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Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)

NERC has the ability to issue DOIs to datasets held in its Environmental Data Centres. This is a result of collaboration between the NERC data centres, the British Library and DataCite.

A DOI enables scientists to cite datasets in the same manner as a scientific journal article, thereby enabling credit to be assigned to the dataset creators, and ensuring the discoverability, permanence and stability of the dataset.

Issuing DOIs and the publication of data recognises the value of the data and the effort that has gone into its creation, capture and effective management. DOIs also allow formal publication of the dataset in data journals.

At this time the NERC Environmental Data Centres are transitioning to processes which will allow the minting of DOIs for datasets to become business as usual. Until the level of demand for DOIs is known, it will not be possible to guarantee specific timescales for DOI assignment to datasets, though every effort will be made to ensure that delays are minimised.

Datasets must be fully ingested into the data centre before a DOI can be minted, and this process takes varying amounts of time depending on the data and scientific domain. Datasets which have already been ingested into a data centre may also have DOIs assigned to them, but permission will be sought from the dataset owner before the DOI is minted.

Researchers requesting a DOI should be aware that the data centres will mint DOIs for data that meet certain requirements on deposit; and hence not all deposited data will be issued with a DOI.

For a dataset to be assigned a DOI, it must be provided to the Data Centres in good condition, with appropriate metadata and of a suitable level of technical quality. The dataset submitter will be responsible for ensuring the data meets the required level of quality. Details of the minimum requirements for data are provided in the Guidelines for Scientists with further information provided by the relevant sector specific data centre.