How journal submission and hosting systems influence the level of open metadata in Crossref

(Watch the RECORDING.) The importance of open research information, including publication metadata, is widely recognised. Crossref is an important infrastructure for registering open metadata as part of DOI registration. However, the metadata of many publications in Crossref is far from complete, with many publishers making certain metadata elements openly available, but failing to do so for other metadata elements. Publishers' ability to register this metadata with Crossref depends on their capacity to capture and retain this data in their production workflows. Submission systems seem to be an important, yet largely overlooked, factor in the extent to which publishers make metadata available through Crossref. In this presentation, we present the results of a large-scale analysis investigating the correlation between the level of metadata that publishers deposit with Crossref and the submission and hosting systems that they deploy for their journals. We look at the 150 publishers with the largest amounts of publications in Crossref in recent years, and concentrate on commonly used systems, including Editorial Manager, ScholarOne, Open Journal Systems (OJS), and eJournalPress. Information on submission and hosting systems is validated through a survey sent out to the 150 publishers in scope of this analysis. We will show that some submission systems appear better suited to capturing certain metadata elements. However, there are always cases where publishers using the same system differ widely in the level of metadata they register, suggesting that technology is not the only prohibiting factor, but that other considerations, probably commercial, are at play.