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DOE Data ID Service

DOE OSTI provides the DOE Data ID Service, which assigns digital object identifiers (DOIs) to data objects produced by DOE researchers, as well as by DOE contractor and grantee researchers. Through the service:

  • OSTI assigns and registers DOIs for data objects as an enhancement to the Department's management of research outputs.
  • DOIs are automatically assigned to data records during metadata submission to E-Link, unless a DOI has already been assigned.
  • DOIs assigned to data objects are registered with DataCite to aid in citation, discovery, retrieval, and reuse.

OSTI supports two mechanisms for users to provide information necessary to obtain a DOI for DOE-funded data – a web submission interface and an application programming interface (API).

  • Information/metadata describing the data object can be provided to E-Link through either mechanism, creating a data record and then assigning a DOI to the data object.
  • The organization submitting the metadata must provide a link to where the data is hosted, have authority to make the data object discoverable, ensure the data are managed appropriately, and update the metadata associated with the record and DOI as needed.

The DOE Data ID Service is a useful tool for increasing access to data, as noted by the DOE Public Access Plan (PDF): "The Department's Office of Scientific and Technical Information can provide Digital Object Identifiers to datasets resulting from DOE-funded research. To improve the discoverability of and attribution for datasets created and used in the course of the research, DOE encourages the citation and identification of datasets with persistent identifiers such as DOIs."

OSTI became a member of DataCite in 2010 to facilitate citing, accessing, and reusing publicly available scientific research datasets produced by DOE-funded researchers. DataCite is an international not-for-profit organization that supports data visibility, ease of data citation in scholarly publications, data preservation and future re-use, and data access and retrievability. DataCite provides DOI services as a registration agency of the DOI Foundation.