On behalf of the Nominating Committee, I’m pleased to share the slate of candidates for the 2024 board election.
Each year we do an open call for board interest. This year, the Nominating Committee received 53 submissions from members worldwide to fill four open board seats.
We maintain a balanced board of 8 large member seats and 8 small member seats. Size is determined based on the organization’s membership tier (small members fall in the $0-$1,650 tiers and large members in the $3,900 - $50,000 tiers).
In our previous instalments of the blog series about matching (see part 1 and part 2), we explained what metadata matching is, why it is important and described its basic terminology. In this entry, we will discuss a few common beliefs about metadata matching that are often encountered when interacting with users, developers, integrators, and other stakeholders. Spoiler alert: we are calling them myths because these beliefs are not true! Read on to learn why.
We’ve just released an update to our participation report, which provides a view for our members into how they are each working towards best practices in open metadata. Prompted by some of the signatories and organizers of the Barcelona Declaration, which Crossref supports, and with the help of our friends at CWTS Leiden, we have fast-tracked the work to include an updated set of metadata best practices in participation reports for our members.
It’s been a while, here’s a metadata update and request for feedback In Spring 2023 we sent out a survey to our community with a goal of assessing what our priorities for metadata development should be - what projects are our community ready to support? Where is the greatest need? What are the roadblocks?
The intention was to help prioritize our metadata development work. There’s a lot we want to do, a lot our community needs from us, but we really want to make sure we’re focusing on the projects that will have the most immediate impact for now.
The Crossmark button gives readers quick and easy access to the current status of an item of content, including any corrections, retractions, or updates to that record.
Crossmark provides a cross-platform way for readers to quickly discover the status of a research output along with additional metadata related to the editorial process. Crucially, the Crossmark button can also be embedded in PDFs, which means that members have a way of alerting readers to changes months or even years after it’s been downloaded.
Research doesn’t stand still: even after publication, articles can be updated with supplementary data or corrections. It’s important to know if the content being cited has been updated, corrected, or retracted. Crossmark makes this information more visible to readers. With one click, you can see if content has changed, and access valuable additional metadata provided by the member, such as key publication dates (submission, revision, acceptance), plagiarism screening status, and information about licenses, handling editors, and peer review.
Crossmark lets readers know when a substantial change affecting the citation or interpretation has occurred, and that the member has updated the metadata record to reflect the new status.
Watch the introductory Crossmark animation in your language:
Members can report updates to readers and showcase additional metadata.
Researchers and librarians can easily see the changes to the content they are reading, which licenses apply to the content, see linked clinical trials, and more.
Anyone can access metadata associated with Crossmark through our REST API, providing a myriad of opportunities for integration with other systems and analysis of changes to the scholarly record.
How Crossmark works
Members place the Crossmark button close to the title of an item on their web pages and in PDFs. They commit to informing us if there is an update such as a correction or retraction, as well as optionally providing additional metadata about editorial procedures and practices.
While members who implement Crossmark provide links to update policies and commit themselves to accurately reporting updates, the presence of Crossmark itself is not a guarantee. However, it allows the community to more easily verify how members are updating their content.
If you use Crossmark, the Crossmark button must be applied to all of your new content, not just content is updated. Selective implementation means that a reader, such as a research or librarian, who downloaded a PDF version before the update would have no way to know that it has been updated. We also encourage you to implement Crossmark for backfile content, although doing so is optional. At least, we encourage you to do so for backfile content that has been updated.
Obligations for Crossmark
Any member can provide update metadata and register an update policy. If you are a member who implements the Crossmark button, you must:
Maintain your content and promptly register any updates.
Include the Crossmark button on all digital formats (HTML, PDF, ePub).
Implement Crossmark using the script provided by us.
Not alter the Crossmark button in any way other than adjusting its size.
Implementing the Crossmark button involves technical changes to your website and production processes. Check that you have the necessarily expertise to implement these before you start. If not, you can start to deliver update metadata and implement the Crossmark button at a later point.
Any organisation can also implement the Crossmark button on pages where they display content. If you do so, you must follow the guidelines above, except for the first point if you are not reponsible for the content.
There are no additional fees to participate in Crossmark.
How to participate in Crossmark
There are several steps for members to fully implement Crossmark:
Devise an update policy, assign it a DOI, and register it with us.
Add the update policy and, optionally, other relevant metadata to your metadata records.
Publish corrections, retractions, and other updates for works where necessary, and register their metadata. See our guidance on registering updates.
Implement the Crossmark button online and in PDFs.
To see which Crossref members are registering Crossmark information, visit Participation Reports. These reports give a clear picture for anyone to see the metadata Crossref has including Crossmark data.