An evaluator's task is to connect the dots between program goals and its outcomes. This can be accomplished through surveys, research, and interviews, and is frequently performed post hoc. Research evaluation is hampered by a lack of data that clearly connect a research program with its outcomes and, in particular, by ambiguity about who has participated in the program and what contributions they have made. Manually making these connections is very labor-intensive, and algorithmic matching introduces errors and assumptions that can distort results. In this paper, we discuss the use of identifiers in research evaluation-for individuals, their contributions, and the organizations that sponsor them and fund their work. Global identifier systems are uniquely positioned to capture global mobility and collaboration. By leveraging connections between local infrastructures and global information resources, evaluators can map data sources that were previously either unavailable or prohibitively labor-intensive. We describe how identifiers, such as ORCID iDs and DOIs, are being embedded in research workflows across science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics; how this is affecting data availability for evaluation purposes: and provide examples of evaluations that are leveraging identifiers. We also discuss the importance of provenance and preservation in establishing confidence in the reliability and trustworthiness of data and relationships, and in the long-term availability of metadata describing objects and their interrelationships. We conclude with a discussion on opportunities and risks for the use of identifiers in evaluation processes.
Abstract:As scholarly communications became digital, Open Access and, more broadly, open research, emerged among the most exciting possibilities of the academic Web. However, these possibilities have been constrained by phenomena carried over from the print age. Information resources dwell in discrete silos. It is difficult to connect authors and others unambiguously to specific outputs, despite advances in algorithmic matching. Connecting funding information, datasets, and other essential research information to individuals and their work is still done manually at great expense in time and effort. Given that one of the greatest benefits of the modern web is the rich array of links between digital objects and related resources that it enables, this is a significant failure. The ability to connect, discover, and access resources is the underpinning premise of open research, so tools to enable this, themselves open, are vital. The increasing adoption of resolvable, persistent identifiers for people, digital objects, and research information offers a means of providing these missing connections. This article describes some of the ways that identifiers can help to unlock the potential of open research, focusing on the Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID), a person identifier that also serves to link other identifiers.
Persistent identifiers (PIDs)-for people (researchers), places (their organizations) and things (their research outputs and other contributions)-are foundational elements in the overall research information infrastructure. They enable these entities to be uniquely identified and connected, to create reliable links between them. In this paper we describe what PIDs are and how they work. We demonstrate how, if widely adopted, the connections they enable will result in improved access to information, opportunities for collaboration, reduced administrative overhead and, ultimately, increased trust in scholarship and research. To ensure they are fit for purpose, we propose that PID metadata should meet FAIR principles, and that the source of information they contain should be clear and transparent. We also recognize existing usage of persistent identifiers, and invite community support for wider adoption of PIDs in future.
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