ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Digital Object Identifier

A Digital Object Identifier (also called a DOI) is like a special code that is used to identify a piece of information like an article, a book, a video, or something else. It's like a digital address that helps people identify the exact page, video, or article they want in a quick and accurate way. Let's say you want to read an article about dogs. You could go to a search engine and type in 'dogs' and hundreds of results might come up. But if you have the DOI for the article you are looking for, you can quickly and easily pull up that exact article – no wading through lots of other articles about dogs!