What are persistent identifiers (PIDs)?
A PID is a long-lasting unique digital code assigned to entities (e.g., people, organizations, objects/samples/things) in the research ecosystem. Without PIDs, each entity can be confused with others, like two researchers who have the same name (for example, a recent search in the ORCID database, a PID registry of researcher profiles, for 鈥淛ames Smith鈥� produced more than 95,000 results!).
Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are part of the solution. They can improve this situation by associating people (e.g., researchers), places (e.g., their organizations), and things (e.g., research grants, articles, datasets, and more) with a unique numeric or alphanumeric code (the identifier). PIDs are linked to structured information (metadata), which both describes the entity they identify, and also links to other PIDs and their associated metadata.
Which PID should be used for what entity? Recommended PIDs for each entity:
| Entity/entities | PID | Description |
|---|---|---|
| People (researchers) | ORCID | An ORCID, which stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID, is a free personal identifier designed to help researchers identify and connect to their works. Tired of manually tracking versions of your CV? An ORCID can be used to help maintain a scholarly profile, including publications, work history, grant funding, and more. You can control what information you share with ORCID and what ORCID shares about you. This name-independent PID is great for ensuring that your work is attributed to you. |
|
Research outputs (datasets, journal articles, etc.) |
DOI | A DOI, or digital object identifier, is the most widely used PID for research outputs (particularly articles/publications and datasets). There are two organizations that mint DOIs, Crossref and DataCite. Your data might move locations (URLs, repositories, etc), or the way we access the internet might change, but the DOI will always be the same. DOIs are machine-readable, interoperable, and provide a simple way to link related datasets and publications. |
| Monographs/books | ISBN | An ISBN is a unique identifier for books/monographs. Each edition of a book receives its own ISBN. ISBNs are issued by publishers via ISBN Canada (part of Library and Archives Canada) and are maintained in a global directory. |
|
Organizations |
ROR | This is an emerging PID, meaning it is still in the process of being adopted by organizations and online systems. A ROR is a unique ID for organizations and is intended to be used to connect individuals with their organizational affiliation(s). Currently, RORs have good coverage for institutions but have yet to be implemented fully for funders (expected in 2025). 9I制作厂免费 has a |
Why are PIDs important for research?
Adopting persistent identifiers (PIDs) throughout the research ecosystem - including publications, datasets, grant applications, repositories, and more 鈥� could reduce time wasted on re-entering the same information into different systems, including institutional, provincial, or national funding application systems or repositories. PIDs can also help researchers easily track and communicate their research impact.
How do PIDS facilitate open science?
Datasets cannot be (findable, accessible, interoperable, re-usable) without PIDs!
Without the unique identification of researchers and outputs across the many systems used across the research ecosystem, it is almost impossible to accurately link grants, publications, data, and other activities to the right researchers and organizations 鈥� or to understand the impact of scholarship now and in the future. The Federal Government鈥檚 鈥樷�� highlights the need for agreement on the tools and infrastructure to underpin the transition to more open research, and emerging explicitly call for the adoption and implementation of PIDs.
Whenever possible, we recommend selecting a PID that is open and platform neutral. Many proprietary platforms and database services create their own PIDS. This might be great for a given platform or database itself, but it will not help in disambiguating you or connecting your work across systems like an open PID. For example, an ORCID is not restricted to a specific platform, it is a PID that can be integrated across a myriad of platforms and databases. By contrast, a Scopus Author ID is a unique number that disambiguates authors only within the Scopus database.
How do I use or create PIDs?
Researchers can create and fill out their own ORCID profile. Some journals and repositories have an automated integration with ORCID where they will push new citations to your profile once an article or dataset is published.
Researchers usually cannot create their own DOIs for datasets or other research outputs but can obtain DOIs via depositing a dataset in a repository (e.g., , , , etc.). The 9I制作厂免费 Dataverse, which is 9I制作厂免费鈥檚 institutional research data repository, is part of the shared infrastructure service in Canada. Borealis obtains automatically generated DOIs via DataCite. The , managed by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance), is a collective of organizations and institutions registering DOIs in Canada through DataCite.
For more information on using or creating PIDs, see below for services offered by the 9I制作厂免费 Libraries.
What services do the 9I制作厂免费 Libraries offer for PIDs?
Hoping to learn more about how PIDs can help you maximize the impact of your research? At the Libraries we are here to help you navigate your options. The 9I制作厂免费 Libraries regularly offers training on PIDs and PID-related topics including open science, open access publishing, making research data FAIR, ORCID profiles, and more. Check the for upcoming training sessions.
The libraries also offer support with:
- Creating an ORCID profile and advising on scholarly profile composition (also see the ).
- Administering infrastructure to facilitate DOIs for articles and datasets
- Many of the current journals published at 9I制作厂免费 Libraries mint DOIs for their articles
- Datasets deposited in the automatically receive a DOI (also see the ).
For additional questions about PIDs and publishing or scholarly profiles, please contact the Scholarly Communications Coordinator.
For additional questions about PIDs and research data (e.g., DOIs for datasets or ISGNs for materials or physical samples), please contact the rdm.library [at] mcgill.ca (research data management specialist).
Resources and references
Digitial Research Alliance of Canada. (2020). 鈥淧ersistent Identifiers in Canada 鈥� Position Paper.鈥�
Goddard, Lisa. (2021). 鈥淧ersistent Identifiers as Open Research Infrastructure to Reduce Administrative Burden .鈥� Pop!
Center for Open Science. (March 17, 2023). 鈥淐onnecting PIDs for a Persistent Complete Research Story鈥�
Douglas Research Centre.鈥� Persistent Identifiers.鈥�
Canadian Research Knowledge Network. (2024?) 鈥淲hat is a Persistent Identifier (PID)?鈥�
Canadian Research Knowledge Network. (2021). 鈥淭he Who, What, and Where of Persistent Identifiers: A six-part webinar series devoted to all things PID鈥�
Meadows, Alice (2023). 鈥淲hy PID Strategies Are Having A Moment 鈥� And Why You Should Care.鈥�
MoreBrains Cooperative (2024). Investing in an efficient and transparent research ecosystem in Canada Evidence, analysis, and recommendations for a Canadian persistent identifier roadmap [report].
