Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI
consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher
upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal
medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their
full bibliographic information. Example of a correctly given DOI (in URL format; here an article in the
journal Physics Letters B):
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use a DOI to create links to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to
change.