Digital Object Identifier - DOI
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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Digital Object Identifier, or DOI, is a unique identifier number for a digital object. The object could be a scientific paper, a book, a book chapter etc. A DOI for a digital object is a bit like an accession number for a protein or DNA sequence in that they are unique for the particular objects.
The basic idea behind DOIs is to provide a method so that online sources/information can always be found, even if the original webpage has been moved to a new location or web address.
Increasingly DOI numbers are being used when referring to a paper to report the online location (you can include a DOI number in your references in an essay, but you shouldn't use them as the reference, you should still give authors, journal etc.). In fact, some 'papers' are no longer published on paper and are only available online via their DOI number.
In this section we will:
  1. find the DOI for a specific scientific paper
  2. find a paper for a specific DOI
Finding the DOI for a specific paper, and finding a paper for a given DOI
Finding the DOI for a paper can be tricky. It is often easier to find the paper online, and see if you can find the DOI on the page! However, this assumes you can find the paper.
To find the DOI of a paper, we will use CrossRef (there are a number of similar sites than can be used).
  1. Run a DOI search at: http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/.
  2. Using the 'Bibliographic metadata search' (it should be on the page that opened when you clicked the above link) enter the data for the following reference: Cell. 2006, 124: 573. Your entry should look like the image below.
Completed DOI search entry - Saturday October 8, 2016 at 8:41:17 am
  1. Click search.
You should have now completed the search, and the result should have been returned.
Search results - Saturday October 8, 2016 at 8:44:21 am
  1. Complete the quiz below.
1) What is the DOI for the paper?
One answer only.
   http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.047
   doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.046
   doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.047
   doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.048
   Voeltz
2) What is the title of the paper?
One answer only.
   Voeltz
   A Class of Membrane Proteins Shaping the Tubular Endoplasmic Reticulum
   doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.046
   Winnie the Pooh's great adventure
A DOI can be resolved (translated back) to a link for a paper by using the system at http://dx.doi.org/.
We will now find the original paper for the following DOI: 10.1021/jf904082b
  1. Go to: http://dx.doi.org/.
  2. Enter '10.1021/jf904082b' (without the quotes) into the search field (use copy and paste).
  3. Complete the quiz below.
1) What year was the paper published?
One answer only.
   2008
   2009
   2010
   2011
   2012
2) What is number of the first page of the paper?
One answer only.
   58
   59
   1012
   6912
   6922
You have now:
  1. found the DOI for a given paper
  2. found the paper for a given DOI
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