Source: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/04/23/digital-object-identifiers-stability-for-citations/
Digital Object Identifiers: Stability for citations and referencing, but not proxies for quality
What exactly is a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and how does it
help in the management and long-term preservation of research? Laurence Horton
explains the basic structure and purpose of a DOI and also points to
some limitations. DOIs are not the only way of providing fixed,
persisting references to objects, but they have emerged as the leading
system.
A DOI is a Digital Object Identifier. It is an online reference
(digital), pointing to (identifying) a resource (object). The DOI system
links, through a directory, references and web addresses of an object
to a “landing” page providing information on access and metadata about
that object — at a minimum
[PDF] its creator, title, publisher, year of publication, and DOI. This
allows DOIs to provide a stable, persistent, resolvable reference
taking users to an object, even if web addresses or other references to
the location of an object, or its content, change.
DOIs appeared with the new millennium, and there are now over 100 million assigned. The International DOI Foundation governs DOIs and regulates them to an ISO standard. Registration Agencies like DataCite or CrossRef
make up the foundation and provide the structure supporting DOIs.
Allocation Agents, who are members of Registration Agencies, manage
assigning DOIs to objects. Clients, like universities, sign a contract
and pay an annual fee to agents to become “registrants” and create, or
“mint”, DOIs. When minted, DOIs are registered with the Foundation whose
directory then points associated web addresses to the landing page
Objects need not be digital to have a DOI — they can be physical,
like a book. Nor need they be static — objects can change over time,
like a dataset. If web addresses or the object content significantly
changes, clients must update the DOI record so the Foundation’s
directory continues pointing users to the landing page.
Let us illustrate DOIs using the dataset downloaded most by LSE staff and students from the UK Data Service, the British Social Attitudes Survey, 2010.
DOIs combine a prefix and suffix. The prefix is fixed and
standardised. The “10” identifies the link as a DOI, followed a
four-digit number showing the registrant who minted it, so a DOI
prefixed 5255 always comes from the UK Data Archive. The registrant
defines the suffix. Here, the UK Data Archive uses its own sequential
numbering system but it could use longer or shorter strings of numbers,
letters, or both. The “1” at the end is the UK Data Archive’s indicator
this is a first edition of the data set.
Anything can have DOI as long as it has a digital landing page.
Indeed, DOI’s may be the only thing shared by Watson and Crick’s outline
of DNA published in Nature (10.1038/171737a0) later recognised with a Nobel Prize, and the film Holiday on the Buses (10.5237/A929-C667) described as “absolutely abysmal“ by Radio Times.
Also, if you only have the prefix and suffix in a reference, copy and
pasting into Google or most reference manager software also “resolves”
the DOI and retrieves its metadata.
Image credit: Hypertext Editing System by Greg Lloyd 1969 (Wikimedia CC-BY 2.0)
How does it fit into Research Data Management?
DOIs are an investment in making data citable, elevating it to the
status of a research output with reuse equating to citation. In a world
dependent on publishing and being citied, if your data is available,
discoverable and citable then people will discover it and it will be cited.
DOIs are also flexible. Depending on the policy of the registrant, they
can be allocated to datasets, variables, documentation, and different
versions of datasets, not just publications.
What DOIs are not is a symbol of data quality. You can attempt to
define “quality” but the problem is using DOIs as a proxy. Just because
something has a DOI does not mean it is good — just watch Holiday on the Buses. Also, reading the International DOI Foundation handbook
does not produce a mention of quality. Identification, yes. Resolution,
yes. Management, yes. Quality, no. We must not start using tools
designed for one end to another.
What does it do for preservation?
We can start (and it is a start, there is still lots to address) bringing stability
to data referencing by using DOIs. In the past, referencing was
simpler: you cited something by describing its print location — author,
title, publication, volume, and page numbers. These days it can be
complicated. Websites, databases, audio, video, blogs, social media,
software, eThis, and iThat, the research world just does not exist only
on paper. Also, while the internet is not a “series of tubes“, it does “rot“. Websites change addresses, servers get switched-off, resources significantly change, and when that happens without care, original resources and references disappear.
For example, it does not take long in the reference section of
Wikipedia articles to come across links to pages that are dead, broken
or dangling. It is irritating, but if you are a legal scholar, when URLs
cited in court judgements no longer work it is a fundamental problem.
DOIs are not the only way
of providing fixed, persisting references to objects, but have emerged
as the leading system. Because of the infrastructure underpinning DOIs —
the technology, financial commitment and willpower behind the system —
objects with DOIs are discoverable, citable and offer long-term
reassurance that will remain the case.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the
position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School
of Economics. Please review our Comments Policy if you have any concerns on posting a comment below.
About the Author
Laurence Horton is Data Librarian at the London
School of Economics and Political Science. He is responsible for
Research Data Management support in the School. He can be found on
Twitter @laurencedata.
Impact of Social Sciences – Digital Object Identifiers: Stability for citations and referencing, but not proxies for quality
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