Eko-Konnect is pleased to announce that from 1st November 2023, it has assumed the role of Consortium Lead for DataCite in Nigeria. This means Research and Education institutions and other organisations in Nigeria can now obtain Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for their scholarly communications, research outputs, and datasets locally from Eko-Konnect with the ability to mint DOIs as part of their Open Access infrastructure and workflows.

DataCite DOIs come with free value-added services that include: 

  • Scholarly and Research Outputs indexed in DataCite Commons
  • Indexing in Scopus
  • Rich metadata for multiple resource types (research outputs) such as journal articles, pre-prints, dissertations, thesis, books, book chapters, artefacts, and GIS outputs 

DataCite also provides a rich set of impact analytics tools that:

  • Can be used to determine who has given citations for your work.
  • Templates for reporting the impact of your outputs to your institution and external bodies like funders.
  • Plug-ins to integrate outputs with Google Scholar
  • View the impact of outputs (DOI metadata) through DataCite Commons

With these additional tools and value-added services, DOIs bring value to the creator (author), institution, funders, wider stakeholders, and the nation.

Speaking on Eko-Konnect’s role as Consortium Lead for DataCite in Nigeria, CEO, Owen Iyoha said: “The adoption of DOIs in Nigeria has been very low partly due to awareness and partly due to economic factors. With our role within the R&E Community as an NREN provider we expect to improve the adoption of DOIs and other Persistent Identifiers by our many institutions and offer the necessary administration and technical support to enhance adoption. 

The tools and services that accompany DataCite DOIs increase the value of acquiring DOIs bringing improved visibility and impact analysis for research and scholarly outputs. We are pleased with our association with DataCite and will continue to advocate for increased flexibility with pricing models to make DOI adoption more affordable. Eko-Konnect maintains its commitment to support the adoption of all Persistent Identifiers to improve Open Science in Nigeria”.

For further information and enquiries contact us. secretariat@eko-konnect.org.ng or call +234 1 3428566