Metadata is one of the most important tools needed to communicate with each other about science and scholarship. It tells the story of research that travels throughout systems and subjects and even to future generations. We have metadata for organising and describing content, metadata for provenance and ownership information, and metadata is increasingly used as signals of trust.
Following our panel discussion on the same subject at the ALPSP University Press Redux conference in May 2024, in this post we explore the idea that metadata, once considered important mostly for discoverability, is now a vital element used for evidence and the integrity of the scholarly record.
For the third year in a row, Crossref hosted a roundtable on research integrity prior to the Frankfurt book fair. This year the event looked at Crossmark, our tool to display retractions and other post-publication updates to readers.
Since the start of 2024, we have been carrying out a consultation on Crossmark, gathering feedback and input from a range of members. The roundtable discussion was a chance to check and refine some of the conclusions we’ve come to, and gather more suggestions on the way forward.
https://0-doi-org.lib.rivier.edu/10.13003/ief7aibi
In our previous blog post in this series, we explained why no metadata matching strategy can return perfect results. Thankfully, however, this does not mean that it’s impossible to know anything about the quality of matching. Indeed, we can (and should!) measure how close (or far) we are from achieving perfection with our matching. Read on to learn how this can be done!
How about we start with a quiz?
We’re in year two of the Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability (RCFS) research. This report provides an update on progress to date, specifically on research we’ve conducted to better understand the impact of our fees and possible changes.
Crossref is in a good financial position with our current fees, which haven’t increased in 20 years. This project is seeking to future-proof our fees by:
Making fees more equitable Simplifying our complex fee schedule Rebalancing revenue sources In order to review all aspects of our fees, we’ve planned five projects to look into specific aspects of our current fees that may need to change to achieve the goals above.
Not sure if you’re using iThenticate v1 or iThenticate v2? More here.
Not sure whether you’re an account administrator? Check here.
Manage your admin account
Manage your admin account using the Account Information tab. From here, you can make changes to your details in My Profile, set up URL filters and phrase exclusions across the whole account, and set up API access to connect your iThenticate account to your manuscript submission system.
Your admin account profile (v1)
The Account Information section shows important information about your iThenticate account, including your account name, account ID, and user ID. Please ignore the iThenticate account expiry date - we’re working with iThenticate to have this removed. The iThenticate account expiry date is set to 1 June 2022 by default.
From Account Info, then My Profile, you can:
Update your profile: this form shows your current details. To make changes, enter your password in the Current Password field at the top of the form.
Change the name attributed to your account: enter the first and last name in the relevant fields. These fields are required, you cannot leave them blank.
Change your email address: enter your email into the email field. This email address is used to send you important account information, so please make sure it is valid. This field is required, you cannot leave it blank.
Add a photo to your account: click Choose File, and select the image file you want to upload.
Change your password: enter your current password in the Current Password field, enter your new password in the Change Password field, and enter it again in the Confirm Password field.
Click Update Profile to save your changes.
URL filters (v1)
This tab only appears if you are an account administrator.
Use URL filters to apply URL exclusion filters across your account. Any URLs that you add here will be ignored when the system checks your manuscript against the iThenticate database, and it will apply across your whole account. If you want to let individual users decide which URLs to exclude instead, they can do this themselves at folder level.
Add a URL to be filtered, and click Add URL. Don’t forget to include / at the end of your URL. Click the X icon to the right of the URL to remove it.
Phrase exclusions (v1)
This tab only appears if you are an account administrator.
Use Phrase Exclusions to apply phrase exclusion filters across your account. Any phrases that you add here will be ignored when the system checks your manuscript against the iThenticate database, and it will apply across your whole account. If you want to let individual users decide which phrases to exclude instead, they can do this themselves at folder level.
Click Add a new phrase, enter the phrase you would like to exclude in the Phrase text field, and click Create. You can add another phrase, go Back to List, or go Back to Account.
From the main Phrase Exclusions page, you can view, edit, or remove a phrase.
API access (v1)
This tab only appears if you are an account administrator.
If you want to connect your iThenticate account to your manuscript submission system, you can do this using the API. Once connected, you’ll be able to submit manuscripts for checking from within your manuscript submission system and see limited results. However, you’ll need to visit the iThenticate website to explore the results further.
You’ll need to contact iThenticate to set up access to the iThenticate API. Once your account has API access enabled, you’ll see the API Access IP addresses option under Account Info.
Use the IP addresses field to specify the IP address ranges that are allowed access to your account. Talk to your manuscript submission system contact for details of what to include here.
Use the special address 0.0.0.0 to allow access from any IP address. Enter addresses individually, or in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) format, such as 192.68.2.0/24. Add multiple addresses by separating them with a space.