This survey collects use cases, applications, and expectation information from PID Managers, Owners, and end users. The aim of this survey is to collect the information provided in a PID Knowledge Base (KB) to support users of persistent identifiers. To do so, the survey is meant for PID users (both service providers/managers and end users) with a certain degree of maturity and knowledge of the PID service(s). 

This survey will help build services that meet the communities' needs better. Some of these questions may seem complicated for a PID manager/owner, but these are important aspects to reflect on to improve the services and build a better, more cohesive offering.

The KB has already been populated with publicly available data. By completing the service, we will improve the information already captured and we will give the PID users and managers the possibility of “taking ownership” of this publicly available information. When the KB will be available as a service, PID service providers and users will be able to directly refer to the KB for up-to-date information on the service. The adoption of PID stacks is a “socio-technical” problem, and trust in these systems is one of the big obstacles to higher uptake. Populating this Knowledge Base will then allow for more trust in this system to be built in the broader public.

The survey is developed on behalf of two EU-funded projects: FAIRCORE4EOSC and FAIR-IMPACT (two projects aimed at implementing and improving adherence to the FAIR principles in the European Open Science Cloud, from a technical and policy/best practices point of view, respectively),and the KB will be available via the Compliance Assessment Toolkit being developed by FAIRCORE4EOSC. 

We will ask for your consent to use the data at the conclusion of this survey.

 

This survey will remain open for responses until March 14, 2025. We appreciate your participation!

PID stacks represent the interconnected series of actors and their roles required to run a PID service and provide it to the end-users (Owners and Users). Several actors and roles in the ecosystem contribute to one or more PID Stacks. For example, the DataCite DOI is a stack that includes many PID Managers that use DataCite as a Provider (also called a Registration Agency or Allocation Agency), the DOI Foundation as a Multi-Primary Administrator (MPA), and the DONA Foundation as an Authority. 

This survey of PID Managers and Owners asks you to confirm the characteristics and features of the PID Services that you use and may require. 

This graph shows the actors in the PID stack ecosystem and their relationships. It is not necessary to understand this graph to fill out the survey. For more information about stacks, see here.

The sections that follow deal with one or more of the PID Stacks or Service(s) that you are using or plan to use, and with the Entities (Concepts or Things) for which you would use them. More about Entities. 

We ask that you also think about the use of less well-known PID Stacks, if possible, as plenty of information is already available about mainstream stacks (e.g. DataCite and CrossRef DOIs, Ark, ORCID, …) but documented user perspectives on lesser-known PIDs are rare.

This section confirms the use cases or workflows for which you see a use for persistent identifiers, and records the benefits you expect from using them.

Read more about workflows and use cases.

At what scale do you require PIDs? Read more about scale.

The string which uniquely identifies a resource is fundamental to PIDs. The rules to generate this string are referred to as “identifier syntax” and can be quite diverse. The “namespace” specifies the groupings made by the “identifier syntax” to ensure uniqueness and hierarchy. Read more about identifier syntax and namespaces.

What characteristics do you need in the resolution mechanism? Read more about resolution characteristics.

Persistent identifier stacks have various approaches to metadata management. This section defines the types of metadata that may be available. Read more about metadata.

Some useful definitions:

> Kernel metadata - standardised (in most cases) schema provided by the PID stack managers;

> Identifier metadata - can be a subset of Kernel metadata. Information about the account that created the identifier (e.g., creation/modification date, redirectingURL…);

> Custom (resource) metadata - generally provided by the manager or owner of the entity the PID points at;

> Authority - the main governing body of a PID stack (e.g., the DONA foundation)

> MPA - Multi-primary Administrator, any entity that is credentialed and authorised by the main authority to provide and administer a PID service (e.g., all credentialed organisations by the DONA foundation that make up the Global Handle Registry)

PID Stacks need to be sustainable - socially, financially and technically. There are several ways in which this can be accomplished. The questions below define your expectations. More about sustainability.

Describe any value added services you might need in the section below. More about value-added services.

Providing a high quality service requires various actors across the ecosystem to adhere to a set of standards and expectations.  Read more about this subject.

 

Some useful explanations:

> Competence of actor: Who needs to prove externally that they are experienced and skilled enough to participate in this ecosystem.

> Unambiguous allocation: Which actors are responsible for ensuring that identifiers are unique.

> Interoperability: who is responsible for ensuring that interoperability with other managers is maintained.

> Record-keeping: who is responsible for the accounting of the identifiers (e.g. how many are available, how many resolve, tombstoning, etc).

> Monitoring: who is required to monitor the use of services.

We request permission to use your answers in a PID Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base serves as a basis for the EOSC PID Policy Compliance Toolkit, which provides information to end users on the PID Stacks that best suit their use cases. For managers and owners responding to the survey, the answers will be anonymous.

Publication of the answers in the Knowledge Base will contribute to making the public information already gathered more trustworthy, and will enable PID managers to refer to a single resource for information about the service they employ with the long-term objective of facilitating a broader and more precise adoption of PID stacks by a broader range of parties.