Dear friends,
Is there any Free DOI service? or does PKP OJS provide such a service for free. I did a broad research about DOI services, and I have learnt that it might be costy.
Please advice.
Please contact crossref.org and they will explain you the payments and prices. It is not necessarily too much costly.
For example, one journal decided that they will assign DOI numbers to articles that are genuinely scientific. Articles that are only informative on previous events or reviews will not get DOI. They saved some money but also encouraged scientists to get DOI for articles about their scientific research.
As far as I know there is no free DOI service.
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In their website it is written than annual fee is 275 USD.
Our journal publishes two issues per annum. In each issue their is 5 articles. So, per annum we publish 10 articles. The doi fee per article is 27.5 USD. Is not it costy?
Please contact them. Pricing is slightly different I think.
Yep, pricing may be lower than $200+
Hi @ihlasnobatovich
This might be a long story, but the gist of doi registration is no more different than domain registration. Although, some companies state that they are non-profit, it just makes me smile. It’s a market of millions of dollars. Anyone wishing to get this service has to sign an agreement with a doi registration agency and pay an annuel fee, which is at least 275 dollars. For each article, you have to pay 1 dollar, even for an update. The access policy of your journal has no effect on this. Long story short, the only free and quality service that you might get on this road is the Open Journal Software and this forum. A big thanks to developers and contributors.
Please look at that topic too.
https://forum.pkp.sfu.ca/t/crossref-vs-datacite/35148
Regards.
The point of non-profit is not that they cannot generate income. The income they generate cannot be used as usual profit. That is something that make romance slightly less bitter.
However, they must have a huge infrastructure and emplyees too. So , income they generate will not make them buy luxury things. Maintenance and all other costs are I guess very high. Being non-profit does not mean do everything free of charge which many of scientists and other science publishing enthusiasts would like to. That is reality of our world whether I like it or not.
I am personally involved in free software movement approx 22 years and many peopel say: You are volunteer and against profits so we will not pay you anything. Can you install OJS, write manuals, do training and take care of our OJS installation and server for 80 $ per year. That is not good understanding of freedom either.
Thanks for opening discussion on that
Annual fee can be less than 275 dollars.
I already considered bypassing intermediaries in DOI assignment, but it requires a server and much work as a server administrator. Although, it will still require fees for every doi prefix:
http://www.handle.net/payment.html
So, don’t think that Crossref are making money from nothing 
Hi @vvucic
Thanks for your contribution. We are actually saying similar things. Every work, service etc has a cost. An important point that we should consider is that neither CrossRef, or other registration agencies are not owner of the doi system. They are third party registration agencies. Like domain registration companies. I think you know that, the domain system is under the control of US Government. So, the question is that: who is doi.org?
Here are members (actually owners, founders, whatever it is:
International DOI Foundation Members
Please note that this is a list of members, but that IDF Registration Agencies may also be membership organizations. For example CrossRef has a large number participating publishers and societies.
CHARTER MEMBERS
John Wiley & Sons
Springer SBM
GENERAL MEMBERS
R. R. Bowker*
BSI Group
EDP Sciences
Internet Support Foundation (Russia)
New England Journal of Medicine
Wolters Kluwer Health
If we come to Crossref, here is its members list;
https://www.crossref.org/board-and-governance/
Do they look like volunteers? No, they are million-dollars companies, and put the rules.
Murphy rules say: If you have money, you put the rules, and if you can put the rules, you get the money. So simple.
As I mentioned in my first message, this is a long story and we have no chance to intervene.
Yes free(dom) does not mean no charge. Linux world experienced this. Every project either has to find a sponsor, become enterprise or die.
Best Regards,
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I fully agree with you. However, whatever we feel that jeopardizes us we can find alternative. That is one of important lessons of free software movement.
Thanks for sharing your thpughts.
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Yes we dont have alternative options currently. To my knowledge, only zenodo provides free doi (https://zenodo.org/). PKP also provide free doi for journals from low income countries under crossref sponsorship.
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I have put the link. Crossref uses 3rd party software for assigning doi. They collect fees for support of their server and work of a system admin. Those corporations are only members of Crossref organization. They have only 1 member vote, as our small publishing company.
You can assugn doi’s by yourself, if you have a server, minimal starting capital and a system admin skills.
I am really don’t understand, what are you criticizing…
Can you be more specific? What services can Zenodo provide? They certainly do not offer doi prefixes for scientific journals for free…
How to assign doi’s by ourselves. I have a server.
That is not so simple. You cannot use any server and say : I will assign DOI myself.
You cannot so easily assign prefixes just by having server and some skills.
Zenodo offer free doi, not the prefixes. You can upload your paper on zenodo, and it gives doi number with prefix “zenodo”. It looks like this: http //dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1120275
Take a look at this link:
https://www.doi.org/factsheets/DOIHandle.html
and at this service:
http://www.handle.net/
No, you can. Why not? It is even preferred approach if your organization is considered for nation-wide doi assignment. I am not Russian, but guys from there just implemented this:
http://rads-doi.org/en/
This is a Zenodo prefix. You can, with this approach, assign doi’s within prefix from our journal…