CrossRef provides article-level access to those databases and journals for which ProQuest cannot create article-level links based on the citation metadata.

In order for outgoing 360 Link metadata-based links to be created, a database must have a consistent and predictive linking syntax, which allows us to use the OpenURL metadata provided by the referring source. CrossRef, though not perfect in many respects, does allow for the creation of article-level links, which otherwise would not be available. These CrossRef-only databases account for approximately 20 percent of 360 Link's outgoing database links.

There are two different kinds of behavior that a CrossRef link exhibits. CrossRef uses an article's DOI number to look up article-level URLs. If a DOI is available when the 360 Link page is generated, then CrossRef will generate a link which will point directly to the article level.

In those cases where the DOI number is not available, but a certain amount of metadata is available, CrossRef will generate a link which, when clicked on, will send a request to CrossRef to attempt to match the article metadata with a DOI in its index. If it can't find one, then it returns the message "Not available through CrossRef." If it does find one, then it will generate an article-level link.

We typically encourage our clients to keep the CrossRef functionality, because without it, you would lose access to all of the databases for which we cannot create metadata-based article-level links. Customizing the CrossRef linking feature is available via the CrossRef Options page in the 360 Link Administration Console.

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• Date Created: 9-Feb-2014
• Last Edited Date: 24-Jul-2015
• Old Article Number: 7235