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 organizations, people, things, and actions, dubbed the Research Nexus, our schemas need to change to accommodate the evolving landscape of research processes and communications.
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.
In 2022, we set out to update our DOI display guidelines with the intention to adopt the proposals in 2025. It’s important to note from the outset that we are not mandating any immediate changes to the DOI display guidelines. Instead, we are working with our community to co-create a solution that addresses the diverse needs of all users, rather than imposing technical changes that may not suit everyone.
Sponsors make Crossref membership accessible to organizations 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.
Registering new articles and working with volumes/issues
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Registering new articles and working with volumes/issues
The Metadata Manager tool is in beta and contains many bugs. It has been deprecated since 2021. We recommend using the web deposit form as an alternative, or the OJS plugin if your content is hosted on the OJS platform from PKP.
Click into the journal to view all of its associated articles in your workspace. You will only see previous deposits made using Metadata Manager. To see deposits made using other deposit methods, manually add them by searching for the article using Search.
If your journal does not have volumes or issues, click Add record, select New article, and go to add article metadata.
New article in new volume and/or issue
If the article is part of a new volume and/or issue, click Add record and select New volume/issue. Complete the fields in the volume/issue form. The blue/asterisk * mark indicates a required field. Click Save, then click Close. The volume/issue is now added into your workspace (you only need to do this once for all articles associated with this volume/issue). The volume/issue now appears in your journal Record List - click Add article on the right of that row.
If the new article is part of an existing volume or issue, click on Add article by the relevant volume/issue. To add an existing volume/issue to your workspace, enter its DOI into the search bar and click Add.
Provide contributor, funding, license, references, and additional metadata by clicking on each section to open it out. The blue/asterisk * mark indicates a required field, and we recommend that you deposit as much metadata as possible for the optional fields.
At any time, click Continue (at the top right of the screen) and select Add to deposit, Save, or Review.
If you would like to know more about the metadata for each field, we provide tool tips that appear on the right side of the form. You can turn these off be selecting Off in Show help slider at the top of the form. For a broader overview, explore our metadata best practices.
Metadata Manager checks your metadata to ensure that you provide the correct type of information needed for a successful deposit. You will see warnings when the metadata does not validate, which contain guidance on the type of metadata we are expecting. These do not need to be corrected until you are ready to submit the deposit.
If you participate in Crossmark, you can also add Crossmark metadata to the article record using Metadata Manager. This section will automatically appear at the bottom section of the article form for Crossmark participants - please contact us if the section doesn’t appear for you.
Page owner: Sara Bowman | Last updated 2022-July-22
