I was recently asked an interesting question \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve written a report that hasn\u2019t been published as either an article or a conference paper but I\u2019m keen to be able to circulate it with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) so that it has a permanent place on the web and is easily discovered and cited. It\u2019s not really suitable for a journal but I think it could make an impact on people working in my field. What are my options?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThis is classic \u201cgrey literature\u201d \u2013 work that could be useful in getting your research message out there but that might not appeal to good quality journals with their emphasis on new work and broad appeal. There are various types of research-related work that fall within this category \u2013 working papers, reports, conference papers that did not appear in published proceedings and even PowerPoints \u2013 that could enhance your reputation and help make your scholarship available to readers who might not be reached by conventional academic publishing. With the growing emphasis on the social, economic and environmental impacts of research this makes sense, but venturing outside the conventional outlets gets you into some tricky territory known as self-publishing. That\u2019s not necessarily the worst thing in the world but it needs to be handled with caution if you want your work to be taken seriously. And you need to make sure that your work is easy for others to discover and read. And that it appears to best advantage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are a number of options to consider, but first a word about identifiers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The other important thing about all of these options is that they are all FREE. That’s right, no money.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nAn identifier is a unique permanent alphanumeric code that identifies a unique object. It differs from a name or address in that both of those can change and they may not be unique. Think of it like your Massey ID number; no matter if you change your name or its preferred form, shift departments or change status, your ID number is still going to be the same. Even when you leave it won\u2019t be allocated to someone else \u2013 the university, in fact the universe, isn\u2019t going to run out of numbers. And it always has to be your number, it can\u2019t be transferred and you can\u2019t change into someone else. And you can\u2019t have another one \u2013 there is only one you. Your tax number is another example of an identifier, and there are a number of important identifiers in academia<\/a> \u2013 your Scopus ID or Web of Science Researcher-id for example, your ORCID ID or the DOIs attached to your articles or the Handles attached to the online versions of your thesis or other works in Massey Research Online.<\/p>\n
\nThe DOI has become a standard element in many referencing systems and at first glance it might appear to be just a tag attached to an article or a chapter. However, it\u2019s important to take a closer look at the name Digital Object Identifier because what it identifies is not the article\/chapter and its particular set of words and\/or images but a specific and unique digital expression of them \u2013 an object rather like a chair that exists in one particular place at any given time, although it could move to another place and still be the same chair. It differs from a web address in two ways \u2013<\/p>\n
\n1. Websites frequently change their structure and the web addresses (URIs) of specific pages change with them. It was partly in response to problems caused by this that the DOI was developed. It\u2019s just a character string but behind it sits a system (Crossref) that always \u201cknows\u201d where that number is to be found on the web. To locate a specific digital object on the web you put the string https:\/\/doi.org\/ in front of the DOI in the format https:\/\/doi.org\/10.xxxx\/xxxxx<\/p>\n
\n2. The content of a web page can be changed at any time but an object with a DOI is supposed to be perpetual and unchanging \u2013 its most common use is by publishers to identify the version-of-record, the official published article or chapter as it appeared in the journal or book. To some extent this harks back to the days of print when whatever was printed was it, for all time, and could not change. Crossref have loosened the rules recently to allow preprints (i.e. author manuscripts before peer review) to have their own DOIs as expressions separate from the version-of-record, but author postprints (i.e. fully peer-reviewed but separate from the version-of-record) are not supposed to have a DOI as this rightly belongs to the version of record.<\/p>\n
\nSo, to get back to our question about grey literature, what role does an identifier like a DOI have in making your grey literature less grey, more permanent and even something that could be cited and taken seriously? Well, again there are two reasons. Firstly your reader has some sort of guarantee that the content is not going to disappear and, secondly, that it\u2019s not going to change. It will always be findable and always the same thing \u2013 identical in fact. That\u2019s a reason to be really careful when giving your work a DOI by the way, you can\u2019t take it back or make it go away.<\/p>\n
\nAnd how do you get hold of one of these magic little character strings? There are lots of options, but here are a few good ones \u2013<\/p>\n
\nMassey Research Online<\/a> \u2013 our very own MRO is primarily a home for Massey theses but it also functions as a \u201cgreen\u201d repository for published articles and is host to a wide range of reports<\/a>,\u00a0 working papers<\/a> and other grey items. Here\u2019s an example<\/a>.\u00a0 Unfortunately MRO items don\u2019t get a DOI \u2013 the persistent identifier is a \u201chandle\u201d which takes the form of http:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/10179\/3954 which is a less well known identifier and won\u2019t automatically become part of any citation of the document. A big advantage of MRO is that it seems to be well covered by Google Scholar which means that your work will be visible to other scholars.<\/p>\n
\nFigshare<\/a> \u2013 this is another really good option. Figshare is primarily a site for data sharing and it is the used by Nature Publishing and Public Library of Science to provide access to datasets accompanying articles. In other words it has plenty of prestige and a high level of stability. Any file type can be uploaded to Figshare and will automatically receive a DOI so it\u2019s an excellent place to self-publish. Here\u2019s a good example<\/a>\u00a0of a researcher who had a good experience with them. You should also look closely at Figshare if you are thinking of making your research data public. One downside is that Figshare content is not routinely covered by Google Scholar so your content probably won\u2019t be found through the most widely used scholarly search engine. (Figshare tell me they are working on this but Google Scholar are notoriously hard to get through to so don\u2019t watch this space too closely.) And you need to be very careful about getting it right, because publicly shared Figshare content can\u2019t be altered, deleted or hidden.<\/p>\n
\nResearchGate<\/a> \u2013 there are plenty of good reasons to have a ResearchGate account\u00a0<\/a> although you do have to take care not to breach copyright in uploading published content. For your unpublished work, however, it looks like a good self-publishing option as they offer a do-it-yourself DOI service<\/a>. You can\u2019t do this for anything designated as an article, book, chapter, patent, poster or conference paper as these are considered to have been published already which would break the DOI protocol, but for reports and working papers it could be a reasonable option. Findability might be a problem as coverage by Google Scholar is sporadic so make sure you have a strong and unique title.<\/p>\n