Affiliation:
1. Instituto de Investigaciones Clínicas “Dr. Américo Negrette”, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Abstract
Our experience with CrossrefThe DOI or digital object identifier gives scientific publications a specific number used to locate them on the Internet. Crossref is the largest DOI registration agency and provides editors of scientific journals with a monthly record of the number of times an individual has visited the DOI of a work published in the Journal. This visit can measure the impact of the work as a reference for your research, to strengthen your professional knowledge, or to learn about a topic more solidly than that provided by social networks, which are full of information without a scientifically proven basis. This Editorial expresses my experience with Crossref regarding the frequency and number of visits the works published in the Journal identified with DOI have received from 2022 and 2023. In 2022, there were 11,121 visits (926/month), which rose to 13,008 visits in 2023 (1,084/month). The most frequently cited works, identified by Crossref as “top ten,” represented between 20 and 30% of the total, with a frequency of visits of 12 to 165 times. However, 70-80% received at least one visit. The most visited works were Reviews, with the majority (24/162) realized in Venezuela and in Spanish. However, works from other Latin American countries such as Mexico and Peru, in addition to Spain and Asian countries, also received visits within the “top ten”. This leads us to conclude that the Journal has more Spanish-speaking readers, even though the proportion of works in Spanish is lower than those in English. We believe that the inclusion of the DOI in the works can be effective not only to serve as an identifier for the article and to be cited in the bibliography of the publications but also so that any individual can locate a topic firsthand and thus update, transmit knowledge or apply public policies in health or education.