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Added value of PIDs
With the digitalisation of science and with globalisation, the number of publications – including preprints – is steadily increasing, and the amount of research data and other research outputs, for example research software, is growing.
In research, cultural, and funding institutions, the management of research-relevant information, for example the identification of publications for future performance assessment or reporting, has become more challenging. As the scientific reputation system is still oriented towards the number of citations, clear references to their own scholarly publications are of great importance for researchers.
However, that can be a challenge if, for example, the uniform resource locators (URLs) of datasets become invalid. The unambiguous assignment of a work to its author can be made more difficult, especially in the case of frequently occurring names, such as Müller, Smith, Garcia, or Wang. The identification of an organisation under different names can also represent a challenge. This leads to uncertainties when identifying, accessing, and citing research data and the associated text publications, authors, and affiliations.
PIDs (persistent identifiers) ensure that all elements of research are unambiguously identifiable and accessible both for humans and machines. They are long-lasting references to potentially every type of digital or non-digital entity, and they enable the interlinking of these entities. PIDs thus contribute to the integrity and reproducibility of scientific communication.
There are a great variety of different PIDs for different use cases, and there are also different PIDs for the same use case.
The Goal of PID Network Germany
The goal of the project "PID Network Germany", which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is to create a network of relevant actors from the PID landscape and to jointly develop a PID strategy for Germany. The dissemination and linking of PID systems and their integration into infrastructures such as knowledge graphs will be supported.
The organisation of seminars on various PID use cases to identify the needs of the scientific community is an important part of the project work, which also includes the provision of advice and training, the dissemination of relevant news, and networking with international PID actors.
The project provides up-to-date information about PIDs via the mailing list "PID-Dialog" and on Mastodon and LinkedIn.
Seminars
During the project term, PID Network Germany is conducting various events addressing the 10 PID use cases – namely, research data, instruments, cultural objects, organisations and projects, persons, physical objects, publication services and research information systems, software, text publications, and scientific events. These seminars offer a very good opportunity to learn more about the application of PIDs in the research context and to exchange experiences. The next online seminar, on PIDs for instruments, will take place on 7 May 2024. Registration is now open, and we look forward to seeing you!
Would you like to get in touch with us? You can reach the PID Network by email at info.pidnetworklistserv.dfnde and on social media:
Suggested citation
Genderjahn, S., & Ziedorn, F. (2024). Eine PID-Strategie für Deutschland. open-access.network. doi.org/10.64395/jb2vk-tk327.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).
