Conflicts make DOI discovery more difficult

The majority of CrossRef query transactions are between machines thus automation is essential. Ambiguous DOI metadata interferes with that automation.

4 things we can do about conflicts:

Working to reduce DOI conflicts will be an ongoing task for all CrossRef stakeholders.

1) Prevent them by supplying unique metadata in each DOI’s deposit

(see http://www.crossref.org/02publishers/how_to_faq.html#Anchor-Dealin-60673)

2) Resolve them by updating previous deposits with new, distinct metadata

3) Resolve them in bulk by contacting support@crossref.org

4) Resolve them using your CrossRef account and the conflict administration screens

NEXTThis presentation was prepared on February 10, 2005

This presentation walks through the process of using the CrossRef system to resolve you conflicts without contacting CrossRef for assistance

This approach will let you eliminate significant quantities of conflicts with a few simple steps. For conflict quantities in the 100s it might be best to contact CrossRef

This approach will only let you resolve conflicts involving DOIs having the same prefix/owner. Conflicts can be created by one publisher that impact another publisher’s DOIs. Please contact CrossRef to resolve these conflicts

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The CrossRef conflict report is a good place to start. For each publisher it identifies the titles that have conflicts

www.crossref.org => members area => member resources => system reports => conflict report

(note: the periodic email notifications contain the same data)

# of DOIs File size

Click on the title to see the conflict details NEXT

The detail report lists all data about each conflict

Conflict ID The submission that caused the conflict

The submission ID of the ‘other’ DOI

Publication title The metadata of the ‘conflict’ DOI (author,volume,issue,page,year,item title)

The ‘conflict’ and ‘other’ DOI metadata should be identicalBUT, if an anomaly occurred this alert will show the metadataof the ‘other’ DOI (note the subtle title difference)

DOI pairs can have several conflicts if the DOIs were deposited repeatedly with the same metadata. This record lists the other conflict IDs and their status (null: not resolved, A: has been made an alias, P:has been made a prime, U:conflict was automatically resolved by an update of the metadata, R: conflict was manually erased/resolved)

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Created: 2003-03-27 15:52:04.0

ConfID: 865

CauseID: 14986658

OtherID: 14986596,

JT: Physical Review

MD: null, 69 ,11-12,674,1946,Proceedings of the American Physical Society - NY

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRev.69.674 (943-R 944-P 637-P 691-P 769-P 865-R 61503-U 61511-U )

ALERT: MD mismatch! null, 69 ,11-12,674,1946,Proceedings of the American Physical Society

(10.1103/PhysRev.69.674.2 (943-null 944-A 637-A 691-A 769-R 865-null 61503-U 61511-U ))

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Created: 2003-03-27 16:01:00.0

ConfID: 943

CauseID: 14986735

OtherID: 14986596,

JT: Physical Review

MD: null, 69 ,11-12,674,1946,Proceedings of the American Physical Society - NY

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRev.69.674 (943-R 944-P 637-P 691-P 769-P 865-R 61503-U 61511-U )

ALERT: MD mismatch! null, 69 ,11-12,674,1946,Proceedings of the American Physical Society

(10.1103/PhysRev.69.674.2 (943-null 944-A 637-A 691-A 769-R 865-null 61503-U 61511-U ))

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A worst case scenario!

Same two DOIs involved in these two conflicts

In some conflicts prime/alias relations have been setup, other conflicts appear unresolved or inconsistent

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What does this situation mean???

Something went wrong in earlier attempts to resolve these conflicts (system aborted?)

Since at least one conflict is resolved with a prime/alias pair any query with this metadata will work

QUERY: |Physical Review||69|11-12|674|1946|||

Results: 0031899X|Physical Review||69|11-12|674|1946|full_text||10.1103/PhysRev.69.674

What should be done next ???

Having these open conflicts is really just a nuisance, to get rid of them from our reports lets make DOI 10.1103/PhysRev.69.674 prime in all conflicts

This is a good thing. It means the primary CrossRef mission is being achieved!

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Step 1: login to http://doi.crossref.org

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Step 2: go to the Metadata Admin /Conflict page

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Step 3: enter the conflict ID and select consolidated conflicts

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Hightlights which conflict we requested

This form also lists all the conflicts related to these DOIs

Most conflicts have a prime DOI, from the Conflict Report we know which one it is

Some conflict’s status is ambiguous

Click on the DOI to view the target article

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Select the DOI to be made prime

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Results

Note: previous conflicts that had a

prime/alias pair are re-processed!

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To review the effect go back to the conflict administration page, enter the DOI, clear all check boxes and submit

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When “Show consolidated conflicts” is not selected the display shows more detail about each conflict

In this example, all conflicts are resolved so there is no action to take (action buttons only show on “Consolidated” view)

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The alias/prime settings show up in the DOI query results

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Prime DOI returned Prime/Alias flag

Lets do another ….

Created: 2004-07-28 00:48:53.0ConfID: 118504CauseID: 81049593OtherID: JT: Journal of the American Chemical SocietyMD: null, 126 ,30,9465,2004,nullDOI: 10.1021/ja040932t (118502-null 118503-null 118504-null 118624-null 118625-null 118626-null 118627-null )DOI: 10.1021/ja040944e (118502-null 118503-null 118504-null 118624-null 118625-null 118626-null 118627-null )DOI: 10.1021/ja040943m (118503-null 118504-null 118624-null 118625-null 118626-null 118627-null )DOI: 10.1021/ja0409311 (118504-null 118624-null 118625-null 118626-null 118627-null )

4 DOIs involved in a ‘family’ of 7 conflictsNEXT

Again, use the conflict admin form, enter a conflict ID and select “Show consolidated conflicts”

What to do? From the conflict report we know all 4 DOIs point to the same page in the same issue and none have an author or article title. Lets view them... NEXT

All 4 DOIs point to BookReviews that appear on the same page of the same issue.

There simply is not enough metadata to distinguish these 4 from one another.

These conflicts should just be erased!

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On the “Consolidated conflict” form manually resolve all conflicts

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Results: all conflicts are simply resolved without any DOI being made prime or alias

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What does it mean to manually “resolve” conflicts?

Basic metadata queries will not find these DOIs:

Query |Journal of the American Chemical Society||126|30|9465|2004|||

Produces <query status="unresolved"> <journal_title>Journal of the American Chemical Society</journal_title>

<volume>126</volume> <issue>30</issue> <first_page>9465</first_page> <year>2004</year> </query>

XML queries will find these DOIs:

Query Produces

<query key="MyKey1" enable-multiple-hits="true"> <journal_title> Journal of the American Chemical Society </journal_title> <volume>126</volume> <first_page>9465</first_page> <year>2004</year></query>

<query key="MyKey1" status="multiresolved"> <doi>10.1021/ja040944e</doi> <issn>00027863</issn> <journal_title> Journal of the American Chemical Society </journal_title> <volume>126</volume> <issue>30</issue> <first_page>9465</first_page> <year>2004</year> <publication_type>full_text</publication_type></query><query key="MyKey1" status="multiresolved"> <doi>10.1021/ja040943m</doi> … (more)

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What if a mistake is made?

Conflict was ‘erased’ or ‘marked as resolved’

Just undo

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Conflict is restored, ready to be resolved again !

The End

Conflict resolution function has come a long way!

Attention to details by all members will improve data quality

Pay attention to your deposit logs!!!

Working to reduce DOI conflicts will be an ongoing task for all CrossRef stakeholders.