Getting Started

Welcome to DataCite

DataCite is a leading global non-profit organisation that provides persistent identifiers (DOIs specifically) for research data and other research outputs.

If your organization has joined DataCite as a Direct Member, a Consortium Lead or as part of a Consortium we welcome you to the community. To ensure you receive important DataCite communications, make sure contact information is up to date in your Fabrica accounts.

You'll find lots of information in our quick start guides:

English version - Getting Started Guide
Versión en español - Empezando con DataCite

Below you will learn how to register your first DOI in 3 easy steps. Please read our DOI registration policy before you start.

1. Account set up

To register DOIs you need a Repository account. If you are not sure what your account ID is, contact your Member or Consortium service contact or contact DataCite Support [email protected] .

We recommend you practice registering DOIs in our test environment, or use test to set up an integration first before moving into production. The test environment works like a sandbox and nothing you do there will go live. Check out our guide to testing.

2. Register your first DOI

Once you move into the production environment, we recommend you consider using the "draft" state, to avoid a situation where unwanted DOIs are registered. Once a DOI is registered in the global handle server in Registered or Findable state it cannot be deleted.

DOIs can be registered using DataCite's web interface Fabrica or one of our APIs.

Watch this short video to learn how to create your first DOI using the form in DOI Fabrica

3. Keep learning and be part of the community

Now you've registered a DOI, you can explore the support site to learn more about metadata, best practices and usage and citations.

Remember to follow us and interact with us:

The pidforum.org is a one stop shop for any information or questions you might have about Persistent identifiers. Sign up to connect with the PID community and check out the DataCite Chat Room.
The DataCite blog provides all the latest news about all DataCite's activities and new services.
The DataCite Youtube Channel hosts recordings of our webinars.
Follow us on Twitter through @datacite to learn about the latest news, events, webinars and services DataCite is developing for you.

Join DataCite

If your organization is interested in joining DataCite please reach out to us by sending an email to [email protected] and expressing you interest. You can find more information about membership on our website.

You can also take a look at the DataCite Brochure for comprehensive information about the organization and services