DOI, CrossRef and how to use it at Masaryk University

The Masaryk University has been a member of CrossRef since 2011. Since then, most university editorial teams have joined the DOI system and started to assign unique DOI numbers to the papers in scientific journals. Masaryk University Press serves as the coordinator and representative at CrossRef. We pay annual membership fee to CrossRef, coordinate assigning of DOI numbers to Masaryk University publications (journals, monographs, compilations etc.), provide methodological and technical help when introducing the system to new journals, and contribute to assignment fees (within the bounds of possibility).

DOI means unique identification of a digital object, is invariant, provides a permanent link to a document, and is currently considered as a standard in the field of scientific publishing. 47 scientific journals use DOI at MU:

• Anthropologia integra
• Archeologia historica
• Archivum Mathematicum
• Art East Central
• Bohemica litteraria
• Brno Studies in English
• Brünner Beiträge zur Germanistik und Nordistik 
• Brünner Hefte zu Deutsch als Fremdsprache
• CASALC Review​​
• Central European Journal of Management
• Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace
• Czech Polar Reports
• Czech-polish historical and pedagogical journal
• Časopis pro právní vědu a praxi
• Česko-slovenská historická ročenka
• Discourse and Interaction
• Études Romanes de Brno
• Financial Assets and Investing
• Geologické výzkumy na Moravě a ve Slezsku
• Graeco-Latina Brunensia
• Linguistica Brunensia
• ​Malacologica Bohemoslovaca​​
• Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology
• Musicologica Brunensia
• Museologica Brunensia
• Neogreaco Bohemica
• Novaja rusistika
• Open European Journal on Variable Stars
• Opera Slavica
• Opuscula historiae artium
• Pedagogická orientace
• Politologický časopis
• Pro-Fil
• ProInflow
• Religio
• Revue pro pravo a technologie
• Slavica litteraria
• Sociální studia
• Studia archaeologica Brunensia
• Studia historica Brunensia
• Studia paedagogica
• Studia philosophica
• Studia sportiva
• Středoevropské politické studie
• Theatralia
• Testfórum

The number of assigned DOIs is growing mainly thanks to articles in academic journals; the identifier is assigned also to some scholarly monographs and their chapters (673 by the end of 2024) and proceedings and contributions in proceedings (1 819 by the end of 2024). The total number of active DOIs with the prefix of MU was 12 500 by the end of 2024. In 2024, 1 051 DOIs were assigned and activated. The average number of accesses per month was, for example, 2,852 in 2015, whereas in 2024, it reached 82,500 per month. The total number of accesses to DOI MU in the past year was nearly 992,000. The numbers are increasing with the growing number of assigned DOIs. The record month for DOI accesses in the past year was September, with 115,535 accesses!

Monthly statistics consistently show that articles from the journals Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, Archivum Mathematicum, and Studia Paedagogica rank among the top ten most accessed DOIs. For example, in December 2024, the most accessed articles were:

10.5817/CP2019-1-4

10.5817/CP2019-3-5

10.5817/CP2021-3-6

10.5817/CP2017-4-2

10.5817/RPT2020-2-2

10.5817/CP2024-3-2

10.5817/SP2018-2-7

10.5817/CP2014-1-9

10.5817/CP2017-3-2

10.5817/CP2024-3-1

In April 2014 journals.muni.cz was established, which concentrates all journals published by the university under the Open Journals System (OJS). The portal is managed by Masaryk University Press and its aim is to help those interested in MU journals, but mainly to simplify the editorial process for the editors who actively use it. At the beginning of 2022, the system was converted to version 3 of OJS.27 journals are currently using OJS for all or part of the editorial process or as an archive (journals no longer published), 23 others are using the system for the presentation of journal pages and will continuously switch to active use of the system.

Journals.muni.cz is managed and coordinated by Masaryk University Press. We assist the editorial boards with implementing the system, we provide training for the editors as well as continuous assistance with the work in the OJS system. The OJS content management system facilitates and accelerates the activation of DOI codes in CrossRef as well as the use of the Cited-by service.

The services of Masaryk University Press were extended in 2019 with another tool offered by CrossRef – the Cited-by tool. Cited-by is one of the tools for scientometry and bibliometry and is an extension for the assignment and registration of DOIs. Authors and readers can easily find out where to find articles of similar focus and what is the citation rate of the article within CrossRef. The service is provided to all those who already assign DOIs to their articles and monographs. Currently, nearly 1 billion references worldwide are registered within the service.

Other similar tools introduced in 2019 for tracking the citation rate of articles are SCOPUS CiteScore and PlumX altmetrics.

During 2020, we met the conditions for using another service CrossRef - Similarity Check, a tool for checking the originality of texts.

Currently, CrossRef has more than 15 000 members from 118 countries and over 140 million DOIs have been registered in the system. Approximately 100 million (71%) DOIs are assigned to journals and journal articles, 24 million (17 %) to monographs, 8 million (6 %) to conference proceedings as well as to preprints and other digital objects. 61 % of the total number of publishers are non-profit.

For more information on DOI statistics, please visit the official Crossref website.