When should I use IsIdenticalTo?

You can connect your DOIs to other identifiers using the relatedIdentifier metadata property. The relatedIdentifier property is always accompanied by a relationType which describes the relationship between the two identifiers.

The IsIdenticalTo relationType can be used when there are two DOIs for the exact same research output. The most common reasons for this are:

1.) A group of resources have been moved from one platform to another (we always suggested it is best to avoid duplication by also migrating the DOIs and updating the landing pages).

2.) The same content is intentionally stored in two different locations (different landing pages on different platforms).

The metadata of both DOIs can be updated to indicate that there is an identical version of the resource as follows:

DOI 1 IsIdenticalTo DOI 2

Metadata for DOI 1, connecting to DOI 2

<identifier>10.17596/hcqn-2w70</identifier>
<relatedIdentifiers>
        <relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="DOI" relationType="IsIdenticalTo" resourceTypeGeneral="Dataset">10.17596/xc1g-pq91</relatedIdentifier>
    </relatedIdentifiers>

DOI 2 IsIdenticalTo DOI 1

Metadata for DOI 2, connecting to DOI 1

<identifier>10.17596/xc1g-pq91</identifier>
<relatedIdentifiers>
        <relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="DOI" relationType="IsIdenticalTo" resourceTypeGeneral="Dataset">10.17596/hcqn-2w70</relatedIdentifier>
    </relatedIdentifiers>

More information about the DataCite Metadata Schema.