Over the next several months DataCite will embark on a new development path focusing on member-facing services. Our goal is to provide easy, understandable, predictable, and robust services to create, manage, find, use and track DataCite DOIs to make data sharing and citation easier. Our activities are not limited to technical development but will include support services that will foster the successful use of all our services. Many of these activities come from all of you, the DataCite community, so thank you for the help.
First up, we will simplify authentication, allowing users to use the same login credentials for all DataCite services. Second, the creation and management of DOIs and quality metadata are crucial to DataCite’s mission of data-sharing. Our development path will make it easier than ever to create and manage DOIs and quality metadata. Many of our members use DataCite API to create DOIs, but sometimes there is a need for a simple form for the creation and management of a single DOI and accompanying metadata. Our new DOI input form will allow members to register and update DOIs and metadata and will use the most current version of the Metadata Schema and will include guidance on how to fill in each field.
Next, we will provide DataCite members, whether big or small, with all the tools necessary to manage and better understand their day-to-day activities. To do this, we are implementing an entirely new DOI Service Registry so that members can manage all their interactions in a single place. Members will be able to easily add accounts and users, request new prefixes, and manage existing prefixes.
Our members will also be able to get up-to-date statistics on their DOIs – How many DOIs did I create this month or year? How many DOIs did a data center create? This will allow members to accurately track their activities.
Finally, the persistence of DataCite DOIs is a top priority. Keeping DOIs persistent includes making sure URL links are active and healthy. A link-checker service will provide an easy way for members to monitor URLs links of DataCite DOI to see if any are broken.
One of the goals with our new development is to keep the community continually informed of what we are working on and the direction we are planning to take next. We also take seriously your input and ideas. As part of the wide scholarly communications ecosystem, we are proud to be open and transparent!
Two important features aid our development – our DataCite User Stories and our DataCite Development Roadmap. The User Stories collect descriptions of new features and requirements, and the Roadmap takes those User Stories and organizes them into projects and prioritizes our development.
GitHub and Waffle are the tools we chose to make them all available and collect your feedback, but you can also explore them in our website:
- User Stories: https://www.datacite.org/user-stories.html
- Development Roadmap: https://www.datacite.org/roadmap.html
- GitHub: https://github.com/datacite/datacite
- DataCite waffle.io board: https://waffle.io/datacite/datacite
We are excited about the work in front of us and want your continued input. Please review our roadmap, add your comments and suggestions, and help us shape our next steps. Your input is key!
