Risks and Trust in pursuit of a well-functioning PID infrastructure for research

Abstract

Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and their infrastructures are considered to be of vital importance for accountability, reproducibility and credibility of today’s research. PIDs foster transparency in methods and scientific output, identification and referencing of scientific outputs, and thus contribute to Open Science and Open Scholarship. PIDs are essential for a wide range of requirements in science and science communication: Research funders, universities or other research institutions strive for a higher visibility, reproducibility, accountability and attribution of results to their funding efforts or organization. On the individual level, researchers (and also publishers) are eager to document their success measured in quantitative output of research products as well as the resonance they gain inside and outside academia.

Knowledge Exchange (KE) aim to better understand what is needed to build and exploit a well-functioning PID infrastructure and has subsequently commissioned an in-depth investigation on PIDs, with the aim of producing recommendations for those stakeholders involved. The study -- whose early work is reported in this presentation -- will include a literature review on the main characteristics of PIDs and an analysis of interviews with a variety of actors, ranging from PID Managers, Owners and Users to PID Authorities and Providers. The expected outcomes are an increased understanding of the PID landscape, a set of use cases, and recommendations to improve the PID infrastructure.