TLDR: We’ve successfully moved the main Crossref systems to the cloud! We’ve more to do, with several bugs identified and fixed, and a few still ongoing. However, it’s a step in the right direction and a significant milestone, as, whilst it is a much larger financial investment, it addresses several risks and limitations and shores up the Crossref infrastructure for the future.
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has earned recognition in Crossref’s Participation Reports for its exceptional metadata coverage among large publishing members––an achievement built on intentional change, technical investment, and collaborative work. In this Q&A, the ASM team shares what that journey looked like, the challenges they’ve tackled, and how centering metadata has helped them better connect research with the global scientific community.
The Crossref Board recently approved three recommendations for changes to our fees: introduction of a new lowest membership fee tier, removal of volume discounts for record registration, and normalisation of registration fees for peer reviews. The changes will be applied from January 2026.
This is the first outcome of the Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability (RCFS) program, launched in 2023, as a comprehensive effort to review all aspects of Crossref revenue and how we’re adapting to growth and the diversification of our membership. The program aims to make fees more equitable, simplify our complex fee schedule, and rebalance revenue sources.
To work out which version you’re on, take a look at the website address that you use to access iThenticate. If you go to ithenticate.com then you are using v1. If you use a bespoke URL, https://crossref-[your member ID].turnitin.com/ then you are using iThenticate 2.0.
Use doc-to-doc comparison to compare a primary uploaded document with up to five comparison uploaded documents. Any documents that you upload to doc-to-doc comparison will not be indexed and will not be searchable against any future submissions.
Uploading a primary document to doc-to-doc comparison will cost you a single document submission, but the comparison documents uploaded will not cost you any submissions.
Start from Folders, go to the Submit a document menu, and click Doc-to-Doc Comparison.
The doc-to-doc comparison screen allows you to choose one primary document and up to five comparison documents. Choose the destination folder for the documents you will upload. The Similarity Report for the comparison will be added to the same folder.
For your primary document, provide the author’s first name, last name, and document title. If you do not provide these details, the filename will be used for the title, and the author details will stay blank.
If you have administrator permissions, you can assign the Similarity Report for the comparison to a reporting group by selecting one from the Reporting Group drop-down. Learn more about reporting groups.
Click Choose File, and select the file you want to upload as your primary document. See the file requirements for both the primary and comparison documents on the right of the screen.
You can choose up to five comparison documents to check against your primary document. These do not need to be given titles and author details. Each of the filenames must be unique. Click Choose Files, and select the files you would like to upload as comparison documents. To remove a file from the comparison before you upload it, click the X icon next to the file. To upload your files for comparison, click Upload.
Once your document has been uploaded and compared against the comparison documents, it will appear in your chosen destination folder.
This upload will have ‘Doc-to-Doc Comparison’ beneath the document title to show that this is a comparison upload and has not been indexed.
The upload will be given a Similarity Score against the selected comparison documents, which is also displayed in the report column. Click the similarity percentage to open the doc-to-doc comparison in the Document Viewer.
The Document Viewer is separated into three sections:
Along the top of the screen, the paper information bar shows details about the primary document, including document title, author, date the report was processed, word count, number of comparison documents provided, and how many of those documents matched with the primary document.
On the left panel is the paper text - this is the text of your primary document. Matching text is highlighted in red.
Your comparison documents will appear in the sources panel to the right, showing instances of matching text within the submitted documents.
By default, the doc-to-doc comparison will open the Document Viewer in the All Sources view. This view lists all the comparison documents you uploaded. Each comparison document has a percentage showing the amount of content within them that is similar to the primary document. If a comparison document has no matching text with the primary document, it has 0% next to it.
Doc-to-doc comparison can also be viewed in Match Overview mode. In this view, the comparison documents are listed with highest match percentage first, and all the sources are shown together, color-coded, on the paper text.
Page maintainer: Kathleen Luschek Last updated: 2020-May-19