The Crossref Curriculum

Constructing your DOIs

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When you join as a Crossref member, we assign you a DOI prefix, and you decide your own suffix pattern. Learn more about the structure of a DOI.

Using the suffix pattern you have chosen, you create DOIs for your content, and register them and their associated metadata during content registration. We don’t provide your DOIs for you.

• Try our suggested DOI registration workflow, including suffix generator.
• If you’re using the Crossref XML plugin for OJS, you don’t need to create your suffixes as the plugin will generate them for you automatically.
• You don’t need to include any specific or descriptive information in the DOI - that information is included in the metadata submitted when you register your content.
• If you do choose to include bibliographic information in a DOI string it will have no meaning within the Crossref or DOI system.
• Existing identifiers can also be used for the DOI suffix such as an ISBN, PII (personally identifying information), or existing internal numbering scheme.
• Learn more about suffixes containing special characters.
• Advice for DOIs and DSpace repositories.

This advice applies to DOIs at all levels, whether at journal or book level (a title-level DOI), or volume, issue, article, or chapter level.

From the prefix, you can tell which member originally deposited metadata for a given DOI. However, as content can move between members, the owner of a DOI is not necessarily the same as the owner of the prefix. Learn more about transferring responsibility for DOIs.

Tips for creating a DOI suffix

• Be concise: Make the suffix short and easy to read. Remember, DOIs will appear online and in print; users will also re-type DOIs.
• Be unique: A suffix must be unique within your prefix.
• Be case insensitive: A suffix is case insensitive, so 10.1006/abc is the same as 10.1006/ABC.
• Be consistent: The suffix should reflect a consistent, logical system that can be easily recorded and understood by employees of your organization. For example, you might want the suffix to include existing internal identifiers.
• Avoid page numbers: choosing a pattern that is linked to page numbers makes it difficult to put content online before pagination is complete for a print version, or if the items are published online only.
• Only use approved characters: Your DOI suffix can be any alphanumeric string, using the approved characters “a-z”, “A-Z”, “0-9” and “-._;()/” You might see some older (pre-2008) DOIs which contain other characters.
• Make suffixes extensible: DOI suffixes should be extensible, to allow DOIs to be assigned to parts of a content item, such as figures, graphs, and supplementary materials. In an example article with DOI 10.1006/jmbi.1998.2354, the second figure in the article might be assigned this DOI: 10.1006/jmbi.1998.2354.f002

Example DOI suffix patterns