--- layout: post status: publish published: true title: ! 'Project idea/request for comment: OpenDOI' wordpress_id: 1881 wordpress_url: https://www.martineve.com/?p=1881 date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjoxNzowMyArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjoxNzowMyArMDEwMA== categories: - Technology - Open Access - Academia tags: - Open Access - Publishing - DOI comments: - id: 6610 author: Dr Ernesto Priego author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/ernestopriego date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjoyMzowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjoyMzowMCArMDEwMA== content: This is excellent Martin, thank you lots for this. Could permalinked academic articles (including blog posts and online discussions in academic online hubs) get an ODOI? The concept of an Open Object Identifier is exactly what I have been pondering about/musing on, but thinking it should be inclusive of online scholarship which is de facto excluded from some indexes etc. due to lack of DOI. Could this be done? - id: 6611 author: Martin Paul Eve author_email: martin@martineve.com author_url: https://www.martineve.com date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjoyNzowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjoyNzowMCArMDEwMA== content: Certainly. The resolver is simply going to be a unique index key against a record, resolve-to address, type and associated metadata foreign key. The scaling would become slightly more tricky if any web page was allowed to register, though, as it would be theoretically as large as DNS itself... - id: 6612 author: Dr Ernesto Priego author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/ernestopriego date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo0MjowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo0MjowMCArMDEwMA== content: Sure. Could one apply through a form the way one applies for a ISSN? (Unlike ISBNs, ISSNs are still free, at least in the UK). One would not like *everything* published online on an academic theme to get one, but if authors/publishers getting stuff out without a DOI might want to get an OpenDOI... does this make any sense? - id: 6613 author: Martin Paul Eve author_email: martin@martineve.com author_url: https://www.martineve.com date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo0OTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo0OTowMCArMDEwMA== content: Yep and that sounds sensible to me. Same form as ISSN signup whereby a prefix is assigned the first time somebody has some qualifying content. Hence the need for volunteers. You'd also want it to be double checked in each instance to prevent rogue denials/acceptances. - id: 6614 author: '' author_email: chriskeene@gmail.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1MTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1MTowMCArMDEwMA== content: ! 'I think one of the biggest mistakes of DOI is not using URIs by default. People can refer to them as DOI: 10.1000/182 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1000/182  While the latter does tie it to a particular domain, it''s not hard to keep a domain name registered. URIs are unique by design and anyone can see that they can put them in to a browser and expect to go somewhere useful (which is not immediatly obvious from a DOI). ' - id: 6615 author: '' author_email: chriskeene@gmail.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1NDowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1NDowMCArMDEwMA== content: ! 'What API''s etc which are currently available from Crossref do you think are most useful? The most common Use Case must be resolveing the (Open)DOI to a article, which is a sense is performing a similar task to a URL shortener service, though we would want more metadata for each item than just a one to one mapping (OpenDOI -> publisher URL).' - id: 6616 author: Martin Paul Eve author_email: martin@martineve.com author_url: https://www.martineve.com date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1NTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1NTowMCArMDEwMA== content: ! 'Agreed. I always link my DOIs in the human-readable document to the HTTP resolver. Following on from our Twitter discussion, the reason for the DOI decision is that DOI supports resolving over HTTP or via the Handle protocol. I am not in favour of Handle. Tie it to a domain, operate entirely over HTTP. So, amendment from this comment would be: ODOIs take the form http://odoi.domain/prefix.identifier' - id: 6617 author: Martin Paul Eve author_email: martin@martineve.com author_url: https://www.martineve.com date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1OTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMjo1OTowMCArMDEwMA== content: ! 'I think metadata exposure is absolutely key and ensuring that libraries have the APIs they''d need to perform automated queries. From there on, you''d probably know better than me as to which are useful for libraries! I''m also not sure exactly how citation tracking would work and would need to read up on how this is done through DOI. Must be some exposed metadata field from each document listing the (o)DOIs cited therein. As you''ve said, the resolver mechanism is so trivial it''s untrue. .htaccess file redirects all requests to resolver script. Resolver script queries primary key of DB and returns url + metadata.' - id: 6618 author: Dr Ernesto Priego author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/ernestopriego date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMzowNDowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxMzowNDowMCArMDEwMA== content: ! '"Tie it to a domain, operate entirely over HTTP." Yes! The unification of protocol is symbolic in this case too. I totally agree with Chris that URIs should be default, at least from a humble user perspective!' - id: 6619 author: Geoffrey Bilder author_email: gbilder@crossref.org author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxODowNTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxODowNTowMCArMDEwMA== content: ! 'Just FYI, CrossRef actually recommends that CrossRef DOIs be expressed as HTTP URIs. See http://goo.gl/peQkn. Also, CrossRef (and DataCite) DOIs support content negotiation, which makes them usable for LOD applications. http://goo.gl/P6dFg --G' - id: 6620 author: Geoffrey Bilder author_email: gbilder@crossref.org author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxODoxODowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMi0wMiAxODoxODowMCArMDEwMA== content:  I am first to point out that the technology of redirection is not rocket science and could be implemented with any number of redirection services including the free (as in beer and freedom) Handle or Purl servers. But the real issue is the social aspect of managing the URLs. Summary of my take can be found at the start of this interview: http://goo.gl/nouE4 ---

Following a conversation (well, a complaint and a suggestion) with @ernestopriego on Twitter, the following came to light (and is certainly something I've experienced):

DOI numbers are assigned by a central organization called CrossRef.
For most quantitive metric computations on academic journal articles, you must assign a DOI.
Membership of CrossRef (for a publisher with less than $1m profit(!)) costs $275/year.
There is a charge per identifier of $1.

The problem with this setup

Gold Open Access journals that are run on a purely non-profit basis still have to pay $250/year + $/article. Not much, admittedly, but this money still has to be found. In academia, finding money is difficult.

The proposal

Can anybody think of a reason why a parallel, OpenDOI system could not operate?

The technical setup is not huge. Mirroring of CrossRef APIs would be the largest technical task.
The resolver is trivial to write.
The main resource required would be volunteers willing to vet initial publisher applications and coders willing to work with me to write it.

The ODOI number would have to take a different format to DOI numbers. DOI numbers currently look like this: 10.1000/182. An ODOI number could take: ODOI_10.1000/182.

The ODOI resolver could then distinguish between a DOI (whose resolver request could be forwarded to CrossRef) and an ODOI (which it would resolve). This would ensure at least one-way backward compatibility.

The code-base would be open source under a Free license to be decided.

I would favour some form of Python-driven implementation. Perhaps web.py?

I would not advocate, at prototype stage, implementing Handle.

Sustainability

It would be feasible to charge for-profit publishers, should they wish to assign an ODOI number but pricing could be lower than CrossRef. This could maintain server costs. I have an initial dedicated server upon which a prototype could be hosted.

Thoughts/comments welcome. I assume the main concern will be fragmentation but would like to hear.

Featured image by fazen under a CC-BY license.