Network Working Group J. Levine Internet-Draft Taughannock Networks Intended status: Informational August 19, 2014 Expires: February 20, 2015 Assigning Digital Object Identifiers to RFCs draft-iab-doi-02 Abstract The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a widely used system that assigns unique identifiers to digital documents that can be queried and managed in a consistent fashion. We propose a method to assign DOIs to past and future RFCs. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on February 20, 2015. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Levine Expires February 20, 2015 [Page 1] Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs August 2014 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Structure and resolution of DOIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. DOIs for RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. The process of assigning DOIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1. Getting a DOI prefix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.2. Retroactively assigning DOIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.3. Assigning DOIs to new RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4.4. Use of DOIs in RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A.1. Changes from -01 to -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A.2. Changes from -00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Introduction The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a widely used system that assigns unique identifiers to digital documents that can be queried and managed in a consistent fashion. The structure of DOIs is defined by ISO 26324:2012 [ISO-DOI] and is implemented by a group of registration agencies coordinated by the International DOI Foundation. Each DOI is associated with bibliographic metadata about the object, including one or more URIs where the object can be found. The DOI system also provides many features not relevant to RFCs, such as the ability to update the metadata after the DOI is assigned, and for organizations to maintain local caches of metadata, e.g., a university or corporate library that tracks its copies of purchased documents so subsequent users don't buy them again. The wide use of DOIs suggests that even though RFCs can be downloaded directly from the IETF for free, organizations that use DOIs can have trouble locating non-DOI documents. DOIs with metadata that points to the existing free online RFCs would make RFCs easier to find and use. Some scholarly publishers accept DOIs as references in published documents, and some versions of bibtex can automatically retrieve the bibliographic data for a DOI and format it. Hence DOIs would make RFCs easier to cite. The benefits of DOIs apply equally to documents from all of the RFC submission streams, so all RFCs would get DOIs. Levine Expires February 20, 2015 [Page 2] Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs August 2014 2. Structure and resolution of DOIs DOIs are an application of the handle system defined by RFCs [RFC3650], [RFC3651], and [RFC3652]. A DOI for an RFC might be 10.123456/rfc1149 The first part of a DOI is the number 10, which means a DOI within the handle system, a dot, and a unique number assigned to a publisher, in this example 123456. This part is the DOI prefix. Following that is a slash and a text string assigned by the publisher, called the DOI suffix. Since the RFC Editor's series already have numbers, it would be straightforward to use mnemonic suffixes. DOIs might use the familiar series names and numbers, e.g., rfc1149. (DOIs are case-insensitive.) DOIs are treated as opaque identifiers, so the RFC Editor could use some other naming scheme if it turned out to be advantageous to do so. The reliable way to find the DOI for an RFC would be to look it up in the RFC index. Although the handle system has its own protocol described in [RFC3652], the usual way to look up a DOI is to use web lookup. A proposed "doi:" URN was never widely implemented, so the standard way to look up a DOI is to use the public http proxy at http://dx.doi.org. The sample DOI above could be looked up at: http://dx.doi.org/10.123456/rfc1149 Whenever a publisher assigns a DOI, it provides the bibliographic metadata for the object (henceforth called a document, since that what they are in this context) to its registration agency which then makes it available to clients that look up DOIs. The document's metadata is typically uploaded to the registration agency in XML using a web API. Publishers have considerable flexibility as to what resides at the URI(s) that a DOI refers to. Sometimes it's the document itself, while for commercial publishers it's typically a page with the abstract and bibliographic information, and some way to buy the actual document. Since some RFCs are in multiple formats (e.g., Postscript and text), and some STDs and BCPs consist of multiple documents, an appropriate URI would be that of the RFC Editor's info page that has the document's abstract and links to the document(s) in various formats. Hence the URI above would be set to redirect to http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1149 Levine Expires February 20, 2015 [Page 3] Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs August 2014 More information on the structure and use of DOIs is in the DOI Handbook [DOI-HB]. 3. DOIs for RFCs Once the RFC series has DOIs assigned, it would be a good idea to include the DOI in the XML boilerplate of each RFC, which would both permit it to be displayed if a rendering engine wants to do that, and aid software that does things with DOIs. Online databases and indexes that include RFCs would be updated to include the DOI, e.g. the ACM Digital Library. (A practical advantage of this is that the DOI would link directly to the RFC Editor, rather than perhaps to a copy of an RFC behind a paywall.) Since RFCs are immutable, existing RFCs still wouldn't mention their own DOIs within the RFC itself, but putting the DOIs into indexes would still provide value. 4. The process of assigning DOIs There are three phases to assigning DOIs to RFCs, getting a DOI prefix, retroactively assigning DOIs to existing documents, and updating the publication process to assign DOIs as new RFCs are published. 4.1. Getting a DOI prefix There are ten registration agencies [DOI-RA] that assign DOI prefixes. Most of them serve specialized audiences or limited geographic areas, but there are a few that handle scholarly and technical materials. All registration agencies charge for DOIs to defray the cost of maintaining the metadata databases. The prices are fairly low, on the order of $660/year for membership, 15 cents per document deposit fees for a bulk upload of the backfile (the existing RFCs), and $1/per document to deposit them as they are published. 4.2. Retroactively assigning DOIs Other than paying the deposit fees, assigning DOIs to all of the existing RFCs is primarily a software problem. We'd need tools to extract or create the metadata for all of the RFCs and submit it to the registration agency using the agency's online API. Where we are aware of indexes and databases that include RFCs, we would try to get them to include the DOI. Levine Expires February 20, 2015 [Page 4] Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs August 2014 4.3. Assigning DOIs to new RFCs As new RFCs are published, the publication process will add steps to collect and submit the bibliographic metadata to the registration agency. This should be a largely or entirely automatic process, since it should be possible to extract the metadata mechanically either from a document's xml2rfc source, or from the existing catalogs of RFCs. 4.4. Use of DOIs in RFCs The DOI agency requests that documents that are assigned DOIs in turn include DOIs when possible when referring to other organizations' documents. Hence it would be a good idea to add a DOI field to the xml2rfc reference entity, and request that authors provide DOIs when possible. The RFC production center might add missing DOIs when it's easy to do so, e.g., when the same reference with a DOI has appeared in a prior RFC, or a quick online search finds the DOI. With a DOI field in the xml2rfc reference structure, DOIs in references from citation libraries would appear in the RFCs automatically once the DOIs are added to the libraries. Since it is usually possible to retrieve the bibliographic information for a document from its DOI (see the discussion of bibtex above), it might also be worth adding this feature to xml2rfc, so a reference with only a DOI could be automatically fetched and expanded. 5. Informative References [DOI-HB] International DOI Foundation, "DOI Handbook", April 2012, . [DOI-RA] International DOI Foundation, "DOI Registration Agencies", July 2013, . [ISO-DOI] International Organization for Standardization (ISO), "ISO 26324:2012 Information and documentation -- Digital object identifier system", 2012, . [RFC3650] Sun, S., Lannom, L., and B. Boesch, "Handle System Overview", RFC 3650, November 2003. [RFC3651] Sun, S., Reilly, S., and L. Lannom, "Handle System Namespace and Service Definition", RFC 3651, November 2003. Levine Expires February 20, 2015 [Page 5] Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs August 2014 [RFC3652] Sun, S., Reilly, S., Lannom, L., and J. Petrone, "Handle System Protocol (ver 2.1) Specification", RFC 3652, November 2003. Appendix A. Change Log A.1. Changes from -01 to -02 Clarify submission process, multi-document DOIs. Note all streams treated the same. Remove unused reference. A.2. Changes from -00 to -01 DOI in the xml, not necessarily in the text Use of DOI in RFCs section. Author's Address John Levine Taughannock Networks PO Box 727 Trumansburg, NY 14886 Phone: +1 831 480 2300 Email: standards@taugh.com URI: http://jl.ly Levine Expires February 20, 2015 [Page 6]