<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Designing and Developing a DOI Application > Design Considerations

Flexibility and scalability are important features of well-designed DOI-enabled services.

The most flexible and scalable approach is to use the DOI System as a lightweight redirection mechanism, resolving identifiers to well-structured data. This approach can be used to provide DOI-related services beyond that of a single level of redirection. In addition to simply resolving a DOI name and getting back a single URL, DOI registration agencies may offer multiple resolution services, linking a DOI name to multiple options about the content (for example, bibliographic metadata), and those options may include requests for particular representations of metadata, or metadata useable only for particular contexts.

Developers may choose to put all or most of the information provided by the service in the DOI System itself, such that the DOI system is the primary service provider, or alternatively, use the DOI System to point to one or more external services to provide the desired information and functions. For example, the DOI System may be used to store all of the data required to display a simple menu of labelled options for a user to pick from, but redirecting to an external service that stores large quantities of scientific data for visualization tools, or multiple image files, might be preferable to storing that data in the DOI System.

Developing applications that store, use, and share high-quality machine-readable data in a standardized format is a further design consideration. DOI applications can be designed to conform to the best practices of Linked Data, a well-known concept of exposing data in machine-readable form, using the content negotiation feature of the standard HTTP web protocol.

NOTE The use of HTTPS over HTTP is highly recommended.

Creating services that take advantage of DOI structured data to create consistency across RA applications is encouraged. Collaboration is encouraged whenever possible. Third party application developers not part of the DOI Foundation are also encouraged to be part of the process of creating services that take advantage of DOI structured data.

A sampling of DOI application services based on multiple resolution and content negotiation are described in DOI Applications. New services may be created at any time. Questions can be sent to info@doi.org.