OSCR

DOIs for tracing maps

A DOI is a promise of permanence. OSCR makes that promise only for what an author has confirmed: a paper's tracing map, validated by one of its authors, deposited on Zenodo.

Only for maps an author validated

A DOI is assigned only to a tracing map validated by an author of the paper, signed in with the ORCID iD the paper lists (or whose claim of authorship was verified: how). A map the harvester proposed never receives one, nor does any record the machine generated: no DOI for a paper's page, a repository, a script or a match.

What the DOI covers

The map: its links and metadata, in one file, tracing-map.json (what it holds). Not the authors' code, which is never deposited again: it stays in its repository, which the map references at the validated commit. Not the paper, which has its own DOI.

The Zenodo record

  • Zenodo is the free research repository run by CERN; the maps are gathered in the registry's community, oscr.
  • The record's type is a dataset; its title, "Code tracing map:" and the paper's title; its description lists the repositories, with their commits and licences, and says that the code is not redeposited.
  • Its licence is CC0-1.0: anyone may reuse a map.
  • Its subjects: code tracing map, research software, reproducibility, neuroscience.

Its relations

IsSupplementTo
the paper's DOI.
References
each code repository: its own DOI when it is an archive with one (a Zenodo record, for instance), otherwise its address at the validated commit.

Its creators

The author who validated, with their ORCID iD, and the platform (OSCR). An author's name and iD on a Zenodo record are public and permanent: that is the purpose of the validation, and the page that asks for it says so.

Versions

A map validated again after a correction becomes a new version of the same record, under the same concept DOI; each version keeps its own DOI. A map withheld at a removal request keeps its DOI on Zenodo — a DOI cannot be deleted — but the site no longer shows it.

The sandbox, while building

All development uses Zenodo's sandbox (sandbox.zenodo.org), whose DOIs are not real. Real deposits begin when the operator switches the registry to Zenodo itself. A validation made through ORCID's sandbox sign-in is a test: only the sandbox accepts it, and no public output shows it.

Cost

None, for the author or the registry: Zenodo is free, and no paid service is involved.