Underline Will Enrich Your Video Content with DOI Numbers - so why is this important?

A DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, is a unique string of numbers, letters and symbols used to permanently identify a book, article, scientific paper, poster or video, and link to it on the web. The DOI is essentially a digital footprint or a Social Security number for the article or video content. Each piece of content is given a DOI at creation, and it can be used to identify the content during its lifespan – regardless of where it goes.

Unlike a conventional Web address, or URL, a DOI does not specify the location of an online object, but rather its content. A DOI is a "persistent" identifier, and while web addresses change, the DOI remains a constant.

Developed by a group of international publishers, the first DOIs were created in 2001. As of 2020, approximately 230 million DOI names have been created, and there are more than five billion DOI lookups every year. The DOI system is used by more than 5K publishers and science data centers.

Scholars and researchers have long cited the journals and papers they have utilized when drafting a piece of work or study, both to give proper credit, but also as a way of supporting the credibility of the study itself. While this kind of “citeability” is important in all academic disciplines, it is acutely critical for scientific advancement and discovery, why Underline’s authority to issue DOIs for your important video content is such a valuable tool.

DOIs make it easier to retrieve works, and they augment a video or article’s likelihood for citation, which is why citation styles like APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association) recommend including them. DOIs also form a key component of certain reference-linking systems and are indexed in Major Library Discovery and A&I Services such as ALMA/Primo, Google Scholar, Encore, WorldCat and CrossRef.

The scholarly research eco-system includes preprints, conference proceedings, publications, journals, and books that have a DOI. Conference Video Lectures and Poster Sessions are also part of the research eco-system that should have a DOI, and now Underline Science, Inc. has ensured that the videos in the Digital Video Library will be given this important research tool and be fully discoverable.

All of this is to say – why have your valuable scientific research and content go undiscovered? The content from Underline’s conference presenters and speakers is highly valuable and needs to be part of the global scientific record.

This is why Underline has undertaken the important step to make sure that your video and poster work IS discoverable, citable, and will have lasting value to other researchers and scholars around the world.