Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A publisher places the CrossMark button in the header of a journal article's HTML page and its downloadable PDF. A reader who saved the PDF months earlier can click the button to see that the article's Crossref record has since been updated with a correction notice, and follow a link straight to it, without needing to check the journal's website separately.
- Is an instance
While an institutional investigation into a published study is ongoing, the publisher deposits an expression-of-concern update record against the article's DOI. A reader who clicks the CrossMark button on that article sees the expression of concern surfaced immediately, even though the article's own text is unchanged and no retraction has been issued yet.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A publisher maintains its own 'errata' or 'corrections' page listing changes manually, with no update record registered against the article's DOI in Crossref's metadata and no embedded button. A reader who happens to browse to that page gets the same information, but this isn't CrossMark: there's no click-to-verify status check embedded in the item itself, and no DOI-linked update policy on file with Crossref.
Editorial commentary
CrossMark exists to solve a specific problem: once a reader has a copy of a publication — a saved PDF, a printout, a link from years ago — they have no built-in way to know whether the version of record has since changed. Crossref describes the service as giving readers “quick and easy access to the current status of an item of content, including any corrections, retractions, or updates to that record,” via a button publishers embed directly on the HTML page, PDF, and ePub. Participation requires more than adding a logo: a publisher must register a DOI-assigned update policy, reference that policy DOI in every content record deposited with Crossref (even records with no update yet), and register any editorially significant change as a separate, DOI-linked update record. Crossref’s schema defines a fixed set of update types for this purpose — currently twelve, including correction, retraction, expression of concern, erratum, corrigendum, clarification, new edition, and withdrawal — reserved for changes likely to affect how the work is interpreted or credited, not routine copyediting.
This makes CrossMark distinct from the underlying Crossref DOI registration: the DOI identifies and resolves to the work, while CrossMark is a status-and-provenance overlay on that same metadata record, surfaced to the reader at the point of use. It also sits alongside, rather than duplicates, CASRAI’s own editorial-status vocabulary — see retraction, correction (corrigendum), and expression of concern for the underlying editorial concepts CrossMark is reporting on, and pending publication (Crossref) for a related Crossref record type covering the pre-publication stage. For how a retraction decision is actually reached before a publisher ever registers the CrossMark update, see How a Retraction Actually Happens; for what happens after initial publication more broadly, see Post-Publication Peer Review: From Concern to Correction. Crossref states there is no additional fee for members to participate.
References
- Crossref, “Crossmark” service overview (crossref.org/services/crossmark/)
- Crossref, “Crossmark” documentation overview (crossref.org/documentation/crossmark/)
- Crossref, “Participating in Crossmark” (crossref.org/documentation/crossmark/participating-in-crossmark/)
- Crossref, “Registering updates” (crossref.org/documentation/register-maintain-records/maintaining-your-metadata/registering-updates/)
Also known as
Crossref CrossMark · the CrossMark button
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="CrossMark"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/crossmark" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/crossmark",
"name": "CrossMark",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/crossmark",
"description": "A Crossref member service in which a publisher embeds a button on a published item (its HTML landing page, PDF, and/or ePub) that a reader can click to check the item's current status directly from within the item itself, rather than having to separately search the publisher's site. Clicking the button opens a panel showing whether the record has been updated since original publication -- including a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or one of the other editorially significant update types Crossref's schema defines -- alongside supporting metadata such as key dates (submission, revision, acceptance), funder information, licence terms, handling editors, and peer-review information where the publisher has chosen to provide it. A publication only counts as CrossMark-enabled if its publisher has (a) registered a DOI-assigned update policy, (b) referenced that policy in the item's Crossref metadata record even when no update yet exists, and (c) implemented the button so the status check happens at the item, not just on a separate corrections page a reader would have to know to look for.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/crossmark",
"sameAs": [
"Crossref CrossMark",
"the CrossMark button"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-07-10T04:50:11",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
