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.
To work out which version you’re on, take a look at the website address that you use to access iThenticate. If you go to ithenticate.com then you are using v1. If you use a bespoke URL, https://crossref-[your member ID].turnitin.com/ then you are using v2.
The Folders page contains the main functionality of iThenticate, the service which powers Crossref Similarity Check. It is where folders are created, browsed and shared with other users, where documents are submitted within a folder to be checked against the iThenticate database for similarity, and where documents can be deleted or moved from one folder to another.
Use the relevant tick boxes to exclude quotes, bibliography, certain phrases (set these under Account Info), small matches, and small sources.
To exclude small matches, you set an exclusion threshold. Any match with fewer words than the threshold will be excluded from the Similarity Check. This affects the Match Overview view in Document Viewer. Modify this option from within Document Viewer.
To exclude small sources, you set a word count or a percentage exclusion threshold. Any matches with fewer words, or lower than a certain percentage matched will be excluded from the Similarity Check. This affects the All Sources view in Document Viewer. Modify this option from within Document Viewer.
Think carefully about using percentage thresholds if you are working with large documents, where a set percentage of 1% may exclude very large matches/sources. For example, 1% of a 100-page document is one full page.
The exclude sections option allows you to exclude longer abstracts or methods and materials sections from being picked up by the Similarity Check.
Please be aware that section exclusion may not work properly if documents contain:
Watermarks
Unevenly spaced line numbering
Sub-headings that are indistinguishable from the Methods and Materials heading
Abstract or Methods and Materials section appearing within a table
Section headings and body text using the same font, font size, and font treatment
Repositories to search against (v1)
Choose which collections to include in the Similarity Check. Here are the currently available repositories:
Crossref - research articles, books, and conference proceedings provided by publishers of scholarly content all over the world
Crossref posted content - preprints, eprints, working papers, reports, dissertations, and many other types of content that has not been formally published but has been registered with Crossref
Internet - a database of archived and live publicly-available web pages, including billions of pages of existing content, and with tens of thousands of new pages added each day
Publications - third-party periodical, journal, and publication content including many major professional journals, periodicals, and business publications
To buy the option to create a customizable database source with your own content to submit to and search against, please contact sales@ithenticate.com.
Save your new folder (v1)
Once you are satisfied with the changes you’ve made, click Create at the bottom of the form to create your new folder.
Create a new folder group (v1)
Start from the New folder section to the right of the page, and click New Folder Group.
On the Create A New Folder Group screen, name your new folder group, and click Create.
Now you have an empty folder group. To add a folder to this folder group, click Create a folder. To delete an empty folder group, click Remove this empty group.
Organize folders (v1)
Folders in the folder group are shown in alphabetical order. To see a folder group’s content, go to the My Folders section on the left, and click My Folders.
You can choose to organize the folders within a folder group by title, or by date processed:
To sort the folders by title, click the Title header in the title column. A down arrow shows that the folders have been arranged in alphabetical order. Click the down arrow again to put the folders in reverse alphabetical order.
To sort the folders by date created, click the Date Created header in the date created column. A down arrow shows that the folders have been arranged by date created, with the most recent first (reverse chronological order). Click the down arrow again to put the folders in chronological order.
Move folders (v1)
To move folders to another folder group, go to the folder group containing the folders you wish to move. Click the tick box beside the folder you want to move. From the drop-down menu, use Move selected to… to choose the destination folder group, and click Move.
The drop-down menu will not show unless you have created other folders to make it possible to move a document.
Delete folders (v1)
Start from the My Folders side menu, and hover over the folder you wish to delete. Click the trash can icon to move the folder to the Trash folder group.
To delete multiple folders, go to the folder group, and check the tick boxes for each folder you wish to delete. Click Trash in the menu bar above to move the folders to the Trash folder group.
Once a folder has been moved to the trash, you can review it before you delete it permanently. From the My Folders menu on the left, click the Trash folder group. In the trash, you can see all the folders you have moved here. To remove a folder from the trash, check its tick box, and use Move selected to… to move the folder to another location.
To permanently delete a folder, check its tick box, and click Delete in the menu bar above. Once you have permanently deleted a folder from Trash, you will not be able to get it back.
Share folders (v1)
Depending on how your account administrator has set up sharing permissions, you may be able to (a) view only folders shared by other users, (b) view all users’ folders, or (c) view folders of selected users. If you cannot automatically view others’ folders, use the sharing feature to share folders with other users within the same account.
Start from the folder you want to share, and click the Sharing tab.
You will see a list of users with whom you can share the folder. Check the box next to the users’ names, and click Update Sharing.
Sharing a folder with another user allows them to view the Similarity Report only. It does not allow them to submit a document to the folder.
Once a folder has been shared, there are two ways to unshare the folder:
by the user who shared it: uncheck the box next to the user’s name, and click Update Sharing
by the user with whom it is being shared: in the user’s directory, hover the cursor over the folder name, and an X icon will appear to the right of the folder name. Click the X icon to remove the shared folder.
Account administrators can enable or disable sharing access based on the organization’s internal guidelines. If the sharing feature is disabled, users will not be able to view previously shared documents.
Edit folder settings (v1)
To customize a folder’s settings, use the Settings tab within the folder. Folder settings includes three tabs: Folder Options, Report Filters, and Phrase Exclusions.
Use Folder Options to view and modify the options you chose when you created the folder.
Use Report Filters to manage the list of URLs that are filtered out from comparison checking for that folder.
Use Add URL to add a URL to be filtered, and click Add URL. The URL you add may be as specific or general as you wish, for example:
http://example.com/ (don’t forget to include the trailing “/”) - to exclude an entire site
http://example.com/docs/ - to exclude a specific directory
http://example.com/docs/paper.pdf - to exclude a specific document
To remove a URL, click the X icon to the right of the URL.
Use Phrase Exclusions to add and remove phrases to exclude from comparison checking for every submission in this folder. To add a new phrase, click Add a new phrase, enter the phrase you wish to exclude in the Phrase text box, and click Create. If you don’t want to create a phrase to exclude, click Back to list to return to the Phrase Exclusions tab, or Back to folder to return to the folder view.
Automatic exclusion of bibliography sections (v1)
iThenticate detects the following keywords and ignores any matches after the keyword:
reference, references
reference list
reference cited, references cited
reference and note, reference and notes
references and note, references and notes
reference & note, references & note
reference & notes, references & notes
references and further reading
resource, resources
resources directory
bibliography
bibliographic information
works cited, work cited
citations
literature
literature cited
When it reaches any of the following words in the paper, it resumes the Similarity Check:
appendix
appendices
glossary
table
tables
acknowledgement, acknowledgements
exhibits
figure
figures
chart
charts
Automatic exclusion of quotations (v1)
Supported marks: iThenticate recognizes these quotation marks and will ignore any matches that use them:
“…”
«…»
»…«
„…“
《…》
〈…〉
『…』
Unsupported marks: iThenticate does not recognize these quotation marks and will flag any matches that use them:
‘…’
This applies even when (single) ‘quotes’ appear within (double) “quotes”. For example:
“This text would be excluded ‘but this text would not be excluded’ “then this text would also be excluded.”
iThenticate will also exclude formatted block quotations (indented blocks of text) in .doc or .docx files.
Page owner: Kathleen Luschek | Last updated 2020-May-19