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Digital object identifier (DOI)
A typical Cochrane Review digital object identifier (DOI) looks like this:
10.1002/14651858.CD001751.pub3
The DOI is usually displayed in the form of a URL:
https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD001751.pub3
What do the DOI components mean?
| 10.1002 | Prefix indicating the DOI is owned by John Wiley and Sons, Ltd (Publisher of the Cochrane Library) |
| 14651858 | ISSN of the Cochrane Library |
| CD001751 | Cochrane Review ID |
| Pub3 | Version number (for versions 2 and up) |
Each time a new citation version is published the version number increases by 1, but there is no Pub1. The first version (usually the protocol) has no ‘Pub’ suffix.
For example, this is the DOI history for a single review looking in the past, present, and future:
https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008540 | 2010 protocol |
| https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008540.pub2 | 2010 first review version |
| https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008540.pub3 | 2012 update |
| https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008540.pub4 | 2016 update |
| https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008540.pub5 | Next citation version when published |
For older reviews the earlier versions may not be available in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (within the Cochrane Library), so a reader will only see the first version of the review with a Wiley DOI. The ‘pub’ number is independent of the stage, type, or status of the review. It just increases by 1 if there’s a new citation version.
DOI structure for split and merged reviews
If a review is split into multiple versions, this is recorded in Archie, but each new review will get a separate new CD number and DOI. This also applies if multiple reviews are merged into one review. The new review will get a new CD number and DOI.
URL (website address)
The URL is created by adding the DOI after this:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/
A /full or /abstract suffix can be used for the full text or abstract, respectively. So for the example review, the URL is:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001751.pub3