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The DOI Foundation recognizes that the automated integration of metadata is the key to realizing the full potential of the DOI System. This is also the underlying objective of the Semantic Web and Linked Data: that the Web should be seen as a medium for structured, interlinked and machine-processable information, as much as, in its current form, a network of documents presenting the information for human consumption.

The DOI Kernel Metadata and the data dictionary exist to provide a basis of good practice and a start point for the integration of metadata for different DOI referents. Initiatives such as Linked Open Data provide further essential infrastructure, but only in technology and syntax: they do not provide solutions at the level of shared meaning (semantic alignment) for the automated integration of different datasets which can allow services from different RAs and other parties to interact fully without human intervention or a plethora of one-to-one "silo" solutions.

The key to this is the development of well-structured metadata schemas and of services which make use of the semantic mapping capabilities of tools such as the DOI Kernel Schema. The DOI Foundation will provide support to their RAs where they choose to co-operate in the development of such services.