DataCite and Crossref have published a joint handbook focused on the role of metadata in ensuring research integrity. The document explains how high-quality and rich metadata helps assess the trustworthiness of scientific outputs—from identifying authors and funding to tracking versions, corrections, or the peer review process.
The handbook specifically focuses on these key metadata elements:
- Authors and their roles (including identifiers such as ORCID)
- Institutional affiliations
- Important dates (creation, publication, updates)
- Funding and grant information
- Document versions and their evolution
- Corrections, retractions, and updates
- Abstracts and descriptions
- References and citation links
- Peer review
- Publisher / record custodian
- Resource types (article, dataset, etc.)
- Alternative identifiers
- Relationships between objects (e.g., article–data–grant)
- Licenses and access rights
The authors point out that the mere assignment of a DOI does not guarantee the quality of research. The key factor is the completeness and accuracy of the metadata, which forms the “evidentiary trail” of scientific work.
Recommendations:
- Education: While open research infrastructures are often invisible to scientists, they form the foundation of all modern metadata services. To increase the trustworthiness of science, it is important for the community to better understand how metadata in DOI records is organized and implemented. Crossref and DataCite encourage the study of their metadata schemas, which ensure interoperability between different systems.
- Enriching records with more precise metadata: It is good practice to provide accurate and descriptive metadata during the submission of results for publication. It is also desirable to ensure that curators and publishers include the maximum range of available information in DOI records.
- Utilizing existing metadata for research and analysis: Existing metadata records represent a rich and permanent source of information on global scientific activities. This data is publicly accessible through open APIs and can be integrated into analytical environments.
- Reporting metadata discrepancies: The open nature of DOI metadata allows for easy tracking of information provenance. Using an API, one can retrieve a complete record, including information on who is responsible for the data, which facilitates reporting errors or discrepancies directly to the metadata manager.
The goal is to strengthen transparency and trust in scientific communication through open infrastructure and community-wide collaboration.