Digital Object Identifier System

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique, persistent alphanumeric code that identifies a scholarly work (journal article, book chapter, dataset, preprint) and persists even if the URL changes. Introduced in 1998 by Norman Paskin and the International DOI Foundation, DOIs are now standard in academic publishing. They consist of a prefix (assigned to a publisher or organization) and a suffix (assigned to an individual work), formatted as 10.XXXX/XXXXX (e.g., 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097). DOIs are registered with international agencies (CrossRef, DataCite, mEDRA) and resolve through the centralized resolver https://doi.org/, ensuring that a DOI will direct users to the correct article regardless of whether the publisher's website changes location.