For an object to be assigned a DOI it must:
be part of the scholarly record
be persistently available — users of the service need to have the commitment and capacity to ensure continuity of access to their resource
have the six mandatory metadata elements from the DataCite Metadata Schema V4.2: identifier, title, creator(s), publisher, publication year, and resource type general (taken from the list of Controlled Values on Table 3: Expanded DataCite Mandatory Properties of DataCite Metadata Schema V4.2).
Note: A value must be assigned to ‘resourceTypeGeneral’ metadata element when updating DOIs which were minted using versions earlier than v4.0 of the DataCite schema.
If a DOI is not appropriate, please consider using ARDC’s Handle service to create persistent identifiers for other digital objects or resources such as web services and APIs.
For more information about our criteria please read the ARDC DataCite DOI Service Policy Statement.