The act of generating a new persistent identifier in a registered scheme and registering it, with associated metadata, at the appropriate PID provider so that it becomes resolvable and discoverable.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 10 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A repository minting a DataCite DOI upon final publication of a dataset.
Is an instance
A publisher minting a Crossref DOI for an article at the journal's acceptance stage so the DOI can appear in the published PDF.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
Pasting an existing DOI into a citation is not minting.
Not an instance
Creating an internal database row for an object is not minting until a PID is registered with a provider.

Editorial commentary

Minting is the create operation in a PID system’s lifecycle (mint → resolve → update → tombstone). The minting operation is typically the responsibility of a member organisation (a Crossref-member publisher, a DataCite-member repository, an ARK NAAN) and is performed via the provider’s API. Best practice is to mint the identifier as early as is practical (often before public release) and to ensure metadata completeness at the time of minting.

References

DataCite, 'DOI Registration' documentation.
Crossref, 'Content Registration' documentation.

Also known as

DOI minting · Identifier minting

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="PID minting"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pid-minting" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pid-minting",
  "name": "PID minting",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pid-minting",
  "description": "The act of generating a new persistent identifier in a registered scheme and registering it, with associated metadata, at the appropriate PID provider so that it becomes resolvable and discoverable.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pid-minting",
  "sameAs": [
    "DOI minting",
    "Identifier minting"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10T02:06:20",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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