Linking to journal articles in an online teaching environment: The persistent link, DOI, and OpenURL

The growing availability of online journal literature and the license agreements that make such literature useable in an academic environment present educators opportunities for using journal articles in online teaching. The use of online journal articles avoids logistical challenges associated with the use of printed copies of journal articles, particularly when assembling course packs. Technological developments have improved the reliability of linking to journal articles via the World Wide Web. Three linking methods are described: persistent linking services available in online databases and journal collections; the digital object identifier (DOI), and OpenURL. Faculty who wish to reliably integrate links to journal articles in online instruction should be familiar with these linking methods.