2025 June 17
Evolving the preprint evaluation world with Sciety
This post is based on an interview with Sciety team at eLife.
Adding references to your metadata record
We encourage you to include references (citation lists, bibliographies, data and software citations) with all content you register. A key benefit is that they will appear in Cited-by query results. You can include references when your first register content, or you can add them to existing DOIs later. Learn more about the benefits of registering your references.
Including references (or adding them to an existing deposit) can be done by:
- Crossref XML plugin for OJS: You must first enable References as a submission metadata field and then enable the Crossref reference linking plugin, to include references in your initial deposit, or add them later.
- Web deposit form: The web deposit form can’t currently be used to add references when you first register your content, but you can use Simple Text Query to match references and add them to an existing record.
- Record registration form: Our new record registration form for journal articles has a built-in field for adding references. Learn more about how to use the record registration form.
- Metadata Manager: If you’re still using the deprecated Metadata Manager, there’s a field where you can add references and Metadata Manager will attempt to match your references to their DOIs. If you want to add references to an existing deposit, simply find the existing record, add your references, and resubmit. Learn more about updating article metadata using Metadata Manager.
- Direct deposit of XML: you can include references in your original deposit, or add them later. Learn more at how to deposit references for users of direct deposit of XML.
Using Simple Text Query to match and deposit references
Matching and depositing references using Simple Text Query is a suitable method for helper tool users. If your content registration method is direct deposit of XML, see how to deposit references for users of direct deposit of XML.
Simple Text Query allows you to both find the DOIs for your references and add them to the metadata for a DOI that you have already registered with Crossref. Please note that this method will overwrite any references previously deposited for the content item - if you’ve previously added references to an item, and want to add more references using Simple Text Query, you need to include both the existing and the new references in your deposit.
- Start at Simple Text Query
- Enter your references into the form. Don’t check List all possible DOIs per reference. Click submit
- Select the Deposit button and complete the fields
- your email address - this is used to send you a submission log after your reference deposit has been processed
- the parent DOI is the DOI of the content item for which you are adding references. It must already be registered with Crossref
- your Crossref account credentials
- Click Deposit again.
If your details have been entered correctly, you will see a success message, showing that your deposit has been submitted to the system queue for processing. When the reference deposit has been submitted, you will receive an email containing the XML deposit generated by the form. After that submission has been processed (usually within minutes of your submission), you will receive a submission log by email with the results of your submission.
Non-members can also use Simple Text Query to match references with DOIs.