Briefing notes on DOIs

What is a DOI (digital object identifier)?

A DOI is a unique alphanumeric label, (a NISO standard), created to identify a piece of intellectual property; mostly used for articles in e-journals, but also for e-books and chapters within them. Publishers assign and register DOIs, so only work published by those participating in the scheme will have a DOI (but it includes all the major publishers).

CrossRef and publishers are working closely with HEFCE to build CrossRef access into the RAE submission system, to help verify submissions.

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What is the structure of a DOI?

A DOI has two elements: a prefix and a suffix.

The prefix always begins with "10.nnnn/" where 'n' represents the publisher e.g. DOIs beginning "10.1108/" identify work published by Emerald and "10.1016/" work published by Elsevier. The suffix can have different forms and identifies a specific article or book.

Examples of DOIs

Weigert, S. (2003) A quantum search for zeros of polynomials. Journal of optics B: quantum and semi-classical optics, 5 (6). S586-S588

doi:10.1088/1464-4266/5/6/007

(in this example the suffix comprises the ISSN of the journal, the volume number, issue number, and a number for the actual article)

Collins, M.J., Riley, M.S., Child, A.M. and Turner-Walker, G. (1995) A basic mathematical simulation of the chemical degradation of ancient collagen. Journal of archaeological science, 22 (2). pp. 175-183

doi:10.1006/jasc.1995.0019

(this DOI suffix has the abbreviated journal title, year of publication and number for the actual article)

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How do I find the DOI for my article?

There are several ways to find a DOI for a specific article.

Look at the e-journal website

DOIs will be listed either in the Table of Contents, on abstract pages or printed at the top or bottom of the article, near the bibliographic citation. Elsevier, for example, puts them at the top left-hand screen area of each article on Science Direct.

For e-journals to which the Library subscribes, the Library Catalogue entry will take you to the journal site through the Find it button.

You can also find DOIs by using a Web search engine such as Google Scholar.

White Rose Research Online

If your article is in the White Rose repository you will find the DOI in the bibliographic information labelled as Identification Number.

Look at CrossRef

Look at the publishers' site which is called CrossRef. It is the official DOI registration site and provides a useful "free DOI lookup" page, but unfortunately if you search in some ways (notably using the ISSN) the search is unsuccessful, even when the DOI does exist and is in the system.

  • Go to the CrossRef website 
  • Choose the tab "For Researchers" at the top of the page
  • Choose "free DOI lookup" from the drop-down menu
  • Enter the surname of the first author, journal title, first page, volume and year. Don't enter the ISSN
  • Click on the Search button

Results are displayed at the bottom of the screen. If you get the message "No DOI found", search again by copying and pasting the journal title from the CrossRef list of journals, as journal titles can be written in different ways and what you entered may not have matched the CrossRef list.

There is also a free text query where you can simply copy and paste your references, and the system will search for them.

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How do I cite a DOI?

DOIs should be included in the standard bibliographic citation, as in the examples given above. Publishers should also include information about how to use DOIs in their instructions to authors.

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How do I create a web link from a DOI?

If you want the citation to lead directly to the text of the article itself, you need to add the DOI to http://dx.doi.org/ to create a URL. This can be embedded in web pages, resource lists, etc., for example http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jasc.1995.0019.

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