Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Research data management

Persistent identification

Here you can find information about persistent identifiers as well as corresponding service offerings at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
What are persistent identifiers?

A persistent identifier (also PID) is a biunique and stable denomination (reference) of a digital resource (e.g. research data) through allocation of a code that can be persistently and clearly referenced on the internet.

(in: www.forschungsdaten.org, last updated: 05.05.2015)

Comparable to an ISBN (international standard book number) for books a persistent identifier is a biunique designator, but at the same time it can also be used as a persistent link to prevent a so-called dying of links (404 error). This is especially of great importance for long-term archiving and data archiving.

 

Which persistent identifiers are there?

There are persistent identifiers, which have particularly prevailed in certain areas. Others are less common in the German or European realm.
Examples for persistent identifiers are:

  • Digital Object Identifier (DOI, http://doi.org): is most often used for research data and nationally as well as internationally accepted; 5 mandatory metadata properties for ensurance of citation; based on Handle system (see below); for academic institutions free of charge
  • Uniform Resource Name (URN, http://www.dnb.de/urnservice.html): only used for publications and especially in the German and European realm common; not universally resolvable; free of charge via German National Library
  • Handle (http://www.handle.net): primarily suitable for a great many objects that are to be globally and persistently identified; no mandatory metadata properties; associated with low costs
  • Persistent Uniform Resoure Locator (PURL, http://purl.org): in the German realm not as familiar as the others; comparable to a HTTP-redirection
  • Permalink: URL designed for permanence, but without uniform guidelines or quality standards
  • Archival Resource Key (ARK): used internationally by libraries, publishers, academic institutions, archives and museums and also a URL designed for permanence; for research data not so common

 

Which persistent identifiers are available at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU)?

For open access publications via edoc DOIs and URNs are assigned.

The existing discipline-specific repositories at HU NoMaD and LAUDATIO use DOI and Handle, respectively. In addition, a DOI can be assigned within the Media-Repository of HU.

You would like to get a DOI or another persistent identifier?
Contact: Niels Fromm, edoc@cms.hu-berlin.de, +49(0)30 2093-70070