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Metadata completeness — one score

Any journal by its ISSN, any DOI prefix, any Crossref member: how much of the metadata indexes read is on the record, what is missing, and who fixes it. Free, no account — every figure is Crossref's own.

Public data only. No account. Nothing is changed at Crossref.

A publisher's name? What Crossref holds about you finds its member number. Every reading is kept with its date — the next one shows what changed.

Metadata completeness — the record of 9 Oct 2026

Frontiers Media SA

Read from Crossref — 9 Oct 2026, 10:30. Counted over the member's journal articles, as Crossref counted them on 9 Oct 2026.
This is the record as it was kept on 9 Oct 2026 — a page of its own you can send as proof. Today's figures →

Dgrade — A from 85, B 70, C 55, D 40
825,272journal articles counted
7 of 7signals Crossref gave a figure for
41large publishers' median · all of Crossref 32

The seven signals indexes read

Of the 825,272 journal articles, how many carry each one. The impact numbers sum to 100 and make the score — the weighted share of what is there; a signal Crossref gave no figure for is left out of the score, never counted as 0.

SignalShareWithout itWhat it means — and who fixes it
Reference lists
impact 22
86.5%
111,378 The engine deposits the reference list of each article — this is what feeds Cited-by, OpenAlex and Scholar. Run the Reference Booster / DOI Doctor.
The engine deposits it.
Abstracts
impact 18
64.5%
293,248 No abstract in the record means weaker discovery everywhere. DOI Doctor reads it from the PDF and deposits it.
The engine deposits it.
Licences
impact 16
82.5%
144,692 A licence in the record is what marks the article open access and DOAJ counts it. DOI Doctor deposits the licence your article page states.
The engine deposits it.
ORCID iDs
impact 14
0.4%
822,326 Author ORCIDs tie the work to its authors for ORCID, funders and OpenAlex. The engine deposits them when the article page carries them; otherwise add them in OJS first.
Needs the value on the page first.
Author affiliations
impact 12
12.0%
726,398 A machine-readable affiliation is what gives the institution credit and lets NIRF / NAAC counts find the work. Add affiliations to the article metadata; the engine deposits them.
Needs the value on the page first.
ROR institution ids
impact 10
0%
825,272 A ROR id (ror.org) is the machine-readable name of the institution — the strongest institutional-credit signal there is. Add each institution's ROR to the affiliation; the engine deposits it with the affiliation.
Needs the value on the page first.
Funder data
impact 8
25.2%
617,281 Funder ids link the work to the grant that paid for it — read by funders and OpenAlex. Add the funder to the article metadata; the engine deposits it.
Needs the value on the page first.

Beside the score

The other elements of Crossref's participation report. They are shown here, and they are not part of the score.

ElementShareWithout itWhat it is for
Award numbers
12.9%
718,724 The grant number beside the funder — what lets a funder find the work its grant paid for.
Crossmark update policy
86.3%
113,123 Crossmark tells a reader, on the article itself, whether it has since been corrected or retracted.
Similarity Check URLs
85.9%
116,600 A full-text link that Crossref's Similarity Check service reads, so new manuscripts can be compared against this article.
Text-mining URLs
1.9%
809,336 A full-text link for text and data mining — how Crossref and mining services reach the article itself.

Fix these

In the order that moves the score most — impact × how much is missing. Each is a metadata deposit at Crossref, not a re-write of any article.

  1. ORCID iDs — 822,326 without it (0.4% carry it) · needs the value on the page first
  2. Author affiliations — 726,398 without it (12.0% carry it) · needs the value on the page first
  3. ROR institution ids — 825,272 without it (0% carry it) · needs the value on the page first
  4. Abstracts — 293,248 without it (64.5% carry it) · the engine deposits it
  5. Funder data — 617,281 without it (25.2% carry it) · needs the value on the page first
  6. Reference lists — 111,378 without it (86.5% carry it) · the engine deposits it
  7. Licences — 144,692 without it (82.5% carry it) · the engine deposits it

DOI repair & monitoring (DOI Members): the journal is added to your portfolio, then the order for one journal, twelve months — the repairs are deposited under the journal's own Crossref login, each one read back before it counts. DOI Doctor is where a journal's owner runs the same repairs.

Every DOI, yes or no — the gap list

One row for every journal article Crossref lists for member 1965, and for each element whether that record carries it.

⬇ Gap list — every DOI, yes/no per element (CSV)

The same file as "What Crossref holds about you" makes: up to 5,000 records (5 requests of 1,000, Crossref's maximum per request); a member with more gets the first 5,000 as Crossref lists them, and the file says so. A finished list is kept for 6 hours; a fresh read counts as one lookup (12 an hour from one place; 60 for a signed-in account).

Before and after

First recorded 9 Oct 2026: 47 (D) → latest 18 Oct 2026: 47 (D)

SignalFirstLatestChange
Reference lists86.5%86.5% no change
Abstracts64.5%64.6% +0.1 pts
Licences82.5%82.5% +0.1 pts
ORCID iDs0.4%0.4% no change
Author affiliations12.0%12.3% +0.4 pts
ROR institution ids0%0% no change
Funder data25.2%25.1% −0.1 pts

Every record kept — one a day, the day's last reading — each a page of its own you can send as proof: 18 Oct 2026 — 47 (D) · 16 Oct 2026 — 47 (D) · 10 Oct 2026 — 47 (D) · 9 Oct 2026 — 47 (D)

What large publishers reach, read on 16 Oct 2026

Each scored exactly as any member is scored here — from its own Crossref member record, by the same seven signals and weights. Names are Crossref's own. The median of the 12 is 41.

Frontiers Media SA: 47 — 6 points above the large publishers' median, and 15 points above all of Crossref.

How the score is made

  • Reference lists — impact 22
  • Abstracts — impact 18
  • Licences — impact 16
  • ORCID iDs — impact 14
  • Author affiliations — impact 12
  • ROR institution ids — impact 10
  • Funder data — impact 8

The score is the share of each signal on the record, weighted by its impact (the impacts sum to 100). A signal Crossref gives no figure for is left out and the rest are weighed as before — never counted as 0. Grade A from 85, B from 70, C from 55, D from 40, otherwise E. A journal is read off Crossref's journal record (its current and backfile DOIs, weighted by how many each holds); a prefix and all of Crossref by counting every DOI with Crossref's own has-… filters; a member off its member record, as What Crossref holds about you reads it. The members door's engagement dashboard prints the same score from the same functions.

Sources: Crossref REST API · Crossref participation reports · ROR · ORCID · doi.org. This page reads only what is public; it says what a database sees when it looks the record up — not whether a journal is well run.

Everything Smart Scholars runsNine sites, one account. A journal starts at the audit; an author starts at Scholar Shield.
Crossref Service Provider — Basic

What we do: DOIs registered from what a journal already has · Crossref records completed — references, abstracts, licences, ORCID iDs, affiliations and ROR IDs, funding · DOIs that resolve · articles preserved · journals rated on the public record · see everything we do →

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Start with the audit — it is free, and it is the gate to everything else.

DOI care

Every service on one journal profile — each previews first and acts only on your approval.

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What we can register a DOI for

20 kinds of record, one account, one place. Every one gets a DOI that resolves, metadata that indexes read, and a record that stays correct afterwards.
Journals
  • Journal articles
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  • Pending publications
  • Peer reviews
  • Preprints & posted content
Books & conferences
  • Books
  • Book chapters
  • Book series
  • Book sets
  • Conference proceedings
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  • Conference papers
Other research output
  • Theses & dissertations
  • Reports & working papers
  • Report series
  • Standards
  • Databases
  • Datasets
  • Figures, tables & supplements
Funding
  • Grants & funding awards

Elsewhere

The same company, in the places our publishers already read.
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