Become a registrant
Register DOIs for the works you publish — today through Crossref, with every DOI, its record and its whole history held here as well.
Who can
A publisher, a university or college, a research institute, a learned society, a library, a company, or a scholar who publishes works and answers for them. A registrant registers only works it publishes or is responsible for, and holds the rights to let their metadata be read and reused by everyone.
How it works today
Smart Scholars is not yet a DOI Registration Agency. Until it is, your DOIs are registered at Crossref — under your own Crossref membership, or through a Crossref sponsor — and the registry holds every one of them with its record and its full history, at no charge. Each record is held to the metadata format and shows whether it carries the DOI System Metadata. A test prefix is free, for trying things.
The steps
- Write to us with your organisation, the journals or works you publish, and whether you already hold a Crossref prefix. A journal can also start with the free audit, which shows what its record needs first.
- Sign the services agreement online: what we do and do not do, the access you give us, personal data, confidentiality, ending, liability and the law — the terms say the same in plain words.
- Your prefix. Bring the Crossref prefix you hold — the login you give us for it is stored encrypted and used only for your work — or register through a Crossref sponsor. DOIs you already have at Crossref are read into the registry, record and all.
- Your DOIs. Each record is checked before it is sent, sent to Crossref only after you approve it, read back from Crossref to confirm it arrived as sent, and held here with its record and its history.
- Kept right. Every address is read weekly; one that fails two weekly reads in a row is listed on your console with the day it first failed; every record's page says what, if anything, it lacks. The handbook has the rest.
What it costs
Today: Crossref's published fees, which you pay to Crossref, and our service fee, stated on the order before you pay. Holding your DOIs in the registry costs nothing.
On appointment as a Registration Agency, a published schedule takes over, with at least 90 days' notice. Its principles are fixed now: a fee per DOI, lower for older works; an annual fee by size, the smallest free; and never a fee for keeping a DOI right — updates, corrections, address changes, withdrawals, transfers. The policies, section 6.
What you agree to
To register accurate, complete records and keep them current; to keep every DOI's address answering, and update it before a work moves; one DOI per work, never a second; to withdraw with a reason, never delete; to answer the registry's notices; and to tell it within 30 days of a change of name, ownership or contact. The registry's own duties are in the same place: the policies, section 5.
Write to us to become a registrant Read the handbook Who runs the registry
mou@smartscholars.in · answered within two working days.
