Metadata Manager - journal-level DOIs (example)

Submitted by: Will Suckow Sep 28 10:09

I tried to add our journal to the new Metadata Manager but it was having trouble with our doi (which was auto-populated by the manager). Could you explain the error message? “We now require a DOI for every journal in the system. Choose any unique string of letters and enter it in after your prefix (10.xxxx/xxx)” The doi prefix was correct.

Thanks for your help.
Will Suckow


Shayn Smulyan , Crossref support, responded Sep 28 14:30

Dear Will,

Metadata Manager pre-populated your DOI Prefix in the Journal DOI field. But, you need to add a forward slash “/” and a valid suffix to make it an actual DOI.

All DOIs are formed by a prefix (which Crossref assigns to you when you become a member), a forward slash, and a suffix.

For more information, please see:

and:

Best,
Shayn
Shayn Smulyan
Product Support Specialist
Crossref
@CrossrefSupport

Keep up to date with service performance, incidents and planned maintenance at status.crossref.org


Submitted by: Will Suckow Sep 28 14:42

Dear Shayn,

I understand that DOIs have a suffix and prefix, but an actual DOI is for an article, not a journal. I thought I was setting up a journal.

We do start every California Agriculture article DOI suffix with “ca.” as in 10.3733/ca.2018a0032. Maybe I am supposed to enter 10.3733/ca. for the journal DOI?

Thanks,
Will


Shayn Smulyan , Crossref support, responded Oct 01 07:47

Hi Will,

You can use your prefix to register DOIs for any content that you publish, not just journal articles. A DOI has to have a prefix and suffix, regardless of whether it’s registered for a journal article, journal issue, whole journal, book, book series, conference paper, collection of conference proceedings, etc., etc.

So, a Journal-level DOI is still a DOI and needs to meet all the same requirements as any other DOI.

You can choose any Journal DOI that you’d like for this journal. Typically Journal DOIs are not required, but the technical backbone of how Metadata Manager works requires them. You don’t have to display the Journal DOI or otherwise publish it, if you don’t want to. I just needs to be in place for Metadata Manager to function properly.

10.3733/ca would be fine and consistent with the suffix pattern you’ve already established for this title.

Best,
Shayn

Shayn Smulyan
Product Support Specialist
Crossref
@CrossrefSupport

Keep up to date with service performance, incidents and planned maintenance at status.crossref.org


Submitted by: Will Suckow Oct 01 10:15

Thanks, Shayn.

While I did know DOIs could register other content, I didn’t realize a DOI could be assign to a journal. Thanks for the explanation!

Best,

Will

This thread very helpful

2 Likes