Glossary of Scholarly Communication terms
Many terms used in scholarly communication are essentially developed by libraries and library-related organisations.
We are aware that research communities are not familiar with this terminology, and are equally aware that the terms keep cropping up in various forms through the research journey.
This glossary provides a guide to the definitions of various terms. Our aim is to ensure that researchers do not ignore useful information and become more familiar with this ever-encroaching landscape into the research domain.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
The DOI Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. We govern the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system on behalf of the agencies who manage DOI registries and provide services to their respective communities. We are the registration authority for the ISO standard (ISO 26324) for the DOI system and we are governed by our Registration Agencies.
What is a DOI?
A DOI name is a digital identifier of an object, any object — physical, digital, or abstract. DOIs solve a common problem: keeping track of things. Things can be matter, material, content, or activities.
Designed to be used by humans as well as machines, DOIs identify objects persistently. They allow things to be uniquely identified and accessed reliably. You know what you have, where it is, and others can track it too.
Metadata
Metadata means "data about data". Metadata is defined as the data providing information about one or more aspects of the data; it is used to summarize basic information about data that can make tracking and working with specific data easier