Section outline

    • Persistent identifiers are assigned to the data at the sharing step.

      Schéma des étapes du cycle FAIR des données : Collecte, Traitement, Publication, Conservation et Réutilisation des données

      Source: Adaptation of Research data lifecycle – UK Data Service


    • 1. Definition


      An identifier is a unique association between an alphanumeric code and an entity or a ressource. On the web, ressources are located by URLs. However, these URL's are not stable. If the resource is moved and/or renamed, it is no longer accessible. The browser then displays the 404 error code. Persistent identifiers guarantee a stable link to the online resource. The persistency is obtained by an active management of URLs.
      This management is ensured by recognized organizations, support by human and technical infrastructures. The identity of the resource is matched to its location on the web. The hypertext link access will be guaranteed and will never be broken.
      The role of persistent identifier is to facilitate the tracking, to locate, access and cite the results of research production:
      • Persistent identifiers allows a sure identification (to a resource, an author...).
      • Persistent identifiers for publications and data allow to access them over the long term.
      • They link published articles to the underlying data sets.
      • They also help to discover, share, reuse and cite the results of research and scientific production.

      Diagramme représentant les principaux éléments du cycle de gestion des données : publication, partage, vérification, citation
      Source       : Doranum - Persistents identifiers

      The ideal identification is a combination of several identifiers:

      • PID for publications
      • PID for data
      • PID for authors
      • PID for research organizations
      Schéma cycle de publication et d'accès aux données scientifiques : organisation de recherche, auteurs, publication et données
      Source : Doranum - Identifiants pérennes : FICHE SYNTHÉTIQUE

      For publications, the attribution of a perennial identifier is a well-established and systematized procedure. Most publishers and open archives automatically assign a persistent identifier to each article. This is most often a Handle or DOI. The latter is assigned through the CrossRef agency.

      Système d'identifiant persistant de publication scientifique : éditeur, archive ouverte, référentiel et outils d'attribution.


      Source : Doranum - Les identifiants pérennes : un aperçu

      Identifiers are often assigned to your data when they are deposited in a repository: it can be a local identifier, or a unique global identifier.

      In this course, we will not talk about PID for publications.

    • 2. PID for data

      It is recommended to assign a persistent identifier to each dataset.

      Persistent identifiers for data are assigned to resources resulting from scientific production, for example datasets, images, sounds, physical objects... 

      With the deployment of the Internet and the online availability of research data, identifiers better adapted to the digital world have been put in place such as:

      • DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
      • Handle
      • PURL (persistent URL)
      • ARK (Archive Resource Key)
      • ePIC (European Persistent Identifier Consortium)…


      Focus on DOI: https://datacite.org/index.html

    • 3. PID for author

      Having an author ID allows:

      • to make the link with his scientific productions
      • to be well identified and cited.

      The most widely used is ORCID, an international, neutral and independent identifier.

      There are also several types of identifiers dedicated to authors and contributors involved in research:

      • Commercial publishers assign local identifiers for their database: for example Clarivate with the ResearcherID identifier or Elsevier with Scopus Author ID,
      • Social networks such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu assign each registrant his or her own identifier,
      • open archives can propose the creation of a local identifier, for example arXiv author ID for the Arxiv open archive,
      • in the worldof libraries: the ISNI identifier (International Standard Name Identifier) is an international identifier attributed to persons and institutions involved in literary, artistic and intellectual production in the broadest sense. It is defined by an ISO standard.

      Focus on ORCID: https://orcid.org/

    • 4. PID for research organizations

      There are persistent contributor identifiers for the authors but also for the research organizations:

      • they allow to link the author with his organization
      • they are important for research organizations to identify all the scientific productions of their researchers

      Focus on ROR: https://ror.org/

    • 5. Play with PID

      Instructions: Place each card on one of the four zones identified "Author", "Data", "Research organization" and "Publication". Some cards appear twice.




    • External Resources