Resources for Editors of Scholarly Journals: OJS 3.3 Pro Tip: DOIs

These instructions are for institutions using the Crossref registration service to issue DOIs for journals that they publish in OJS 3.3.  They assume that the Crossref XML Export and DOI plugins are installed and correctly configured. 

Older versions of OJS used to automatically assign DOIs to articles upon publication, but that has changed.  In OJS 3.3, DOIs have to be assigned for each article manually, then, a few hours later, an automated registration process will send the DOI information to Crossref for activation.  However, this delays the activation of the DOIs and frustrates authors and others trying to click on the inactive DOI link on the article page.  The easiest way to register DOIs is to assign them after publication and then manually register them.  The whole process takes approximately 5 minutes. 

To quickly register DOIs after publication:

1. Log in to OJS.
2. Publish the issue or articles that you want to register.
3. Open the Dashboard and choose Tools > Crossref XML Export plugin. 
4. Within the Crossref XML Export plugin page, click on DOI Plugin Settings.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Assign DOIs, then Save. 
6. Once the DOIs have been assigned, you will be returned to the Crossref XML Export plugin page.  On that page, open the Articles tab.
7. Click the clickbox next to any articles with a status of Not Deposited.
8. Select Deposit to register the DOIs with Crossref. The plugin will let you know if registration was successful and will change the article's status to Active. 
9. If any articles do not register, try repeating steps 6 and 7 again. 
10. If the DOIs still do not register, get help from your journal's support team.  For journals supported by KU Libraries, contact Marianne Reed and/or Eric Bader. 

Assigning DOIs before publication:

Some journals add DOIs to their article galleys, which means that DOIs have to be manually assigned to each article before the article is published.  The DOI can be assigned only after the article has been assigned to an (as yet unpublished) issue and is in the Production stage of the workflow.  The DOI will not be registered until the article is published. 

To assign DOIs before publication:

1. Log in to OJS
2. Search in the Submissions > All Active area for the submission.  You can search by author's name, article ID, or title keyword.
3. Once you locate the submission, check to make sure that it is in the Production stage of the workflow and has been assigned to an issue.  If it is in Production, click View to open it.  If it isn't in the Production stage, you will need to move the article into the Production stage of the workflow and schedule the article for publication, then View the article to proceed.
4. Click on the Publication tab and choose Identifiers. 
5. If there is a message on that page indicating that the article needs to be scheduled for publication before a DOI can be assigned, either schedule it for publication in a future issue or come back later after the article has been scheduled for publication. 
6. Click Assign > Save to generate the DOI. 
7. When you are ready to add the DOI to the article galley, open the submission and choose Publication > Identifiers.  Highlight the DOI and copy it to your clipboard. 
8. Crossref's preferred form for DOIs is to precede the DOI text with https://doi.org/ (ex. https://doi.org/10.17161/rrnmf.v3i4.5678)
9. Add the DOI to the article.  Remember that it won't be registered with Crossref until the article is published.
10. When the issue is published, DOIs will be registered automatically in a few hours, but, if you want the DOIs to work sooner after publication, open the Dashboard and choose Tools > Crossref XML Export plugin. 
11. Within the Crossref XML Export plugin page, open the Articles tab.
12. Click the clickbox next to any articles with a status of Not Deposited.
13. Select Deposit to register the DOIs with Crossref. The plugin will let you know if registration was successful and will change the article's status to Active. 
14. If any article DOIs do not register, try repeating steps 6 and 7 again. 
15. If the DOIs still do not register, get help from your journal's support team.  For journals supported by KU Libraries, contact Marianne Reed and/or Eric Bader.