Finally, after more than a year, version 4.4. of the DataCite MetadataSchema was released on March 30th 2021. Even though it is only a minor release, quite a few things have been added:

● Addition of the new subproperty “classificationCode” in the Subject property.

● Addition of 13 new values to the resourceTypeGeneral property:
Book
BookChapter
ComputationalNotebook
ConferencePaper
ConferenceProceeding
Dissertation
Journal
JournalArticle
OutputsManagementPlan
PeerReview
Preprint
Report
Standard

● Addition of a new relationType: “isPublishedIn” (indicates that A is published in B)

● Addition of a new relatedItem property, with subproperties to contain specific details for containing publication information previously encoded in a description field with descriptionType = ”SeriesInformation” (for example, to define the journal name, volume, and page number for an article resource).

It is important to note, that this new schema is not fully supported by DataCite yet, both in Fabrica and via the APIs when using JSON. With xml, the new schema is fully supported. With the next upgrade in Fabrica and the APIs, the whole schema will be supported.
In ETH Zurich’s DOI System we will implement the changes, i.e. the new values of the resourceTypeGeneral, in the new DOI system. Until then, we will continue to work with version 4.3.

The crosswalk between the DataCite MetadataSchema and Dublin Core, which is widely used in many repostories, is currently being revised and will be published as soon as possible.

On January 1st, the new membership model was applied and we became a so called “consortium”. The structure of Fabrica was changed according to this model and the old cost model replaced. Here are three important issues that caused some irritation among our customers and that we need you to be aware of:

-DOI fees (non-ETH customers only): Please be aware that DataCite’s DOI fee is based on the number of DOIs registered in the previous year for all existing customers. The actual number of registered DOIs in the running year is not relevant. Please also check DataCite's fee model for more information.

-While it is possible to have more than one prefix per repository if you register via DataCite's REST API or manually, we follow DataCite's recommendation and strongly advise you to only use one prefix per repository. In our own DOI system, several prefixes per repository are not possible.

-We have noticed that a lot of our customers did not change their information in DataCite Fabrica. While for ETH customers this is optional, for non-ETH customers this is mandatory. Please make sure to change the default email address, this way, in case of losing your password, a new one can be sent to you directly and not via DOI Desk. Furthermore, you will receive DataCite's monthly newsletter. Please update your information in Fabrica. How to do this is explained in DataCites support site.

-We had to change the agreement for new customers of the DOI desk regarding the costs in the first year. These will be prorated in years when the fee cap applies. When the fee cap does not apply, the cost is based on an estimate of expected DOIs and the prorated membership fee. Existing customers are not affected by this change to the agreement.

The DataCite General Assembly was held virtually on April 29th. Among the usual topics like approving the budget and electing executive board members, the DataCite Team talked about the so called strategic vision process for 2021: What are DataCite's core services and key themes of the future?
The DOI Desk, as a consortium lead, takes part in different meetings concerning this strategic vision and represents not only ETH Zurich but all of the DOI Desk's customers. One of the main question in this process is: Where do you see DataCite in five years? As our customers are also part of DataCite, we would like you to let us know what you think about this. Write to us at doi@library.ethz.ch and we will collect all of your ideas and inputs, bundle them and forward them to DataCite.

PID architecture for the EOSC

Read more about INCIPIT, a project by HEG-GE about a national service for the ARK identifier.