Paper Info
Title
On the utility of identification schemes for digital earth science data: an assessment and recommendations.
Abstract
In recent years, a number of data identification technologies have been developed which purport to permanently identify digital objects. In this paper, nine technologies and systems for assigning persistent identifiers are assessed for their applicability to Earth science data (ARKs, DOIs, XRIs, Handles, LSIDs, OIDs, PURLs, URIs/URNs/URLs, and UUIDs). The evaluation used four use cases that focused on the suitability of each scheme to provide Unique Identifiers for Earth science data objects, to provide Unique Locators for the objects, to serve as Citable Locators, and to uniquely identify the scientific contents of data objects if the data were reformatted. Of all the identifier schemes assessed, the one that most closely meets all of the requirements for an Unique Identifier is the UUID scheme. Any of the URL/URI/IRI-based identifier schemes assessed could be used for Unique Locators. Since there are currently no strong market leaders to help make the choice among them, the decision must be based on secondary criteria. While most publications now allow the use of URLs in citations, so that all of the URL/URI/IRI based identification schemes discussed in this paper could potentially be used as a Citable Locator, DOIs are the identification scheme currently adopted by most commercial publishers. None of the identifier schemes assessed here even minimally address identification of scientifically identical numerical data sets under reformatting.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1007/s12145-011-0083-6
Earth Science Informatics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Digital identifiers, Unique Identifiers, Permanent identifiers, Global unique persistent identifiers
Data mining,Data set,Digital Earth,Use case,Identification scheme,Identifier,Computer science,Data objects,Info URI scheme,Unique identifier,Database
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
4
3
1865-0481
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
21
2.13
22
Authors
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ruth E. Duerr19112.97
Robert R. Downs27114.01
Curt Tilmes39113.91
Bruce R. Barkstrom47317.54
W. Christopher Lenhardt5245.37
Joseph Glassy6443.69
Luis Bermudez726314.00
Peter Slaughter8323.17