PKP Warsaw 2026: Metadata, DOIs, and PIDs

At the PKP Warsaw 2026 Sprint, the Metadata/DOIs/PIDs group worked through outstanding OJS metadata, DOI, and persistent identifier questions.

Group Members

Małgorzata Adamczak, UAM
Agnieszka Adamiec, Warsaw University of Life Sciences–SGGW
Blesilda Biazon, PKP
Bozana Bokan, PKP (Note Captain)
Jan Ciarka, ICM UWI
Ramana Fragola, National Library of Sweden
Piero Grandesso, University of Bologna
Kinga Krawiec, Warsaw University of Life Sciences–SGGW
Mike Nason, UNB/PKP (Note Captain)
Rune Nilssen, Stavanger University Library
Joseph Rhoads, DataCite/ROR
Cody Ross, DataCite
Aleksandra Szulc, UAM
Ivo Volt, University of Tartu
Barbara Wachek, IBL PAN
Agnieszka Wiktor-Sass, UAM
Nikodem Wołczuk, IBL PAN
Paweł Zalewski, UAM

Abstract

This working group tackled metadata, DOIs, and persistent identifiers across the PKP software suite, building on a metadata pre-flight-check proposal from the Hannover Sprint. Users have widely varying metadata needs, and improving metadata quality, while making it easier to produce, remains an ongoing priority for PKP. The group worked through a long list of existing questions and complaints about PIDs and metadata, resolving many directly using current knowledge of OJS, OMP, and integrations with DataCite, Crossref, and DOAJ, while flagging others for developers or external partners. The group also drafted several forum proposals, began outlining a Metadata FAQ and public Metadata Collection/Dissemination documents, and compiled recommendations for future author guidance on metadata.

Background

At the Hannover Sprint, a similarly constituted group first proposed metadata pre-flight checks, noting that PKP users have very different metadata requirements depending on their discipline, journal type, and workflow. That group agreed metadata deserved sustained attention, and welcomed further work on making good metadata easier to produce.

This sprint’s group picked up that thread with an informal goal: work through as much of the accumulated backlog of metadata, PID, and DOI questions as possible. The group organized its discussion around four framing questions: what can be solved today, what has already been solved in past OJS releases, what frustrates users about the current system, and what remains unclear.

Rather than treating this as a one-off exercise, the group also used the sprint to build shared skills — walking through how to search GitHub issues and the community forum for existing tickets, and how to draft an effective new feature request, so that unresolved questions could continue moving forward after the sprint ended.

Goals

• Work through as many outstanding metadata, PID, and DOI questions as possible.
• Identify which metadata issues are already resolved across supported OJS versions.
• Surface unresolved issues as candidates for new GitHub issues and discussion.
• Identify new work to pursue with external partners such as DataCite and Crossref.
• Build community skills for finding and drafting effective feature requests.

Results

PIDs and DOIs. The group resolved several long-standing questions: resourceTypeGeneral for DataCite has used JournalArticle, Text, or Dataset since OJS 3.3.0.14, and affiliation delivery to Crossref was fixed from OJS 3.5 onward. In OJS 3.6, the funding plugin moves into core, and existing Crossref Funder IDs will migrate to ROR going forward. Open items include unreliable automatic DOI deposit for large installations, and whether editors should be able to create or manage DOIs directly from the article publication page.

Metadata. The group discussed whether funding and supporting agency fields should remain separate, and Bozana agreed to follow up with DOAJ on subtitle delivery and language-ordering issues. Linking corrections to original articles was identified as important for indexing services like Scopus, with two related GitHub issues noted. The group also confirmed that OAI datestamps reflect article, issue, and version edits, not file replacement, which is correct under the OAI-PMH standard.

Empowering users. The group walked through searching GitHub and the forum for existing tickets, and agreed on what a strong feature proposal should cover: the change itself, its rationale, who benefits, who might be affected, and whether the benefit is community-wide.

Forum proposals. Two posts were fully drafted: widening OJS’s default metadata fields and making contact email and country optional in QuickSubmit. Several further topics, including relational metadata for corrections and DOI management at the workflow level, were captured as notes for future drafting. OAI-JATS documentation and automatic DOI toggles by section remain undocumented.

Next Steps

• Start a GitHub discussion on publication dates, reviewing JATS4R and DOI registration agency practices.
• Revisit sprint issues that lacked clear resolution for further discussion.
• Investigate the Metadata FAQ concept further with Emma.
• Create public Metadata Collection/Dissemination documents for OJS, OMP, and OPS.

Read the full notes here.