LibGuides: CentAUR: DOIs in CentAUR

In certain circumstances, CentAUR staff may be able to assist you with assigning a DOI to your work. This page outlines what DOIs are and why they are important, how and when the University can allocate DOIs, and how to request one.

What are DOIs?

What are DOIs and why are they important?

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a unique identifier assigned to a digital object such as an online publication or dataset. Assigning DOIs to publications is good practice in the communication of outputs - they make outputs easier to discover and cite, as they act as a persistent link that will not change (unlike a standard URL), and are associated with metadata about the publication.

They also allow you to track the impact of your work, such as via Altmetric.The image on the left show the Altmetric score for a report which was issued with a DOI in CentAUR.

Most publishers will allocate DOIs to your work as standard practice, but they are also something you should think about if you are hosting and sharing an output via a publications repository or data repository.

The DOI Foundation's explainer on DOIs

Can the University issue DOIs?

In some circumstances, the University can allocate DOIs to items deposited in CentAUR and the Research Data Archive. DOIs can only be assigned to in-scope items held in one of these repositories, and not to items held anywhere else.

DOIs in CentAUR

In CentAUR, DOIs are only assigned to the following output types:

University of Reading doctoral theses. This happens as standard as part of the thesis deposit process and does not need to be specifically requested.
Research reports originating at the University which cannot be published elsewhere, on request. Information on how to request a DOI for a report can be found in the box below.

DOIs in the Research Data Archive

DOIs are assigned to datasets deposited in the Research Data Archive as standard.

The Research Data Service also manages the DataCite DOI Allocation Agreement with the British Library that allows the University to allocate DOIs. Queries about the terms or management of the licence should be directed to researchdata@reading.ac.uk.

How to request a DOI for a report

Requesting a DOI

If you would like to request a DOI for a report, please contact centaur@reading.ac.uk in good time ahead of the date you intend to publish the report. In order for us to assign a DOI to the report, it will need to meet the following criteria:

It must be a scholarly or peer-reviewed report.
It must be authored or co-authored by a member of the University of Reading.
It should not be published elsewhere or intended to be published elsewhere. DOIs should only be assigned to the definitive version of the report – if you intend for its primary location to be outside of CentAUR, then we will not normally be able to issue a DOI.

Please also note that once a DOI has been assigned the record should be considered permanent. It will not be possible to make any further major edits (small edits such as spelling corrections are permitted), and the record should not be removed unless absolutely necessary (e.g. where there is an ethical or legal requirement to do so).

If your report meets these criteria, please contact centaur@reading.ac.uk to request a DOI. Please let us know:

Any basic bibliographic information about the report e.g. the title and authors, if known.
Whether the report contains any third party copyright material.
- If it does, this does not necessarily mean that it cannot be added to CentAUR, but it may require some further investigation. If you are not sure, CentAUR staff are happy to look over a copy of the report.

Procedure for assigning DOIs

If a DOI can be assigned to your report, the process is as follows:

Once you are close to having a final copy of the report, please send the details or a draft copy of the report to centaur@reading.ac.uk. We will create a record for the report and assign a DOI, but keep it in draft.
We will let you know what the DOI will be. It is good practice to add the DOI to the report itself, for example in a recommended citation section.
Once you have a final copy of the report, please send it to centaur@reading.ac.uk. We will make the record live when you are ready, and the DOI will start functioning as a link at this stage.

Press embargoes

Please let us know if your report is under a press embargo. There are two options for how we can accommodate this.

We can restrict the full CentAUR record from public view until the day the embargo lifts (if it is a working day). The record will be made available as soon as possible by a member of CentAUR staff but no earlier than 09.00.
We can make the record public in advance, but keep the report itself inaccessible until the day the embargo lifts. In this case, the embargo will lift automatically at around 02:00.