Persistent Identifiers Explained: DOIs, ORCIDs, ROR IDs, and RAiDs
- Darina Dragouleva
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 13 hours ago
Researchers around the world are increasingly expected to understand, use, and demonstrate proper adoption of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) as part of their research practice. Whether working independently or as part of large collaborations, researchers must ensure that their outputs, affiliations, and contributions are accurately identified and traceable over time. Understanding the roles and distinctions between different PIDs, and using a platform which allows for their simple and consistent implementation is essential.
Persistent Identifiers, PIDs, are unique digital identifiers that are used to identify entities. This enables unambiguous and long-term identification even if the information about the entity changes. DOIs, ROR IDs, ORCIDs and RAiDs are among the most important PIDs in use today. While they all serve different purposes, they work together to foster transparency, research integrity and open science.
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)
First, DOIs are permanent codes assigned to digital content. This includes research reports, academic papers, books, etc. A DOI consists of a prefix and suffix separated by a forward slash. A DOI always points to a document’s current location ensuring that researchers can reliably find and cite documents. DOIs promote transparency as they provide a consistent means of tracking a document’s content over time. Researchers can easily follow the evolution of an area of research over time.
Current Challenges - If a publisher moves a paper to a new domain but fails to update the underlying URLs or metadata then there is the potential for a broken link. DOIS are also not free. Registration agencies charge memberships which may prohibit small publishers and researchers.
Research Organization Registry (ROR) IDs
ROR IDs are unique identifiers for research organizations such as universities and institutes. They are used by publishers to link research to institutions accurately. They are designed to be stable, even if the organization’s details change. They work alongside other identifier systems like DOIs and ORCID IDs.
Current Challenges - There is an uneven distribution and implementation of ROR IDs across countries and organization types. An inconsistent adoption by publishers and researchers can lead to incomplete or incorrect affiliation data. Additionally, institutional affiliations change over time making accurate assignments challenging.
Open Researcher and Contributor IDs (ORCIDs)
ORCIDs are unique digital identifiers assigned to individual researchers. This ensures they receive proper credit for their work. They are useful for distinguishing researchers with similar names and tracking their contributions across different publications and platforms.
Current Challenges - There is an uneven adoption and implementation of ORCIDS across disciplines. Many researchers lack ORCID records or do not use them consistently. ORCID relies on researchers to maintain their own records which often results in outdated profiles. There are many issues that also arise when managing profiles. Duplicate records can occur if a researcher created an account years ago with an old institutional email and created a new one with a current email. On the other hand, many researchers create an ORCID account because a journal requires them to but they never fill out the profile. This leads to many accounts that do not help with discoverability.
Research Activity Identifiers (RAiDs)
RAiDs are an attempt to link all of these concepts together. They are globally unique and persistent identifiers used to identify research projects across their entire lifecycle. RAiDs link people, data, software, institutions and outputs with a project. As such they are designed to support collaboration, organization and transparency.
Current Challenges - Tthe adoption of RAiDs remains limited with only a small number of institutions implementing them. It is difficult to align RAiDs with other existing systems such as DOIs, ROR IDs and ORCIDs.
A solution for PID integration
While DOIs, ROR IDs, ORCIDs and RAiDs are essential tools in research, integrating them into everyday workflows remains a challenge for many. myLaminin stands out as the only RDM platform on the market today that supports all of these PIDs, enabling linkage of people, outputs, organizations and projects within a single, secure platform. Researchers and institutions can register for PIDs in conjunction with research project initiation on the myLaminin platform. This requires no extra steps or tools, allowing researchers to easily make their work more connected and visible.
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Darina Dragouleva (article author) is a myLaminin intern studying Health Sciences and Ivey AEO at Western University.
