Getting Started with DOIs in the IR

To register DOIs for your materials, you must use a service offered by a DOI Registration Agency (RA). RAs collect metadata, assign DOI names, and offer other services such as reference linking or metadata lookup. Crossref is the RA that provides DOI registration for scholarly and professional research content, including journal articles, books, conference proceedings, and datasets. 

To register DOIs with Crossref, the publisher must either become a Crossref member or associate with a Sponsoring Member. Many institutional repositories will establish membership with Crossref, then act as a Sponsoring Member on behalf of their hosted publications. In this case, because the repository acts on the publication's behalf with a third party (i.e., Crossref), it is important to establish the repository's authority to do so with a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). 

For more information on joining Crossref, visit: http://www.crossref.org/01company/join_crossref.html

For more information on Sponsoring Memberships, visit: http://www.crossref.org/02publishers/30sponsor_member.html

To apply for membership, complete this form: http://www.crossref.org/join_crossref.html

Annual membership fees vary depending on how much income your organization derives from its publications. Most open access institutional repositories are likely to pay the $275 base fee (2016). For more information on annual membership fees, visit: http://www.crossref.org/02publishers/20pub_fees.html#annual

In addition to annual membership fees, you will be assessed a fee for each registered DOI. These fees are relatively low. For current journal articles (i.e., published in the last two years), registration costs $1.00 per DOI (2016). Most other formats and backfiles cost $0.25 or less per DOI. For more information on deposit fees, visit: http://www.crossref.org/02publishers/20pub_fees.html#deposit