25 Creating and registering DOIs

There are two steps to adding DOIs to your submissions:

1. Creating DOIs (also called “minting”): creating and assigning a unique DOI for the submission, which includes the DOI prefix for YUL and the unique string to identify the submission.
2. Registering DOIs: registering DOI with Crossref (the registration agency with whom YUL is partnered) is required to make DOI links behave like DOIs and redirect to the OJS page for the submission.

In most cases, you will create DOIs manually and DOIs will register automatically; however, in some cases you will need to register DOIs manually.

In rare cases, you may need to create DOIs in bulk. In OJS 3.3, this can only be done after publication.

Creating DOIs

In most cases you create DOIs for each submission manually when preparing for publication. Using this method, you should create the DOI to the submission before publishing it; otherwise you will need to edit each submission after publishing unless you use the bulk method described below.

To manually create a DOI for a submission:

1. In the back end of OJS, go to the submission’s Publication tab
2. Click the Identifiers tab
3. On the Identifiers tab, you should see the heading DOI with a blank text input field below it and a button labeled Assign. Click Assign.
4. When you click Assign, a DOI will appear in the input field. Click Save to finish.

Once the submission is published, the DOI must be registered.

Optional: creating DOIs in bulk

If you create DOIs to multiple submissions after publication, you can use the bulk method. In OJS 3.3, this can only be done after publishing the submissions.

To create DOIs in bulk:

1. In the back end of OJS, click Tools near the bottom of the left sidebar
2. In the list of tools, click CrossRef XML Export Plugin
3. In the Settings tab of the CrossRef XML Export Plugin, click DOI Plugin Settings
4. In the DOI Plugin Settings window, click Assign DOIs. The page will appear to be loading for several moments once you do this
5. Click Save. You will now return to the CrossRef XML Export Plugin page.
6. Follow the instructions for Registering DOIs manually, below.

After you create DOIs in bulk, you must register them manually (described below).

Registering DOIs

Once you have created  the DOIs, you must register them to ensure that they function as DOIs. This allows the DOI URL to redirect to the publication page, and allows Crossref to track citations.

Automatic DOI registration

If your journal uses the standard, basic form of publication (submissions are published for the first time when a new issue is published), the DOIs should automatically be registered once a new issue is published.

However, sometimes the DOIs don’t register automatically for unknown reasons; if this happens, you will need to register the DOIs manually. Note: DOI registration takes some time to complete; please wait up to an hour before checking to see if the DOIs have registered.

Manual DOI registration

If your journal uses an Online First/Forthcoming or a rolling publication model, or if the DOIs do not register manually, you will need to create and assign and register the DOIs manually.

To register DOIs manually:

1. 1. In the back end of OJS, click Tools near the bottom of the left sidebar
   2. In the list of tools, click CrossRef XML Export Plugin
   3. On the plugin page, click the Articles tab. If your journal has a large number of articles, it may take some time to load
   4. In the Articles tab, click Search. This will show several new drop-down menus above the list of articles
   5. Select that drop-down menu that says Any Status and change it to Not Deposited
   6. Click Search. You should now see a list only of published submissions that have DOIs assigned but are not registered
   7. Check the boxes for each submission you wish to register in the Select column
   8. Click Deposit

If you received any error messages that you cannot understand and address, please contact the Digital Publishing Librarian for assistance.