Digital Object Identifiers, commonly shortened to DOIs, were invented to give each electronic, or digital, item a unique, persistent identifier. Any digital object can be assigned a DOI number, for example:
The DOI creation process is governed and managed by the International DOI Foundation. DOI Registration agencies under the International DOI Foundation provide services and registration of DOI numbers. They are typically focused on specific geographic areas or types of content. For example, EIDR provides DOI numbers for movie and television content.
Crossref is one of the registration agencies for the International DOI Foundation. It assigns DOIs to scholarly research publications. These publications include journal articles, books, and conference proceedings.
All DOIs start with the number 10 followed by a period. Here is an example:
10.3201/eid1905.AD1905
In MLA and APA, when you format the DOI as a URL for the citation, add "https://doi.org/" before the number. For example:
https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1905.AD1905
Please note: When you copy a citation using the Cite tool in OneSearch, you will need to correct the URL provided for strict adherence to MLA or APA style. Your instructor may allow the database produced URL, so make sure to ask. Here is what the Cite tool brings back as the DOI:
https://doi-org.ezproxy.fcclib.nocccd.edu/10.3201/eid1905.AD1905
In order to follow strict MLA/APA citation style, you would need to remove https://doi-org.ezproxy.fcclib.nocccd.edu/ and add https://doi.org/ before the 10. The correct DOI would be
https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1905.AD1905
There are a couple of important things to know about DOIs.