FSCI Persistent Identifiers

Editor's Notes

1. First of all, what’s the problem that persistent identifiers are trying to address? Everyone will be familiar with this –clicking on a web link that takes you either to a ‘page not found’ error page like this one or to content that is actually unrelated to the link you clicked. Both usually happen because a web resource has been moved to another location and you have the old link. A ‘page not found’ error is frustrating and in the context of research, it is disastrous. It means a scholarly resource, which may have been cited, cannot be found, verified, potentially cited again and so on. This is the problem that persistent identifiers are there to address.
2. A persistent identifier is simply a long–lasting reference to a digital resource. Even if the resource moves location on the web, the persistent identifier is there to make sure the link always resolves. So if a PiD is used as a citation link in scholarly literature, it will always resolve to information about the resource (either a descriptive metadata page, the resource itself, or information about the removal of the resource from the web). PiDs are key to facilitating the discovery of scholarly resources like journal articles and research data. They also play a role in linking scholarly resources (e.g. publications and data) as well as tracking the impact of these resources. It’s important to note that PiDs do not guarantee a link will never be broken but they create a technical and social framework which helps to guarantee it.
3. PiDs play a key role in the discoverability, accessibility and reproducibility of research How do you they do this? Provide social and technical infrastructure to identify a research output over time Enable machine readability Apply to a variety of research objects and related “things” – researchers, institutions, outputs Enable research objects and things to be labeled uniquely and disambiguates one from another Facilitate the linking of research objects, related people and things so a reader may discover a publication, it’s related dataset, software, methods etc. PiDs are an integral part of the semantic web
4. So why are there so many PiD systems? Well, each PiD systems is different from another. They vary in: Purpose – for example they can general – all scholarly resource types e.g. DOIs, OR discipline specific e.g. Life Sciences ID Underlying technology (more on this shortly) Governance e.g. non-profit, cross-sector collaboration effort or company-driven Metadata collected – some require more than others Cost – some are free, some not Extent of use – PiDs vary in uptake
5. Most PiDs for research work by separating the identity of a scholarly object from its location on the web Let’s look at the Handle System as an example. Handles are run by the  Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) in the USA CNRI is a is a not-for-profit organization formed in 1986 to undertake, foster, and promote research in the public interest.  The Handle system is very robust and is widely used internationally among repositories. It also provides the underlying infrastructure for Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). Characteristics: Central handle registry where handle identifiers are recorded Distributed computer system including handle proxy servers Model: assign one Handle per resource Minimal cost (and this is usually borne by the Handle issuer such as an institution running a Handle proxy server) Unique, global, scalable, reliable Note: PiDs are both technical AND social infrastructure, so If URL of a resource changes then the owner must update the URL in the Handle system
6. The Handle identifier is made up of: a prefix that identifies the “naming authority” a suffix that identifies the “local name” of the resource a resolver service: http://hdl.handle.net
7. Let’s look at another example of persistent identifiers: DOIs These came from the scholarly publishing industry. DOIs are routinely assigned by publishers to identify journal articles and other published works. There is a great deal of technical and social infrastructure invested in DOIs and according to recent research by the THOR project they are by far the most widely used persistent identifier for research objects including research data. DOIs are: An implementation of The Handle System Applicable to a variety of digital objects e.g. in research: publications, data, software, methods, “grey literature”, theses etc. Governed by the International DOI Foundation which is a not-for-profit organisation DOIs are issued by DOI Registration Agencies or their agents CrossRef: scholarly publications DataCite: datasets, software, “grey literature” Agent examples: EZID CDL, BL, ANDS Unique, global, scalable, reliable
8. Like the Handle system it is built on, DOIs have: a prefix that identifies the “naming authority” a suffix that identifies the “local name” of the resource a resolver service
9. More metadata is required to mint a DOI than a Handle. For Handles - you can get away with pretty much just the URL and Title of the resource. For DOIs – much more is required and there are many optional and recommended metadata elements as well DataCite schema example – 6 mandatory, 6 recommended, and 6 optional fields Because more metadata is collected, DataCite also offer a search service – all datasets, software, grey literature etc minted with a DOI in the one search portal Cost – minimal but may be covered by the DOI agent e.g. ANDS For the ANDS service: accessed by institutions not individuals – m2m and manual options for minting and managing DOIs Similar to Handles, DOIs require a commitment from the owner of the resource to manage updates to the location of the resource within the DOI infrastructure e.g. if it moves location, update DOI. If it is removed, update DOI with location of your tombstone record You can see from this that persistent identifiers do not guarantee the long life of the resource itself, they work to guarantee the long life of access to information about the resource
10. An example of a different type of identifier is ORCID. ORCID is: An identifier for people Enables researchers to uniquely and unambigualously identify themselves from other researchers with the same name AND link all of their scholarly works in the one record regardless of the work type (important for credit and attribution) a not-for-profit organisation supported by members unique, global, scalable, reliable collect metadata – majority optional have Australian research sector-wide endorsement (plus a consortium) Have fast become the international standard for research identifiers – embedded into scholarly publishing workflows, endorsed and supported by every stakeholder in the research sector
11. 16 digit identifier based on ISNI block Prototype: Thomson Reuters ResearcherID Most metadata optional: Some synched to record from systems like CrossRef and DataCite Some manual input Free for researchers, fee for members (organisations) Public API (free) and premium API (members) Transparent governance and development process (see public Trello boards)
12. Linking persistent identifiers plays a key role in research reproducibility, discovery and accessibility That’s why there are international efforts to do this Two I will mention here: THOR project based in Europe has undertaken efforts to link ORCIDs with DOIs Scholix initiative is new and comes out of the World Data Service and the Research Data Alliance: involves publishers and infrastructure providers; provides a global framework to improve links between publications and data beneficial for all, especially publishers (display this link in journals) and repositories (link back to data held in repositories) More info on ANDS website and recent webinar on this topic
13. Evaluate the PiD service: Purpose Scope Underlying technology Governance and social infrastructure Metadata collected Cost Extent of use Trustworthiness? Choose the best fit PiD for the type of resource and it’s point in the research lifecycle Better to choose one than none! A resource – over time – may even get 2 PiDs and in the future these PiDs may be linked via a provenance trail e.g. this dataset had a handle and now it has a DOI. When minting the PiD, include as much metadata as you can More metadata helps linkages, attribution and discovery More metadata helps linkages, attribution and discovery
14. PiD crisis: PURL – introduced by OCLC and there are over 16,000 PURLs in Google Scholar. Around 2015 OCLC lost interest, tech freeze about 18 months, eventually Internet Archive took over and has brought PURL back from the brink LSID – strongly supported by biodiversity informatics communities standardisation authority but in recent years the technology was the topic of hot debate and the system came into crisis. Maintenance was terminated and a resolver made available in the interim as discussions continue. Meanwhile about 14,000 LSIDs are listed in Google Scholar and their future is in doubt Many PID systems were developed by various communities and, for different reasons, have failed to withstand the test of time, eventually sliding into paralysis and what Jens Klump from CSIRO calls a ‘zombie’ stage where identifiers continue to exist but the PID system loses its resolution service. Klump and his colleague Huber suggest PiD governance is the key – they suggest PiD systems have exit plans and that a universal evaluation criteria be developed for assessing PiD systems.
15. There is a cool and groovy international PiD community and a lot if happening: PiDapalooza – 2 day “festival” (conference) of everything PiD related – was in Iceland last year and on again next January in California THOR project funded by European Commission Goal: every researcher has seamless access to persistent identifiers and works will be uniquely attributed to them Nice work done on PiD usage statistics and targetted uptake of PiDs for research Fantastic webinar series CrossRef, DataCite, ORCID collaboration project on persistent identifiers for organisations and other PiD related collaborations International RDA PiD Interest Group New PiD on the Block in Australia: RAID – Research Activity Identifier built on the ANDS Handle service to identify activity as it happens at different points in the research lifecycle. First customer will be University of Queensland.
16. If you’ve found this talk exciting, come join me and be a PiD nerd too! Here are some resources in the slides that you can access to get you started Even if you don’t want to join the legions of PiD nerds, I hope you have all learned something from this talk, thanks for listening