DOI becomes an ISO standard

In May the ISO standard 26324 was published. That means that the DOI is now an ISO standard! ISO 26324:2012 specifies the syntax, description and resolution functional components of the digital object identifier system. It also gives the general principles for the creation, registration and administration of DOI names.

Will this have any consequences for DataCite? Apart from having stronger arguments pro DOI, there are only small real consequences. For every object registered with a DOI name the metadata shall be recorded promptly. Also, this metadata must comply with the minimum standards set by the IDF (International DOI Foundation) in the DOI Handbook.

The DataCite Metadata Schema already maps to the IDF Metadata Kernel, but we may need to make the property "resourceType" mandatory to ensure a mapping to "referentType" in the IDF kernel. Watch out for the changes in our upcoming new metadata schema version!

See the ISO press release for more information.