DOIer

DOIer is a term used in scholarly publishing and digital libraries to refer to a person or role responsible for managing Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). DOIs are persistent, unique identifiers assigned to digital objects such as journal articles, data sets, and reports, intended to provide stable links over time.

In practice, a DOIer handles registration, metadata curation, and link integrity. They coordinate with registration agencies such as Crossref and DataCite, submit metadata that describes the object (title, authors, date, publisher, and URL), and ensure that the DOI resolves to a functional landing page. They may work within a publisher's production workflow, a university library, or a data repository.

Key responsibilities include minting new DOIs, updating metadata when items are revised, managing versioning, and monitoring for broken links or landing-page changes. They may also support compliance with funding and indexing requirements and assist with bibliometric analysis by ensuring consistent metadata.

The DOIer role is not standardized; the term is informal. In many organizations, similar duties are described as DOI administrator, metadata editor, or publishing systems administrator. Best practices align with the DOI Handbook and standards published by DOI registration agencies, including careful governance of prefixes, metadata schemas, and persistence policies.

See also Digital Object Identifier, Crossref, DataCite, the DOI Handbook.