You’ve seen DOI numbers before. But did you know that you can use them to link to Open Access versions of articles?
DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. They are unique identifying numbers for online publications, such as electronic journal articles. A DOI will look something like this: 10.1093/mind/fzr010
You can use a DOI to find a paper by pasting the DOI into the following format: https://doi.org/XXXXXXX.
Using the DOI from above, we’d get https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzr010
But, the above journal article is on a publisher’s website which hides the full text behind a paywall. You may have access thanks to the subscriptions provided by library services. But if not, you can try using Open Access DOIs to find an open access version.
The format for OADOIs is: https://oadoi.org/XXXXXXX
So with our example we would get: https://oadoi.org/10.1093/mind/fzr010
This looks for any Open Access versions and, if it finds any, it links you to one of them, rather than the publisher’s site.
This is a good trick for finding an Open Access version of an article you already know. It can also be a good way to link your readers to an open version of your work, ensuring they can read it.