By associating good quality metadata with a DOI in Fabrica, your items are made more visible, accessible and usable.

The mandatory metadata provides the key elements of a citation. For example:

Li, D et al and the Escherichia coli O104:H4 TY-2482 isolate genome sequencing consortium (2011): Genomic data from Escherichia coli O104:H4 isolate TY-2482. BGI Shenzhen. http://doi.org/10.5524/100001

The DataCite Metadata Schema contains a number of other fields that further aid discovery and add additional context to objects that have been assigned DataCite DOIs. 

The metadata can also be used for other purposes; in particular, it can be integrated into other systems or websites using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).

Fabrica allows you to enter all mandatory and optional metadata through a web form and will validate your input against the schema. You can also upload a metadata file in XML or JSON format following the DataCite Metadata Schema.

If you want to assign DOIs in bulk or integrate with a repository or other storage system, you need to use the APIs.

Updating metadata

Your agreement with the British Library stipulates that you are not allowed to change the mandatory metadata for your DOIs unless you consult with us first. This is because altering the mandatory metadata changes the citation. As such, you should ensure appropriate quality assurance of mandatory metadata to avoid mistakes.

You can update and add to the optional metadata at any time. When updating metadata, it is also useful to consider that when you send it to DataCite, it is available for anyone to download, harvest and reuse for any purpose. DataCite cannot ensure that third parties update the metadata they have already harvested. Even if you update the metadata that DataCite holds, others may still be distributing an older version of it.

Open metadata

All metadata that is sent to DataCite is made openly available for anyone to view, download, integrate and harvest for any reason. This means that the metadata you send to DataCite must be made available under Creative Commons Zero. This only applies to the metadata. The items assigned a DOI do not need to be openly available.