About OxS and DOI

[ramon]

Hello all,

There are many topics discussing DOI, however, they don't delve into a particular issue, which is that DOIs are not free.
Registration Agencies (RA) may or not charge for assigning DOIs, but they must pay "a few cents" per DOI name, according to DOI.org's faq sheet. As I understand, CrossRef is a RA and charges quite a bundle for handling DOIs, as it provides other significant services.
Nonetheless, this costs may overwhelm developing countries or smaller publications, which brings to my questions:

1. Technically and legally speaking, can the DOI in OxS be used to provide a digital object identified other than DOI.org (which is registered, by the way)?
2. Is there any other DOI alternative service that could be implemented, with minimal work (meaning, using the same Configuration fields on OxS)?
3. This may seem a stupid question, but since I'm not a DOI expert and haven't had time to really study it, does CrossRef harvest full article data, or just metadata?
4. Any open, free service with full article data harvesting/collecting? If memory serves, PubMed or some other plugins does that, am I right?

[scholartime]

Hello,

I think CrossRef is the biggest agent of DOI (80% market share? I am not sure). And I have much experience with CrossRef.
OJS 2.2.4 and higher integrated perfect DOI feature, you may set the DOI name rules (Journal Management--Setup--1. Details--1.1 General Information) and export XML file for CrossRef (Journal Management--Import/Export Data--CrossRef XML Export Plugin).

CrossRef does not harvest full article data, only metadata. When you publish, you can export an XML file from OJS, and upload this file to CrossRef. It is not too hard, similar with DOAJ submission.

I know many big publishers, such as Elesiver, a member of CrossRef. If you decide to conduct DOI, I suggest you work with CrossRef.

[jmacgreg]

Hi Ramón,

In addition to Bill's excellent advice, here's some of my own. I'm not by any means a Crossref expert though, so YMMV.

Re. points 1 and 2: you can use any DOI system/RA you want with OJS, provided of course that it's registered with doi.org, which is the DOI resolver. You can find a list of RAs here. Another option that may be more relevant for IBICT would be to set up your own handle server so that you can assign handle DOIs, which work on dx.doi.org. (You will have to pay a fee to set up a handle server, but it would be the one fee for all of IBICT, I believe, rather than a fee for each journal within IBICT as per Crossref.)

Cheers,
James