Digital Object Identifier (DOI) – a must know for every author of scholarly publications.

Abstract

In the academia it is “publish or perish”. At some stage, the number of international publications also counts. It may however sound ridiculous that referencing may hinder an author from being able to publish in some international journals. This is because such international journals request for the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of references cited by authors. Regrettably, most authors have never heard about DOI before, let alone being familiar with it. DOI is a standard numbering system like ISBN/ISSN. It is a unique code preferred by publishers in the identification and exchange of the content of a digital object such as journal articles, web documents, or other intellectual property. This article is an eye opener to the features and benefits of DOI, anatomy of a DOI name, citing DOI in references and locating DOI of references.

Key words: Digital object identifier (DOI), authors, referencing.