Information on resource 'VO in DOI'

Why would I want a DOI?

The main purpose of obtaining a DOI for a VO resource is to enhance its citability. Many popular citation styles let you give DOIs, which in turn facilitates later identification of the service, even if the service's URL changes, the service is operated by a different data center, or the service disappears.

The IVOID (the ivo-URI you get when registering with the VO) could, in principle, work almost as well for citation purposes, but few people know what to do with it, and few citation styles let you use IVOIDs meaningfully. Also, the IVOID changes when the publisher changes; a DOI can remain constant (although VOiDOI right now doesn't support that yet; ask us if this becomes an issue for you).

All DOIs are resolvable to “landing pages” (giving metadata and access options) when you prepend http://dx.doi.org/ to them; that is true for VOiDOI-generated DOIs as well.

Current practice in the VO is to preferably cite a paper associated with a resource if there is such a paper. Hence, VOiDOI is targeted mainly at services that either are not closely associated with a paper (e.g., observatory collections) or that collect data emerging from multiple papers (thing Simbad-like services).

How do I operate VOiDOI?

You first have to register your service. Once your service has propagated from your publishing registry to the searchable registries (this may take up to a day), you can paste its IVOID (the URI starting with ivo:// you get with registration) into the registration service. The service will then send an e-mail with a registration URL to the contact address given in the registry record (in the contact/email element). Once you retrieve the URL, the service will tell you your new DOI.

You should then include that DOI in citation advice, and also in an altIdentifier element in the registry record itself (in DaCHS, set a doi meta to do that). Be sure to re-publish your service once you have added the DOI.

What happens if my service dies?

First, DOI minting is irreversible, and you should not obtain a DOI for a service you do not expect to be permanent.

Still, bad things happen. If your service dies and the registry record goes away, VOiDOI will keep its metadata in a “tombstone”; this will include all existing metadata – technically, it is that metadata, the registry record, what the DOI really refers to –, and some notice what happened to the service as far as we know.

Also, other VO resources can still reference the dead service in relationship elements. We hope that through the Continues relationship, users can be pointed to resources taking up the data published if these exist.

How do I register to the VO?

That's a longer story, and there are multiple answers. See getting into the Registry on the IVOA wiki for details.