginny started an early e-resources help desk for Blackwell’s information Services and later led training and communication programs for Swets’ digital portfolio in Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. She’s lived and worked in many parts of the world, has managed globally dispersed creative, technical, and commercial teams, and co-hosts the Scholarly Social networking events in London. She can be reached via @GinnyLDN. ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0353-2702.
Chuck Koscher has been the Director of Technology for Crossref since 2002. His primary responsibility has been the development and operation of Crossref’s core services and technical infrastructure. As a senior staff member he also contributes to the definition of Crossref’s mission and the expansion of its services such as the recent launch of Fundref. His role includes management of technical support and back-end business operations. Chuck and his team interface directly with members in dealing with issues effected by new or evolving industry practices such as those involving non-journal content like books, standards and databases. Chuck has been active within the industry having served 9 years on the NISO board of directors, and a participant in initiatives such as the NISO/NFAIS Best Practices in Journal Publishing and NISO’s Supplemental Material Working Group. Prior to Crossref Chuck has over 20 years in software engineering experience primarily in the aerospace industry. ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0003-2181-9595.
Rachael Lammey is a Product Manager on Crossref’s Crosscheck plagiarism screening and Text and Data Mining API initiatives, among other tools that Crossref make available for publishers build upon. Rachael has been with Crossref since March 2012. She previously worked in journals publishing for Taylor & Francis for nearly six years, managing a team who worked with online submission and peer review systems. She has a degree in English Literature from St. Andrews University and a MA in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling. She can be reached via @rachaellammey. ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5800-1434.
Jennifer Lin is the Director of Product Management at Crossref. She has worked in product development, project management, community outreach, and change management within the scholarly communications, education, and public sectors since 2000. She spent four years at the Public Library of Science (PLOS) where she oversaw product strategy and development for their data program, article-level metrics initiative, and open assessment activities. Prior to PLOS, she was a consultant with Accenture, working with Fortune 500 companies as well as governments, to develop and deploy new products and services. Jennifer earned her PhD at Johns Hopkins University. Jennifer can be reached via @jenniferlin15. ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9680-2328.
Ed Pentz is the Executive Director of Crossref, a not-for-profit membership association of publishers set up to provide a cross-publisher reference linking service to organise publisher metadata, run the infrastructure that makes Digital Object Identifier (DOI) links work, and rally multiple community stakeholders to develop tools and services that enable advancements in scholarly publishing. Ed was appointed as Crossref’s first Executive Director when the organisation was created in 2000. Crossref is now the largest DOI registrar in the world with over 75,000,000 DOIs. Ed is also Chair of the Board of ORCID, a registry of unique identifiers for researchers established in 2010. Prior to joining Crossref, Ed held electronic publishing, editorial and sales positions at Harcourt Brace in the US and UK and managed the launch of Academic Press’ first online journal, the Journal of Molecular Biology, in 1995. Ed has a degree in English Literature from Princeton University and lives in Oxford, England. He can be reached via @epentz. ORCID iD http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5993-8592.

Annual Meeting: Join Crossref in Boston this November!

April Ondis — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We’d like to invite the scholarly publishing community to get together in Boston this November with the Crossref Annual Meeting as a rally point. This is the event we hold just once a year to get the whole team under one roof, host a lively discussion with the leading voices in scholarly communications, present technical workshops, and offer you the chance to get hands’ on with our latest metadata services. Our free two-day event takes place from November 17-18, 2015 in Boston, MA.

Agenda:

Tuesday, November 17 - Tech Workshops:

The morning is an opportunity to get into small groups and talk directly with our development and support teams. We will present best practices around using Crossref’s metadata. After lunch, we will feature member case studies with tips on implementation and lessons learned. If you’re on the technical production side of scholarly publishing, you’ll want to be there — and not just for the beer & pretzels afterwards.

Wednesday, November 18 - Member Meeting:

A day to hear from thought leaders from the larger scholarly publishing community as well as from inside Crossref. Our keynote speaker will be Dr. Ben Goldacre (Bad Science), and our distinguished speakers include Dr. Scott Chamberlain (rOpenSci), Dr. Juan Pablo Alperin (Public Knowledge Project), and Dr. Martin Eve, (Open Library of Humanities). We will share details about the road map for Crossref Labs’ current and future initiatives, hear about the latest organisational developments from new members of our team, and see the debut of our new brand logo and communications strategy. Following the formal discussion, we’ll continue the conversation over cocktails as part of our celebration of Crossref’s milestone 15th Anniversary!

✱ Tickets:

Reserve your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crossref15-tech-workshops-member-meeting-tickets-17921679225

Who Should Attend?

Scholarly publishers, technology providers, librarians, researchers, academic institutions, funders, journalists, and others who are keen to discuss tools and services to advance scholarly publishing are encouraged to attend.

✱ Venue:

Hotel Taj Boston
15 Arlington Street
Boston, MA 02116 USA

About Crossref Crossref is a not-for profit membership organisation that wants to improve research communication. We organize publisher metadata, run the infrastructure that makes DOI links work, and we rally multiple community stakeholders in order to develop tools and services to enable advancements in scholarly publishing.

Crossref: the first ten years

Crossref team — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref: the first ten years

When Crossref was incorporated on 19 January 2000, the founders set out a simple promise: persistent, cross-publisher links between scholarly works. Ten years later, this booklet reflected on what that decision had built — the members who had joined, the DOIs registered, and the infrastructure that had taken shape.

Published in 2010 in English and Japanese editions, both reproduced below.

English edition

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Download the English edition (PDF)

Japanese edition / 日本語版

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Download the Japanese edition / 日本語版をダウンロード (PDF)

What the booklet covers

The founding — how a group of competing publishers agreed in 1999–2000 to run shared linking infrastructure, and why the not-for-profit, membership model was chosen from the start
First DOIs — the publishers, journals, and reference lists that made up the first wave of registered content
Membership growth — how participation expanded across publisher sizes, regions, and disciplines through the decade
Cross-publisher reference linking — the practical workflows that made citations work between members
Looking ahead from 2010 — what the founders and early members saw on the horizon for the second decade

For the Crossref at 25 short film (2025), see the 25th-anniversary video that picks up where this booklet left off.

Exhibit A

Crossref — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

MIT’s Simile project has just released Exhibit, a ” lightweight structured data publishing framework.” Read that as “an easy-to-use mashup creation tool.” I have heard that Leigh has already started experimenting with it. I look forward to a writeup soon…

ACAP - (Automated Content Access Protocol)

Ed Pentz — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The World Association of Newspapers is developing ACAP - see the press release which will be machine readable rights information that search engines would read and act on in an automated way. Rightscom is working on the project and the IPA and EPC (European Publishers Council) are involved.

Publishers presenting a united front to search engines is a good thing but I’m somewhat skeptical about how such a system would work without being overly complicated. However, the idea of getting more information to the search engines when they are crawling sites is a good idea but what will the publishers say to the search engines? If you get much above crawl/don’t crawl then you need a bilateral agreement that has to be negotiated.

Community on Crossref

Building, refining, and connecting: summary of our May 2026 community update

Operations, governance, and a growing membership

Introducing the Member Practices Working Group

Metadata schema

Tools and demos

Funder matching, rebuilt around ROR

Data citations API endpoint

Metadata Manager: new content types coming

Looking ahead

A new Service Providers Program

From commitment to connection: 200,000 grants in the scholarly record

Fonds de Recherche du Québec

European Commission

Wellcome

New Crossref Service Providers program ready for applications

Scope and goals of the program

Participants of the Service Providers program will commit to:

Service Providers program tiers

Application and accreditation process

Basic Tier requirements and questions

Advanced Tier requirements and questions

Co-access deprecation is coming: are you ready?

What will happen if I need to update metadata about an existing book in co-access after 1 July 2026?

What is multiple resolution and why should I use it instead of co-access?

How can I migrate existing content from co-access to multiple resolution?

Example tab-separated list of definitive DOIs and aliases

What will happen if I try to register a duplicate DOI for a book that has been previously registered (i.e., the process that would have previously triggered co-access) after 1 July 2026?

Express your interest in joining our Board of Directors

About our board elections

About the Nominating Committee

Board roles and responsibilities

Who can apply to join the board?

What does the committee look for?

What does the application evaluation process look like?

Open call for board interest, May 22nd to June 22nd:

Application review, June through August:

Brief interviews with final candidates, August:

Announcement of the slate and election, September:

How to apply

Mission Accessible: building better user interfaces for everyone

Why accessibility matters

Where we are today

Beyond WCAG

What we are working on next

References

From 1990 to today: connecting HFSP's grant history to the research nexus

Strengthening community connections in São Paulo

Português version

Reflections from Bangkok

Charleston Asia conference - a reminder of the importance of infrastructure

The importance of metadata for Asian scholarship - our panel at Charleston Asia

Crossref Bangkok - a reminder of the importance of visibility

Visiting the National Library of Thailand - a reminder of the importance of stewardship

Voices from Crossref Metadata Sprint in São Paulo

Projects summary

Voices from the Sprint

Participants

Reflections from the Crossref Ambassador Community

Highlights

Challenges & lessons learned

Renewed partnership: DOAJ and Crossref focus on equitable scholarly metadata and global support

About DOAJ

About Crossref

A spotlight on our community in Indonesia

Translation in Bahasa Indonesia

Insights from a roundtable on author affiliation metadata

Insights from presenters

Insights into challenges

Inherent data complexity

Author-related issues

Technical barriers

Publisher practices

Insights into solutions

Adopt collective approaches

Engage authors and institutions

Improve the tech

Encourage publisher best practices

Moving forward

References