This year, metadata development is one of our key priorities and we’re making a start with the release of version 5.4.0 of our input schema with some long-awaited changes. This is the first in what will be a series of metadata schema updates.
What is in this update?
Publication typing for citations
This is fairly simple; we’ve added a ‘type’ attribute to the citations members supply. This means you can identify a journal article citation as a journal article, but more importantly, you can identify a dataset, software, blog post, or other citation that may not have an identifier assigned to it. This makes it easier for the many thousands of metadata users to connect these citations to identifiers. We know many publishers, particularly journal publishers, do collect this information already and will consider making this change to deposit citation types with their records.
Every year we release metadata for the full corpus of records registered with us, which can be downloaded for free in a single compressed file. This is one way in which we fulfil our mission to make metadata freely and widely available. By including the metadata of over 165 million research outputs from over 20,000 members worldwide and making them available in a standard format, we streamline access to metadata about scholarly objects such as journal articles, books, conference papers, preprints, research grants, standards, datasets, reports, blogs, and more.
Today, we’re delighted to let you know that Crossref members can now use ROR IDs to identify funders in any place where you currently use Funder IDs in your metadata. Funder IDs remain available, but this change allows publishers, service providers, and funders to streamline workflows and introduce efficiencies by using a single open identifier for both researcher affiliations and funding organizations.
As you probably know, the Research Organization Registry (ROR) is a global, community-led, carefully curated registry of open persistent identifiers for research organisations, including funding organisations. It’s a joint initiative led by the California Digital Library, Datacite and Crossref launched in 2019 that fulfills the long-standing need for an open organisation identifier.
We began our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program to provide greater membership equitability and accessibility to organizations in the world’s least economically advantaged countries. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country; our list of countries is predominantly based on the International Development Association (IDA). Eligible members pay no membership or content registration fees. The list undergoes periodic reviews, as countries may be added or removed over time as economic situations change.
To register your content with us you’ll need a set of Crossref account credentials. These credentials will consist of a username and a password.
Depending on when you joined Crossref and how you work with us, your organization might use unique and personal user credentials for each user at your organization, or alternatively, everyone at your whole organization might share a single set of role credentials. When you apply for membership, we’ll set you up with the best option based on the content registration tool you plan to use, and whether you joined Crossref through a sponsor.
Using personal user credentials to access our tools and services is the most secure and flexible option.
If your organization will be using personal user credentials, each individual who needs to access our system will have a unique set of credentials. Their username will be their email address, and their password will be one that they themselves set, and only they know.
When we first set up a new member account with user credentials, we’ll create user credentials for the nominated technical contact only. We send the nominated technical contact an email which includes a link for them to set their personal password.
These personal user credentials are unique to each individual user and should not be shared with others. If there are other people at your organization (or a third party) who need to register content as well as your nominated technical contact, you will need to request that we add them as a user. This request will need to come from one of the main contacts we hold on your account to keep things secure.
Each set of user credentials will be associated with a role – this role gives your users permission to register content on behalf of your organization. For some tools and services, the user will need to specify the role too.
Organization-wide shared role credentials
If everyone at your organization will be using a single set of shared role credentials to access our tools and services, we’ll create a new role when we first create your account. We’ll then send an email to one person at your organization who will create a central, shared password for your organization.
If your organization is a direct member, the person who will set the shared password will be your Technical contact. If you are a member of Crossref through a sponsor, then your Sponsor will set the password.
This new role and password can then be shared with anyone who will be registering content with Crossref for your organization. Individual people will all use the same shared role as their username, and the same shared password as the password.
Forgotten your password, or want to change your password?
Password reset for personal user credentials
If you use your personal email address and password to access our tools and services, you can use the “forgotten password” link in the admin tool, web deposit form, or record registration form. These tools will send you an email with a link to reset your password.
When you change your personal user credentials password, this won’t have any effect on any other users at your organization.
Password reset for organization-wide shared role credentials
If your organization uses a central set of shared role credentials and you need to change the password, please contact us and we will be able to send a password reset email to one of the main contacts on your account. Crossref staff are not able to view or share the password.
Don’t forget, if you update the password on shared role credentials, then you will need to let all your colleagues know about the new password so they can still access our tools and services.
Want to remove a set of user credentials from having access to your account?
If your organization uses unique user credentials for each person, you may want to remove one of these users from having access to your account - for example, if someone has left your organization, or if you have stopped working with a third party. If you would like to remove specific users from your account, one of the main contacts on your account can contact us to request this change.
