Digital object identifier
Revision as of 10:28, 5 April 2019 by Robert Brockway (talk | contribs) (Created page with "A '''digital object identifier''' ('''DOI''') is a character string (a "digital identifier") used to uniquely identify an object such as an wi...")
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a character string (a "digital identifier") used to uniquely identify an object such as an electronic document.
Metadata about the object is stored in association with the DOI name and this metadata may include a location, such as a URL, where the object can be found.
The DOI for a document is permanent, whereas its location and other metadata may change. Referring to an online document by its DOI provides more stable linking than simply referring to it by its URL, because if its URL changes, the publisher need only update the metadata for the DOI to link to the new URL.