Looking back over 2024, we wanted to reflect on where we are in meeting our goals, and report on the progress and plans that affect you - our community of 21,000 organisational members as well as the vast number of research initiatives and scientific bodies that rely on Crossref metadata.
In this post, we will give an update on our roadmap, including what is completed, underway, and up next, and a bit about what’s paused and why.
The Crossref2024 annual meeting gathered our community for a packed agenda of updates, demos, and lively discussions on advancing our shared goals. The day was filled with insights and energy, from practical demos of Crossref’s latest API features to community reflections on the Research Nexus initiative and the Board elections.
Our Board elections are always the focal point of the Annual Meeting. We want to start reflecting on the day by congratulating our newly elected board members: Katharina Rieck from Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Lisa Schiff from California Digital Library, Aaron Wood from American Psychological Association, and Amanda Ward from Taylor and Francis, who will officially join (and re-join) in January 2025.
Background The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI) provides a set of guidelines for operating open infrastructure in service to the scholarly community. It sets out 16 points to ensure that the infrastructure on which the scholarly and research communities rely is openly governed, sustainable, and replicable. Each POSI adopter regularly reviews progress, conducts periodic audits, and self-reports how they’re working towards each of the principles.
In 2020, Crossref’s board voted to adopt the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure, and we completed our first self-audit.
In June 2022, we wrote a blog post “Rethinking staff travel, meetings, and events” outlining our new approach to staff travel, meetings, and events with the goal of not going back to ‘normal’ after the pandemic. We took into account three key areas:
The environment and climate change Inclusion Work/life balance We are aware that many of our members are also interested in minimizing their impacts on the environment, and we are overdue for an update on meeting our own commitments, so here goes our summary for the year 2023!
It’s a good idea to verify the format and structure of your XML file before trying to register your content. You can validate your XML locally using an XML editor such as Oxygen or XMLSpy, or command line tools such as xmllint. We provide an XML parser that supports single file uploads for validation only.
Our test version of the admin tool allows members and service providers a sandbox to test their XML submissions, before depositing in the production (live) system. The test environment works in the same way as our production admin tool, but uses a test database and does not register DOIs with Handle. You can use the test system for deposits via the admin tool and HTTPS POST, but not for deposits via the web deposit form.
You can also use our metadata quality check parser to check your XML before submission. The parser quickly identifies errors in the XML you uploaded.
Any deposits you make in the test system have no effect on your resolution reports and conflict reports, which relate only to content you register in the production system. Learn more about reports.
Differences between test and production systems
VoR/preprint match notifications: in the production system, a notification feature alerts preprint creators of any matches with journal articles, so they can link to future versions from the preprint. In the test system, you won’t be notified of matches.
Accessing the test system
We don’t automatically set up new accounts with access to the test system, but we are happy to give you this access at any time, whether during your membership application, or at any time after joining. Just contact us to request access.