In the scholarly communications environment, the evolution of a journal article can be traced by the relationships it has with its preprints. Those preprint–journal article relationships are an important component of the research nexus. Some of those relationships are provided by Crossref members (including publishers, universities, research groups, funders, etc.) when they deposit metadata with Crossref, but we know that a significant number of them are missing. To fill this gap, we developed a new automated strategy for discovering relationships between preprints and journal articles and applied it to all the preprints in the Crossref database. We made the resulting dataset, containing both publisher-asserted and automatically discovered relationships, publicly available for anyone to analyse.
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.
STM, DataCite, and Crossref are pleased to announce an updated joint statement on research data.
In 2012, DataCite and STM drafted an initial joint statement on the linkability and citability of research data. With nearly 10 million data citations tracked, thousands of repositories adopting data citation best practices, thousands of journals adopting data policies, data availability statements and establishing persistent links between articles and datasets, and the introduction of data policies by an increasing number of funders, there has been significant progress since.
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.
Reference linking enables researchers to follow a link from the reference list to other full-text documents, helping them to make connections and discover new things.
To link references, you don’t need to be a Crossref member. Reference linking means including Crossref DOIs (displayed as URLs) in the reference lists that you provide in your own published work. This enables researchers to follow a link from a reference list to the current landing page for that referenced work. And because it’s a DOI rather than just a link, it will remain persistent.
So, instead of just including the reference…
Soleimani N, Mohabati Mobarez A, Farhangi B. Cloning, expression and purification flagellar sheath adhesion of Helicobacter pylori in Escherichia coli host as a vaccination target. Clin Exp Vaccine Res. 2016 Jan;5(1):19-25.
…you should also display the DOI link:
Soleimani N, Mohabati Mobarez A, Farhangi B. Cloning, expression and purification flagellar sheath adhesion of Helicobacter pylori in Escherichia coli host as a vaccination target. Clin Exp Vaccine Res. 2016 Jan;5(1):19-25. https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.7774/cevr.2016.5.1.19
Because Crossref is all about rallying the scholarly community to work together, reference linking is an obligation for all Crossref members and for all ‘current’ resources (published during this and the two previous years). It is also encouraged for for backfile resources (published longer ago than current resources).
Watch the introductory reference linking animation in your language:
Persistent links enhance scholarly communications. Reference linking offers important benefits:
Reciprocity: members’ records are linked together and more discoverable because all members link their references.
As a member organization, we can obligate all our members to link their references, so that individual members can avoid the inconvenience of signing bilateral agreements to link to persistent resources on other platforms. The result is a scholarly communications infrastructure that enables the exchange of ideas and knowledge.
Discoverability: research travels further when everyone links their references. Because DOIs don’t break if implemented correctly, they will always lead readers to the resource they’re looking for, including yours. When the DOIs are displayed, anyone can copy and share them. This will also enable better tracking of where and when people are talking about and sharing scholarly objects, including in social media.
Obligations and fees for reference linking
There’s no charge for reference linking but it is an obligation of membership. Reference linking is required for all Crossref members and for all current resources. We’d encourage you to also add reference linking for backfile records too.
To link references, you do not need to be a member, but reference linking is an obligation for Crossref members. When your organization becomes a Crossref member, look up the DOIs for your references, and add the DOI (as a URL) to reference lists for your records.
Best practice for reference linking
Start reference linking within 18 months of joining Crossref
Link references for backfile as well as current resources
Link references in all relevant resource types such as preprints, books, data, conference proceedings, etc.
Make sure the links in your references and other platforms conform to our DOI display guidelines
Getting started with reference linking
See how you can find other members DOIs for your reference list in our documentation.
Page owner: Amanda Bartell | Last updated 2020-April-08
