Purpose and Scope of this document

• This document outlines the policies of the TDL DataCite Consortium Membership, in which multiple TDL members join DataCite (https://datacite.org/) and subscribe to DataCite services as a group in order to reduce cost to each participating member.

• This document is not a business contract. Participating institutions have existing membership contracts with the Texas Digital Library.

Glossary

• Texas Digital Library (TDL) is a consortium of institutions headquartered in the University of Texas at Austin Libraries, that builds capacity for preserving, managing, and providing access to unique digital collections of enduring value. The University of Texas is the TDL’s fiscal agent.

• Consortium members, in the context of this document, are other institutions who are part of the TDL DataCite Consortium Membership.

• DataCite is a non-profit organization that acts as a DOI registration agency, assigning persistent identifiers (DOIs) for research data.

• DOI, or digital object identifier, is an alphanumeric string assigned to uniquely identify an object. It is tied to a metadata description of the object as well as to a digital location, such as a URL, where all the details about the object are accessible.

Responsibilities of Texas Digital Library

• Texas Digital Library will serve as the TDL Consortium DataCite Membership Administrator.

• TDL will be billed for and pay the full cost of the DataCite Consortium Membership annually.

• TDL will collect fees from consortium members for their portions of the membership and services costs via Membership Contracts.  

• TDL is responsible for technical implementation related to minting of DOIs for the applications that it hosts, notably the Texas Data Repository (TDR). DOI registration for datasets in the TDR are included in the cost of TDR service.

• TDL Member Institutions that are also members of the TDL Datacite Consortium may choose to register DOIs for items published in their DSpace repositories. TDL will facilitate that integration.

Responsibilities of consortium members

• Consortium members will promptly reimburse TDL for their portion of the cost of the DataCite Consortium Membership as part of their annual TDL membership payment.

• Consortium members will notify TDL of any changes to their service usage or key contacts at their institution.

• TDL Member Institutions that are also members of the TDL Datacite Consortium may also use their Datacite membership to register DOIs for items outside of DSpace or the TDR, Consortium members are responsible for any technical implementations for applications that they host, and for managing other DOI services locally.

Other Consortium Membership policies

• To become a member of the TDL DataCite Consortium Membership, an institution must be a full Regular Member, or part of a consortium that is a Regular Member, of the Texas Digital Library.

• Addition of a new consortium member: New eligible members may join the consortium at any time and pay their Service Fees for that fiscal year. During the next fiscal year, the new member will be included in calculations for splitting the membership fee.

• Withdrawal of a consortium member: At or before the time of the annual TDL DataCite Consortium meeting, a consortium member may notify TDL or their intent to withdraw from the consortium membership. TDL will recalculate the costs to each remaining member accordingly.

Costs

• The cost of the total DataCite Consortium Membership is divided into an Annual Membership Fee and annual Services Fees, according to the 2023 Fee Model provided by DataCite.

  • The Annual Membership Fee for the Consortium (as of March 2026) is 2.000€.

  • Services fee consist of a 500€ organization fee for each Consortium Member Organization, plus that member’s DOI fees based on the number of DOIs minted during the year. (See Consortium Fee “cap” information below.)

• The Annual Membership Fee will be divided evenly among members of the consortium. (E.g. if the TDL Datacite Consortium has 5 members, each member will pay 400€ of the overall Annual Membership Fee). Each member will pay the full amount of its Services Fees.

• Datacite implements a Consortium Fee “cap,” meaning that the total consortium service fee (organization + DOI fee) is capped based on the number of organizations. The total cap is calculated based on the total number of organizations. If/when a cap applies to the TDL Datacite Consortium, individual member fees will be reduced proportionally to account for the cap.

• An example breakdown of Consortium Costs is below. Each organization in the “Consortium Organization” column represents a TDL member that is participating in the TDL Datacite Consortium.

References

• DataCite: https://www.datacite.org/

• Texas Digital Library: https://www.tdl.org/