Repost: Launch of the initial Persistent Identifier Policy for the EOSC


Author: Repost from EOSC secretariat website

The blog post is a repost from the EOSC Secretariat website available at: https://www.eoscsecretariat.eu/news-opinion/launch-persistent-identifier-policy-eosc
By Rachel Kotarski, FAIR WG member and co-chair of the PID Task Force| December 13, 2019


Over the final half of 2019 a small taskforce has come together to draft a policy on persistent identifiers (PIDs) for the European Open Science Cloud. The initial draft of this policy is released today for community feedback and comment.

What is it?

Representatives from the EOSC FAIR and EOSC Architecture Working Groups have joined forces to create an outline of what is meant by ‘persistent identifier’ and what the key features of PIDs are that must be present in order to support FAIR research across EOSC.

What does it cover?

The initial draft sets out:

  • the rationale and principles under which we wrote the policy; 
  • the definition of a PID; 
  • roles and responsibilities that need to be undertaken to create a trusted and sustainable PID Ecosystem; 
  • how PIDs should be applied; 
  • the types of things PIDs can be applied to; 
  • necessary features of PID Services and their Service Providers; 
  • and finally, the governance and sustainability that is required for PIDs and the PID Ecosystem to retain trust.

Where can I read it?

The initial draft has been uploaded to Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3574203). We have also shared the link on https://pidforum.org.

How can I respond or comment?

There are a number of ways that you can respond.

We encourage organisations to read the initial policy and send us a written response. This can then be shared with us and with the PID community on PIDforum.org, where we have a dedicated area for responses. You can also email us your responses at inform-fair-wg@eoscsecretariat.eu.

Individuals are also invited to send us written responses, and you are also invited to discuss and respond to the initial draft direct on PIDforum.org. We strongly encourage wider discussion on the content and implications of this policy on PIDforum.org, by anyone with an interest.

We will be presenting on this draft at PIDapalooza in Lisbon on 29th January 2020. If you are attending, we will be gathering face-to-face feedback there. We will announce further opportunities for face-to-face feedback both on the EOSC FAIR Working Group Blog and on PIDforum.org.

Please do feel free to share with colleagues and communities who you think will be interested.

What next?

We will work on a second draft for March 2020. After gathering further community feedback, we will then work on a final draft for release and hand over to the EOSC Executive Board in October 2020.

The EOSC Architecture Working Group are also developing an implementation plan for PIDs. This will go into more detail on the outcomes and implications of the policy.