Welcome back to our series of case studies of research funders using the Grant Linking System. In this interview, I talk with Cátia Laranjeira, PTCRIS Program Manager at FCCN|FCT, Portugal’s main public funding agency, about the agency’s approach to metadata, persistent identifiers, Open Science and Open Infrastructure.
With a holistic approach to the management, production and access to information on science, FCCN|FCT’s decision to implement the Grant Linking System within their processes was not simply a technical upgrade, but a coordinated effort to continue building a strong culture of openness. With the mantra “register once, reuse always”, FCCN|FCT efforts to embrace open funding metadata was only logical.
Repositories are home to a wide range of scholarly content; they often archive theses, dissertations, preprints, datasets, and other valuable outputs. These records are an important part of the research ecosystem and should be connected to the broader scholarly record. But to truly serve their purpose, repository records need to be connected to each other, to the broader research ecosystem, and to the people behind the research. Metadata is what makes that possible. Enhancing metadata is a way to tell a fuller, more accurate story of research. It helps surface relationships between works, people, funders, and institutions, and allows us as a community to build and use a more connected, more useful network of knowledge - what Crossref calls the ‘Research Nexus’.
The Crossref Grant Linking System (GLS) has been facilitating the registration, sharing and re-use of open funding metadata for six years now, and we have reached some important milestones recently! What started as an interest in identifying funders through the Open Funder Registry evolved to a more nuanced and comprehensive way to share and re-use open funding data systematically. That’s how, in collaboration with the funding community, the Crossref Grant Linking System was developed. Open funding metadata is fundamental for the transparency and integrity of the research endeavour, so we are happy to see them included in the Research Nexus.
Lots of exciting innovations are being made in scientific publishing, often raising fundamental questions about established publishing practices. In this guest post, Ludo Waltman and André Brasil discuss the recently launched MetaROR publish-review-curate platform and the questions it raises about good practices for Crossref DOI registration in this emerging landscape.
Version control is the management of changes to a document, file, or dataset. Versions of a document may include the following:
Draft
Preprint - early draft or manuscript shared by researcher in a preprint repository or dedicated channel (outside of a specific journal)
Pending publication (PP) - a manuscript which has been accepted but has not yet been published online
Advanced online publication or ahead of print (AOP) - early release of publication which publisher makes available to readers on their platform (prior to typesetting or before final published form)
Author accepted manuscript (AAM) - accepted version which has been peer reviewed but not typeset or copyedited
Version of record (VoR) - typeset, copyedited, and published version
Updated - adding supplementary data or making corrections to the file, or its retraction.
Version control is important for:
traceability (following the development of the document),
identifiability (connecting documents to decisions, contributions, contributors, and time),
clarity (distinguishing between multiple versions of documents, and identifying the latest version),
reduced duplication (removing out-of-date versions), and
reduced errors (clearly indicating to readers which is the current version).
Publication stages and DOIs
How do I decide if I should assign a DOI to a work, and at what stage? This table sets out seven publication stages of a research object (a publication such as a journal article, book, or dataset). A work may not go through all of these seven stages, so you only need to consider the stages relevant to your publication.
Publication stage
Eligible for a DOI?
Which DOI?
1 Draft
No DOI for draft item
n/a
2 Preprint
Yes
DOI A
3 Pending publication (PP)
Yes
DOI B
4 Advanced online publication/ahead of print (AOP)
Yes
DOI B
5 Author accepted manuscript (AAM)
Yes
DOI B
6 Version of record (VoR)
Yes
DOI B
7 Updated
Yes
DOI C
A DOI should not be assigned to a draft (unpublished) work.
A preprint should have its own DOI (DOI A).
Accepted versions (including PP, AOP, AAM, and VoR) should have a separate DOI (DOI B). Establish a relationship between DOI B and DOI A to show the connection between them, such as DOI B “hasPreprint” DOI A.
In the case of a significant change to the published version, a notice should be published explaining the correction/update/retraction. The updated version should have a new DOI (DOI C). Updates should only be deposited for changes that are likely to affect the interpretation or crediting of the work (editorially significant changes), and instead of simply asserting a relationship, these should be recorded as updates. See the following section for more information on updates.
Best practices for handling retractions and other post-publication updates
Research can undergo changes after it is published for various reasons. For example, it may be withdrawn, corrected, or retracted. It’s important that these changes are accurately reflected in the scholarly record, so that readers know how to find the most up-to-date work, as well as what research can be relied upon and cited.
When an editorially significant update is made to a document, you should not modify the original document, but instead issue a separate document (such as a correction or retraction notice) which explains the change. This separate document will have a different DOI and different metadata from the document that it updates. This process is complementary to versioning.
The metadata for the update should include a link to the item being updated, as well as information on the type of update, as part of the Crossmark section of the metadata:
A full example of an XML file following best practice can be found here. If you are not comfortable editing XML, you can also register Crossmark metadata using our Web Deposit Form.
Note that you don’t need to use all aspects of Crossmark to register updates. Learn more about the different ways of registering updates in our documentation.
You should also reflect the status of the work in the original DOI’s metadata record by adding “RETRACTED:” in front of the article title. We recommend doing the same for the title listed on the item’s landing page. You may also want to replace the abstract of the work with a retraction statement in both the metadata and on your website or publishing platform.
Finally, if you participate in the Similarity Check service, you should remove the full-text URL from the item’s metadata. To get a retracted work to be removed from the Similarity Check text comparison database, get in touch with Turnitin at tiisupport@turnitin.com.
