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.
If you register your content with us using the web deposit form, XML file upload using our admin tool, or XML deposit using HTTPS POST, you’ll receive a submission log email from us. This email lets you know if your submission was successful, and if not, will provide error messages to explain more.
If you register your content with us using the third party Crossref XML plugin for OJS, if you’re using the new record registration form, or if you’re still using the deprecated Metadata Manager, you won’t automatically receive a submission log, and instead the success or error message will show in your interface. However, you can still log in to the admin tool using your Crossref account credentials to retrieve submission logs if you wish.
Here are some examples of submission logs - read on to find out more about a specific error message and how to fix the problem.
DOIs that return a Warning status in your submission logs have been deposited, but may need extra attention. A Failure status means that either a particular DOI has not been deposited, or the entire deposit file was unable to be processed due to some error.
The DOI was deposited; however, there was already another DOI in our system with identical metadata. This often occurs when an article is published ahead of print and deposited with no page numbers
Review DOIs with warnings and resolve all conflicts
Errors in title records
In order to prevent duplicate records, and to ensure that DOIs are being assigned by the appropriate member, our deposit system includes certain checks on titles, ISSNs, and ISBNs.
When you submit the very first deposit for a work associated with a title, a title record is created in our system. This record includes the title, ISSNs or ISBNs, (optional) title-level DOI, record type, and the details of the associated member.
In all subsequent deposits, the title, ISSNs or ISBNs, and (if included) title-level DOI must match this existing record exactly.
There are several errors that you may see in your submission logs that may indicate that there isn’t a match.
Errors in titles
ISSN "[ISSN]" has already been assigned, issn ([ISSN]) is assigned to another title ([title])
Problem: The title in your submission is slightly different from the existing title record we hold.
You may think that the title you are depositing is the same as the title record we hold, but there are some common reasons why it may not be, such as:
Punctuation, easily-confused characters, and punctuation marks that look similar:
An em-dash looks like this —, its UTF-8 (hex) representation is e2 80 94 and in Unicode it’s U+2014. An en-dash looks like this –, its UTF-8 (hex) representation is e2 80 93 and in Unicode it’s U+2013. The default dash-like character on some keyboards is a hyphen, but on others is an en-dash, so they can easily be confused. A hyphen looks like this ‐, its UTF-8 (hex) representation is e2 80 90, and in Unicode it’s U+2010.
Use of Cyrillic Х (Cyrillic Ha) instead of Latin X. While the Cyrillic Х (U+0425 in Unicode) looks almost exactly like the Latin X (U+0058 in Unicode), they are not the same letter.
Language: if your journal is in more than one language, you need to choose one version of the title as the master entry.
Typos, such as The Journal of Thigns, in the spelling of your journal title
Variant spellings of your journal title, such as The Journal of Things and Journal of Things
Solution 1: Change the title in your current submission to match the previously registered title and resubmit.
Deposit contains title error: The journal has a different DOI assigned; If you want to change the journal's DOI please contact Crossref support: title=Journal of Metadata; current-doi=10.14393/JoM; deposited-doi=10.14393/JoM.1.1
Problem: The journal level DOI that you have in your submission is slightly different from the journal level DOI in our title record.
Solution 1: Change the journal level DOI in your submission to match the previously registered journal level DOI and resubmit.
Solution 2 : Change the journal level DOI in the existing title record - you’ll need to contact us for help with this.
Errors in title ownership
ISSN "{ISSN}" has already been assigned to a different publisher {publisher name}({publisher prefix})
ISBN "{ISBN}" has already been assigned to a different publisher {publisher name}({publisher prefix})
ISSN "[ISSN]" has already been assigned, title/issn: [journal title]/[issn] is owned by publisher: [prefix]
Problem: These errors indicate that the title you are depositing is owned by another member or prefix in our system.
Solution: If you are the correct member for the title being deposited, please follow the procedures indicated in establishing and transferring ownership to have the title record transferred to your member/prefix.
General title record discrepancy error
ISSN "{ISSN}" has already been assigned to a different title/publisher/record type
Problem: This error indicates the ISSN(s), title, or publisher in your deposit do not match the data we have on record for that ISSN.
Solution: To verify the data in the title record with a given ISSN, please search for that ISSN on the Crossref title list. Resubmit with the correct information. If you need to change your title, get in touch with us. If there are any discrepancies between the title, ISSN(s), publisher, or record type that need to be updated, please contact Support and include the submission ID for your deposit.
Invalid ISSN or ISBN error
ISSN "{ISSN}" is invalid
ISBN "{ISBN}" is invalid
Problem: This error indicates that the ISSN or ISBN in your deposit is incorrect. All valid ISSNs and ISBNs use a check digit which is algorithmically validated by our deposit system.
Solution: If your deposit fails with this error, please verify the ISSN or ISBN, and resubmit the deposit with the correct number.
Errors in DOI suffixes
If you see <msg>DOI: 10.5555/2411?3417 , contains invalid characters</msg> in your submission log, your deposit has failed because within your DOI suffix 2411?3417, there is a non-approved character, indicated by the ?. You can learn more about approved characters for DOI suffixes, but here are the two most common problems:
Problem 1: Using an em-dash or en-dash instead of a hyphen. An em-dash looks like this —, its UTF-8 (hex) representation is e2 80 94 and in Unicode it’s U+2014. An en-dash looks like this –, its UTF-8 (hex) representation is e2 80 93 and in Unicode it’s U+2013. The default dash-like character on some keyboards is a hyphen, but on others is an en-dash, so they can easily be confused.
Solution 1: reconfigure your DOI so it doesn’t include an em- or en-dash, or replace the em- or en-dash with a hyphen. A hyphen looks like this ‐, its UTF-8 (hex) representation is e2 80 90, and in Unicode it’s U+2010.
Problem 2: Use of Cyrillic Х (Cyrillic Ha) instead of Latin X. While the Cyrillic Х (U+0425 in Unicode) looks almost exactly like the Latin X (U+0058 in Unicode), they are not the same letter.
Solution 2: change the Х to the Latin X or another approved character, and then resubmit your deposit.
Errors in the XML
Deposited XML is not well-formed or does not validate: Error on line 538
Problem: This error means that the XML is poorly formatted against our schema, or as an XML file in general. For example, it may contain self-closing tags, or invalid values.
Solution: Check your XML file for mistakes. Be sure to edit it in an XML editor and not a word processing program. Check you have saved the file correctly (as an .xml file), and deposit it again. If it still fails, contact Support for help. We also have a collection of XML examples you may use as a template.
Errors in timestamps
Record not processed because submitted version: 201907242206 is less or equal to previously submitted version 201907242206
Problem: The timestamp in this deposit file is numerically smaller than the timestamp in a previous deposit for this same DOI.
Solution: Every deposit has a <timestamp> value, and that value needs to be incremented each time the DOI is updated. This is done automatically for you in the Crossref XML plugin for OJS as well as our helper tools. But if you’re updating an existing DOI by sending us the whole XML file again, you need to make sure that you update the timestamp as well as the field you’re trying to update.
When processing a metadata deposit, we do a number of checks to prevent the introduction of bad data to our system.
Error
Meaning
Solution
User with ID: {0} can’t submit into handle, please contact the Crossref admin
The handle system username and password assigned to this prefix is incorrect in the Crossref system
This is usually a clerical error. Please contact Support and include the submission ID in your email
User not allowed to add records for prefix: {0}
The role that was used to submit this deposit does not have permissions to deposit DOIs beginning with this prefix
Confirm that you are using the correct prefix and Crossref credentials. If you’re still having trouble, please contact Support and include the submission ID in your email
All prefixes in a submission must match (DOI[{0}])
All DOIs included in a single deposit submission must have the same prefix, regardless of ownership
Revise submission, and split the single file into multiple deposits, each with a single prefix. Then resubmit the new deposit files
title “{title}” was previously deleted by a Crossref admin
The title record being deposited or updated was deleted from our system, usually at the publisher’s request
Review your title and compare to previous deposits for that type of content. If you’re still having trouble, please contact Support and include the submission ID in your email
user not allowed to add or update records for the title “{title}”
The Crossref account that was used to submit this deposit does not have permissions to deposit for this title
Review title to confirm that you are using the appropriate account and prefix. If you’re still having trouble, please contact Support and include the submission ID in your email
This is an example of a parsing error being reported in the log file. Since this output comes directly from the Xerces parser the actual message will vary depending on the error
Review file at line / column indicated (in this example: line 286 column 24), edit, and resubmit. If you’re still having trouble, please contact Support and include the submission ID in your email
org.jdom.input.JDOMParseException: Error on line 312 of document file:///export/home/resin/journals/crossref/inprocess/395032106: The content of elements must consist of well-formed character data or markup
Unacceptable markup in file
Review the file as indicated, correct, and resubmit
[fatal error] :1:1: Content is not allowed in prolog
Characters precede the XML declaration. This is almost always a Byte Order Mark (BOM) which most often occurs when word processing programs are used to edit XML files
Open file in a text or XML editor and remove characters (usually ). If the encoding is shown as UTF-8 With BOM, change this to UTF-8 or UTF-8 Without BOM. Then resubmit the deposit.
java.io.UTFDataFormatException: invalid byte 1 of 1-byte > UTF-8 sequence (0x92)
There is a badly encoded character. Locate and correct the bad character encoding
Two files containing the same DOIs have been submitted simultaneously. The system attempts to process both deposits, but only one deposit will be successful. The unsuccessful deposit will generate this error
Review DOI metadata to be sure it was updated correctly
java.lang.NullPointerException
Most often this means a citation-only deposit or multiple resolution resource-only deposit has been uploaded as a metadata deposit (or vice-versa)
Resubmit deposit as DOI Resources or doDOICitUpload. If this does not apply to your deposit, please contact Support and include the submission ID in your email
Submission version NULL is invalid
Schema declaration is incorrect
Resubmit with correct schema declaration
Invalid namespace/version
Wrong operation type, or submitted file is not XML
cvc-pattern-valid: Value ‘https://orcid.org/0000-0001-XXX-XXX' is not facet-valid with respect to pattern ‘https?://orcid.org/[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{3}[X0-9]{1}’ for type ‘orcid_t’
The ORCID ID you have included doesn’t match the expected pattern. The most common reason for this is a trailing space
Remove the space (or update the ORCID ID to the correct format) and re-submit
cvc-enumeration-valid: Value ‘VoR’ is not facet-valid with respect to enumeration ‘[vor, am, tdm]’. It must be a value from the enumeration.
Some elements have a pre-defined list of values in our schema, and the submission must match these values exactly - they are even case sensitive. Here, the submission included the attribute of ‘version of record’ as VoR, but the schema defines that value as vor.
