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Services for researchers
Finding DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) for the RAE
For RAE 2008 submission researchers need to submit details about their journal articles electronically. According to RAE 2008: guide to research outputs "Form RA2 in the data collection system contains an additional field for HEIs to include the article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI) in submission alongside other bibliographic data."
In the run up to the RAE the Research Office have reviewed all initially selected outputs using the CrossREF tool in the RAE software and have added DOIs to the Publications Database where they are available, therefore please do not adjust any DOIs that have been added to your four selected outputs. Where there are difficulties finding DOIs or problems with the link to articles the Research Office will contact your Departmental RAE Contact.
What is a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)?
Most journal articles that are published electronically will have a DOI. A typical DOI looks like this: doi:10.1006/jcph.1998.5920
Many publishers with whom we have subscriptions (e.g. ACS, ACM, Biomed Central, Blackwell Synergy, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier ScienceDirect, Emerald, IEEE Explore, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley) include the DOI with the table of contents or abstract to each article. A journal article will have a DOI if it comes from a publisher that is a member of CrossRef .
To find a DOI for a journal article
Use CrossRef's DOI lookup tool . This should succeed if you input sufficient bibliographic detail but it does need: author surname and first name or initials, journal title, article title, year of publication, first page number, volume number.
If this fails to return the DOI, try searching an appropriate database in MetaLib and link to the full text using SFX or search the e-journal.
To test that the DOI works use the DOI resolver at: http://dx.doi.org/
If you can't find a DOI
The HEFCE RAE team has estimated that only 80% of journal articles currently have a DOI so there will be a number of articles submitted that don't have one, these are likely to be articles published in 2001 when DOIs were less commonly used.
For the 20% of articles that don't have a DOI, a PDF file or if that is not available, a hard copy, will be required instead, this will be requested from you by the Research Office towards the end of 2007/early 2008
Help and Questions
If you need any further help finding out citation information for your 2008 RAE submission, please contact your Academic Librarian