Crossref is a membership organisation, and it’s the global community of members that creates the Research Nexus together. Meeting our community locally is a highlight and an important learning experience. This year, we started by connecting with a growing community in Accra, Ghana - our first in-person event in the country included in our GEM program. From 14 members in 2023 to 31 in 2025, our community in Ghana is blooming.
At its core, Crossref Accra 2025 was about showing up for the community in Ghana - listening, learning, and building together. On the 20th of March, we welcomed 66 participants: journal editors, university staff, librarians, and researchers. People who are doing the real work of making scholarly publishing happen in the region.
In 2022, we set out to update our DOI display guidelines with the intention to adopt the proposals in 2025. It’s important to note from the outset that we are not mandating any immediate changes to the DOI display guidelines. Instead, we are working with our community to co-create a solution that addresses the diverse needs of all users, rather than imposing technical changes that may not suit everyone.
Sponsors make Crossref membership accessible to organizations that would otherwise face barriers to joining us. They also provide support to facilitate participation, which increases the amount and diversity of metadata in the global Research Nexus. This in turn improves discoverability and transparency of scholarship behind the works.
We are looking for an organization to perform an audit of, and propose changes to, the structure and information architecture underlying our website, with the aim of making it easier for everyone in our community to navigate the website and find the information they need.
Proposals will be evaluated on a rolling basis. We encourage submissions by May 15, 2025.
The Similarity Check service gives Crossref members reduced rate access to the iThenticate tool from Turnitin, and there’s now a new version of iThenticate available for some subscribers. iThenticate v2 has lots of new and improved features, including:
The ability to identify content on preprint servers more easily
A “red flag” feature that signals the detection of hidden text such as text/quotation marks in white font, or suspicious character replacement
A faster, more user-friendly and responsive Similarity Report interface
For those members who integrate their iThenticate account with a Manuscript Tracking Service (MTS) there are even more benefits - you can now submit your manuscripts and view your Similarity Report from within the MTS, and you can also manage your exclusions from within your MTS too. There are also some important changes in how you manage users.
You can find out more about the benefits of iThenticate v2 on our blog.
Who can upgrade from iThenticate v1 to iThenticate v2?
Most existing subscribers to Similarity Check are currently using iThenticate v1, and over the next year or so we’ll be inviting these members to upgrade to iThenticate v2. Not everyone can upgrade immediately. This is because many members integrate their iThenticate account with their Manuscript Tracking Service (MTS), and not all the MTSs are able to integrate with iThenticate v2 just yet.
An upgrade is currently available to members of Crossref:
Using iThenticate through the browser
Integrating iThenticate with eJournal Press
Integrating iThenticate with ScholarOne Manuscripts
Integrating iThenticate with Scholastica Peer Review
Integrating iThenticate with Editorial Manager
We’ll be letting members know as the other Manuscript Tracking Systems are able to integrate with iThenticate v2. Brand new subscribers who fall into the categories above will be set up directly on iThenticate v2.
Not sure if you’re currently using iThenticate v1 or iThenticate v2? Here’s how to check.
The upgrade process
When you are able to upgrade from iThenticate v1 to iThenticate v2, we will contact the Similarity Check editorial contact on your account and ask you to complete a form. We will then check that you are still eligible for Similarity Check. This means that we will check that you are still providing Similarity Check URLs for at least 90% of the content you have registered with Crossref, and that the team at Turnitin can continue to index this content into the iThenticate database.
Once this is done, the team at Turnitin will send an email to the Similarity Check editorial contact on your account, so they can set up administrator credentials on your new iThenticate v2 account. The email will look like this:
Click on the blue ‘Set up my account’ button at the bottom of the email. This will bring you to a page which looks something like this:
Fill out your username and password, and don’t forget to tick to agree to the terms and conditions. You will then arrive at your new iThenticate v2 account.
Once you have administrator access to your new iThenticate v2 account, you can follow the instructions for getting set up. There are a different set of instructions depending on whether:
You will be using iThenticate directly in the browser - more here.
You will be integrating iThenticate with your Manuscript Tracking System (MTS) - more here.
If you have any follow up questions after your upgrade, do read our upgrade FAQs.
Page owner: Amanda Bartell | Last updated 2022-July-15
