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Smart Scholars🛡 Scholar Shield🏛 Research Integrity Desk 🧩 Portfolio Console 📰 Journals 🔧 DOI MembersTools🔎 Journal Audit GI GetIndexed Dr DOI Doctor

Free tools

Tools we use and checked.

Each one was opened and found working on 9 Sep 2026. Nothing here is sponsored, and nothing is listed that we have not tried.

Identity

ORCID ↗
A free persistent iD for you. Put it on every submission; funders and universities read the ORCID record, not the journal site.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · info.orcid.org
ROR — Research Organization Registry ↗
Look up your institution's persistent identifier. Journals that deposit it make your affiliation countable.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · ror.org

Before you submit

Think. Check. Submit. ↗
The checklist for judging a journal — pair it with Journal Check here for the registry evidence.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · thinkchecksubmit.org
DOAJ — Directory of Open Access Journals ↗
The vetted list of open-access journals. Absence proves nothing; presence means an application was reviewed.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · doaj.org

References

Crossref Simple Text Query ↗
Paste a reference list and get DOIs back from Crossref itself. ScholaRef adds the checks; this is the raw registry.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · apps.crossref.org
Zotero ↗
Free reference manager. Imports the BibTeX and RIS files exported here.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · www.zotero.org
Retraction Watch Database (via Crossref) ↗
Retractions, searchable; the full data is open through Crossref and is what our retraction checks read.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · retractionwatch.com

Discovery

OpenAlex ↗
Open index of works, authors, institutions and citations (CC0). What "My publications" reads for your ORCID.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · openalex.org
Semantic Scholar ↗
Free search across the literature with citation context.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · www.semanticscholar.org

Access

Unpaywall browser extension ↗
Finds the legal free copy of a paywalled paper when one exists.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · unpaywall.org

Sharing

Zenodo ↗
Deposit your accepted manuscript, data or slides and get a DOI — free, run by CERN and OpenAIRE.
checked 9 Sep 2026 · zenodo.org

Ours, also free

Journal Check — Journal Trust Rating from the registries.
ScholaRef — reference validation before submission.
Publication-live alerts.
My publications — your record, checked.
Compliance planner.

Missing one?

Tell us at mou@smartscholars.in. We add a tool only after using it, and we say when we last checked it.

Everything Smart Scholars runs

Nine sites, one account. A journal starts at the audit; an author starts at Scholar Shield.

Crossref member from November 2026 · DOI prefix 10.68911

Crossref Service Provider — Basic

Crossref Service Provider (Basic) from 1 October 2026

Listed in EASE’s Register of Editorial Services Member of ALPSPAssociation of Learned and Professional Society PublishersListed in ALPSP’s member directory

What we do: DOIs registered from what a journal already has · Crossref records completed — references, abstracts, licences, ORCID iDs, affiliations and ROR IDs, funding · DOIs that resolve · articles preserved · journals rated on the public record · see everything we do →

Book a free call

For journals & publishers

Start with the audit — ₹4,999 per journal, and the gate to everything else.

What Crossref holds about youyour own public record, read back in under a minute — no account needed
Metadata completeness scoreone score for any journal, DOI prefix or Crossref member, beside large publishers — free, no account
Free Journal Readiness Checktype an ISSN or a journal link: a score from the public record, the three biggest gaps, and a free 15-minute call
Free journal snapshotone card for any journal: DOIs, metadata score, DOAJ, Scopus and Web of Science gaps, AI crawlers, home-page schema — free, saved as PDF
Journal Audit — readiness audit, ₹4,999 per journal121 criteria: identity, governance, ethics, access, technical, content
Fix list & re-audita plain list an editor can hand to the OJS host
GetIndexed — indexing applicationsan 8-stage ladder from ISSN and DOIs to the selective indexes
Index directory (153 databases)what each database wants, before you apply
Open-access books: DOAB and OAPENfor publishers of peer-reviewed open-access books
Reference Boosterreference lists read from the PDFs, matched to DOIs, written into OJS and Crossref
Citation Checkwhat stops citations, article by article — proof, path and meaning
Never citedevery zero-citation article checked in the open citation sources
Digital archivesevery PDF mirrored to the Internet Archive, Zenodo and the Wayback Machine
Article formattinga manuscript typeset to the journal template, with galleys

DOI care

Every service on one journal profile — each previews first and acts only on your approval.

DOI Doctor — check & repairevery DOI tested at doi.org and Crossref; dead links, abstracts, licences, ORCIDs
Smart Deposita new DOI from your PDF, Word file, article page, JATS XML or spreadsheet — every value shown with its source, deposited once you confirm it
DOI census (Excel)site against Crossref, both directions, with a copy-paste fix per article
Backfile DOIsDOIs for older articles that never had one — no per-DOI fee of ours
DOIs for conference proceedingsthe conference, the volume and every paper — registered in the organiser's own name
Scopus indexing guidethe minimum criteria, the 14 CSAB criteria and how a title is suggested — from Elsevier's own page
Embase indexing guidewhat Embase asks of a biomedical journal and how to suggest it
Write DOIs into OJSthe verified DOIs pushed onto your article pages through your own API
Silent-failure monitorweekly checks of site, OAI-PMH, Scholar tags, ISSN, preservation, hijack lists
Journal Radarevery journal, every day: SSL, DNS, redirects, robots.txt, OJS, DOIs, Crossref metadata, broken links — what broke since yesterday first
Verified metrics & badgesa public, dated, source-linked metrics page and a "cited by" badge
Quality dossier (PDF)one PDF for universities, authors and reviewers
Author citation enginethe citation steps emailed to each author from the journal's own mailbox
JATS XMLmachine-readable JATS per article
Duplicate articlesthe same paper published twice — you choose which copy stays

For authors & researchers

Free to use. Nothing you check is shared with the journal.

Scholar Shieldis this journal safe to publish in?
Journal Checkone journal, checked against the public record
Journal & article searchfree: journals, articles, authors, citations and countries, from Crossref and OpenAlex
Journal Risk Radaran early-warning score 0–100: the behaviour that precedes delisting, hijacking and retractions
Manuscript ScreenAI-writing, paper-mill, reference and image signals with the evidence — before you submit
ScholaRef — reference checkyour reference list checked for retractions and dead DOIs
My recordyour own publications, gathered and kept current
Visibilitywhere your work is findable, and where it is not
Alertstold when something changes about a journal you published in
Certificate & passporta dated record you can attach to an application

For institutions, sponsors & DOI operators

Research Integrity Deskfor universities, funders and government
Evaluate a journalone journal, with the method shown
Methodologyexactly how every figure is arrived at
Watchlistthe journals your people are publishing in
Research Integrity OSfaculty vault, policy engine, compliance desk, QR-verified reports
Risk radar for institutionsevery journal in your vault re-scored weekly, with alerts on the journals you watch
Pre-submission screeningmanuscripts screened for AI-writing, paper-mill, reference and image signals before they go out
Portfolio Consolefor sponsors, hosts and societies — many journals at once
DOI Membersthe repair layer for DOI operators
Journals hubCOPE, CRediT, robust links, readiness and rating in one place
Screening desk for editorssubmissions, your recent output as the record shows it, and reviewer reports that look alike

Smart Scholars

Mon–Sat, 10:00–19:00 IST. The Ask AI button on every page answers about our services at any hour.

About uswho we are, what we hold to, and who is accountable
Memberships and commitmentswhat we belong to, what we have applied for, and what we hold ourselves to
How it worksthe order things happen in
What Smart Scholars doesevery live service, by what it puts right in a Crossref record
All serviceseverything on one page
IntegrationsOJS and WordPress plugins, a connector for AI assistants, the registry's open API
Questions and answerswhat journals, authors and institutions ask us most
Communityquestions, suggestions and facts, discussed in the open
Open problems — US$1,000 prizeunsolved problems of research and publishing, each with its evidence and what a solution must show
Reviewswhat clients and authors say, in their own words
Contact formsend us the journal and what you need
WhatsApp +91-9885134413a person, in working hours
Email mou@smartscholars.infor anything with an attachment

News

Release noteswhat changed, and when
Roadmapnow, next and later
Statusis every site answering — and over the last 90 days
E-mail updatesour news by mail, at most once a month
Newsroomwhat we write about our work
Logo and brandthe logo, our colours, how to show a DOI

Policies

Privacywhat we collect, what we do not — read out of the code
Our cookiesevery one, when it is set and for how long
Trust and securitywhere your data lives, how it is kept safe, what happens if something goes wrong
Report a security problemwhere to write, what to send, what we promise — our vulnerability disclosure policy
Terms of servicethe rules for the sites and our services
Cancellation & refundswhen money comes back, and how fast
How services are deliveredonline, and how quickly
Accessibilitywhat we checked, what we put right, what is still to do
Deleting your dataone email, and exactly what happens after it
Responsible research assessmentwhere citations and journal grades count in our tools — said plainly
Licencesnewsroom posts CC BY 4.0 · DOI metadata CC0 · everything else ©
Multilingual metadataa title in its own script, transliterated and translated; an author in two scripts — one record, every form
Registry governancewho runs it, how its rules change, if it stops
Registry policiesnaming, metadata, persistence, privacy, fees

What we can register a DOI for

20 kinds of record, one account, one place. Every one gets a DOI that resolves, metadata that indexes read, and a record that stays correct afterwards.

Journals

Journal articles
Journal titles
Pending publications
Peer reviews
Preprints & posted content

Books & conferences

Books
Book chapters
Book series
Book sets
Conference proceedings
Proceedings series
Conference papers

Other research output

Theses & dissertations
Reports & working papers
Report series
Standards
Databases
Datasets
Figures, tables & supplements

Funding

Grants & funding awards

Verified

Each badge opens the register or the source that holds the fact.

Elsewhere

The same company, in the places our publishers already read.

See more of our newsroom in Google’s Top Stories.

Smart Scholars · Every service on one pageNewsroom posts CC BY 4.0 · DOI metadata CC0 · everything else ©Data from OpenAlex (openalex.org), CC0 · Crossref · ISSN Portal · DOAJContactCookie settings

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