DOIs can be used in publications to identify the exact version of a tool used for a given study. This article gives an overview of where you can find instructions for generating DOIs.
What is a Digital Object Identifier?
A DOI is a unique tag that identifies an online resource and associates it with a permanent web address. You can request a DOI for tools registered on Dockstore, such as WDL Workflows and Jupyter Notebooks.
If you're publishing a study that makes use of Workflows or Notebooks that you've registered in Dockstore, you can request a DOI for any such resource. Dockstore integrates the Zenodo platform to generate DOIs at both the concept level and version level, so that you can refer to a tool used in your research with whatever specificity is ideal for a particular study.
You can check out the DOI foundation's website to learn more.
Step 1. Set up Zenodo Integration with Github
Dockstore leverages the Zenodo platform to generate DOIs.
Zenodo is an open-access digital repository for research outputs, such as datasets, publications, software, and more. Zenodo is designed to make research outputs freely available, easily shareable, and citable, aligning with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). To learn more about Zenodo and how to set up integration with your Github account, see this section in Zenodo's support documentation.
Step 2. Register your Tool
You can register both WDL workflows and Jupyter notebooks (among other things) in Dockstore. Before you can request DOIs, you must take the steps to register your workflow or notebook. To complete this process, take the following steps:
Step 2.1. Configure Dockstore with Github
Log in to your MyDockstore dashboard, select one of the buttons to register a tool, depending on which type you're uploading, and complete the Github authentication when prompted.
Step 2.2. Push Registration
Use Command Line Interface to push a .yml file to the Dockstore. You can find instructions and templates for this task in the resources linked below:
- How to set up a WDL on Github/Dockstore
- .dockstore.yml templates for registering tools
- .dockstore.yml templates for registering notebooks
- .dockstore.yml templates for registering workflows
Step 3. Request DOI
If you've configured Zenodo with Github as described in Step 1 above, you can submit a request to Zenodo which will generate a DOI for your resource. Zenodo will also mint DOIs automatically in some cases.
You can see an example of requesting a DOI in the Dockstore documentation here. To learn more about DOI support and features like automatic DOI minting, check out this Dockstore DOI overview.