Credit and recognition
It is important that authors and contributors are recognized and get credit for their contributions to the training material. To incorporate author information in the lesson website you can list them in the About
page (more information here). Currently, this information is not linked to any other records or metadata associated with the lesson. Therefore, below we provide instruction for making use of persistent identifiers for the lesson itself and linking ORCIDs for authors to the lesson.
DOIs using the Zenodo-GitHub integration
To issue a DOI for your lesson, you can make use of the Zenodo-GitHub integration. Zenodo archives your repository and issues a new DOI each time you create a new GitHub release which allows you to create permanent, citable versions of your lesson.
Connect your GitHub repository to Zenodo
- Go to Zenodo and create an account if you don’t have one already.
By using the GitHub option so signup/sign in your Zenodo account will be connected to your GitHub account automatically.
- Click the down arrow next to your
username
in the top right corner to expand the menu, selectGitHub
If you have not used your GitHub account to sign in to Zenodo sandbox select
Linked Accounts
first to connect your accounts - Once connected, you can selet the repository you want to issue a DOI for.

- Find your repository in the list, toggle the switch to
ON
If your repository does not show up in the list, check when it was last synced in the title row of the first box and click
sync now
if needed - Reload the page > your repository should now be added to the list of
Enabled Repositories
Prepare a .zenodo.json file
To provide the metadata for your lesson, you need to populate the .zenodo.json
file in the root of your repository.
- Copy the example file below and paste it into a the
.zenodo.json
file in the root of your repository.
{
"title": "Training Material: Title of your lesson here",
"description" : "Put a brief description of your material here. This should be a short summary of the content of your lesson.",
"creators": [
{
"name": "Family Name, First Name",
"orcid": "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX",
"affiliation": "Your institution",
"type": "Author"
},
{
"name": "Family Name, First Name",
"orcid": "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX",
"affiliation": "Your institution",
"type": "Author"
}
],
"contributors": [
{
"name": "Family Name, First Name",
"orcid": "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX",
"affiliation": "Your institution",
"type": "Other"
}
],
"related_identifiers": [
{
"identifier": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7913091",
"relation": "isDerivedFrom",
"resource_type": "software"
}
],
"keywords": [
"FAIR",
"ELIXIR",
"training"
],
"upload_type": "lesson",
"language": "eng",
"grants": [{"id":"1010101010"}] #if you have an EU grant that supports the devlopment you can provide the grant ID here
}
- Paste the content into the
.zenodo.json
file in the root of your repository -
Update the fields with the relevant information for your lesson.
The related_identifiers field can be expanded but please keep the information in the example file to indicate that your lesson is based on the ELIXIR lesson template.
-
Commit the changes to your repository.
-
If desired, add additional fields to the
.zenodo.json
file. You can find more information about these fields in the Zenodo documentation.NB! Don’t add a licence field to the
.zenodo.json
file. A licence will automatically be added to the Zenodo record based on theLICENCE.md
file in the root of the repository.
Create a release
To issue a DOI for your lesson, you need to create a release in your GitHub repository. This will trigger Zenodo to archive your repository and issue a DOI.
- Go to your GitHub repository and click on the
Releases
on the right side menu of thecode
tab. - Click the
Draft a new release
button. - Click the
Choose a tag
button in the top left part of the page. Enter a version name (e.g.,initial-release
- for the first version,2024-09-Uppsala
- for the version of the lesson used in the course held in Uppsala September 2024)in the text field and click `+ Create new tag: on publish`` - Fill in the
Release title
field with a short title (e.g.,First release of the lesson
). - Fill in the
Description
field with a description of the release (e.g.,This is the first release of <Title of your training material>.
). - Click the
Publish release
button. - Return to your Zenodo > GitHub settings (see above) and inspect the list of
Enabled Repositories
. A black and blue DOI badge should now be available next to your repository name.
Add the DOI badge to the repository
- Click the DOI badge next to your repository name in the Zenodo > GitHub settings.
- A popup window will open with the DOI badge
- Copy the Markdown formatted text.
- Go to your GitHub repository and select the
README.md
file in the left side menu. - Click the pen in the top right corner to edit the file > paste the copied markdown text at the top of the file and commit the changes.
Try it out first
It might be useful to try out the integration using the Zenodo Sandbox before you connect your lesson repository with Zenodo. This way you can test the process before issuing a real DOI. A step-by-step guide for using the Zenodo Sandbox is available in the Training material made FAIR by desig n course.
Integrating ORCID iDs
ORCID has integrations with Zenodo which allows your works to be automatically added to your ORCID record. This means that when you create a Zenodo record for your lesson, it will also be added to your ORCID record if you have linked your Zenodo and ORCID accounts.
- Go to Zenodo and log in to your account.
- Click the down arrow next to your
username
in the top right corner to expand the menu, selectLinked Accounts
. - Click the
Connect
button next to the ORCID logo. - You will be redirected to the ORCID website to sign in and authorize Zenodo to access your ORCID profile.
- Inform all the creators and contributors of your lesson that they can connect their ORCID accounts to Zenodo as well.
- For each creator or contributor in your
.zenodo.json
file that has an ORCID id and set up this connection, Zenodo will automatically add the work to their ORCID record when you create a new release in your GitHub repository.