In the PID, persistent identifier, landscape an identifier is a label or reference which gives a unique name to an entity: a person, place, or thing. Identifiers can include ORCID for individuals, DOIs (digital object identifiers) for digital objects like articles and websites, and organization identifiers (ROR, which stands for Research Organization Registry, is a new open identifier of particular interest to research organizations and institutions). Community groups are currently working on PIDs for conferences as well.
Attendees of the fourth PIDapalooza Festival held Jan 29-30, 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal came together around a shared interest in ensuring that PIDs are widely used so that more people, research outputs, funding sources, institutions and organizations can be mapped together to gauge impact and leverage opportunities. LYRASIS was represented at PIDapalooza by Sheila Rabun, ORCID US Community Specialist, who presented an overview of the growing ORCID US Community consortium that currently includes 127 research institutions.
PIDapalooza sessions were focused around the interrelated themes of putting principles into practice, PID communities, PID success stories, achieving persistence through sustainability, and bridging social and technical worlds. All of the sessions were designed to be interactive, and the meeting even featured a participant-contributed playlist!
Top challenges for the PID community remain providing encouragement and outreach to people and organizations to use PIDs as much as possible, making sure the metadata associated with PIDs is accurate, and ensuring accuracy and sustainability over time. To stay in the loop with future PIDapalooza plans and other PID-related communications, consider joining the PIDforum, an international discussion board for all things related to PIDs.