Illustration by Vicki Hamilton, courtesy of Pixabay
What are Persistent Identifiers?
A persistent identifier (PID) is a unique code that identifies and links an entity (a person, place, or thing) across global digital infrastructures. PIDs are important to digital repositories like cIRcle because they support long-term identification and accessibility, directing a user to a source location for that entity. Especially in research, this helps with citation consistency and accuracy. Depending on the kind of PID, they can also facilitate broad indexing of material across platforms for users to discover and possibly (re-)use.
There are different kinds of PIDs for different entities:
- Object-level PIDs apply to an item, such as a dataset, book, or article. These PIDs enable discovery, track use over time to capture scholarly impact, and act as a persistent home for an object that users can refer to. An example is the digital object identifier (DOI).
- Author-level PIDs apply to an individual, such as a researcher or artist, and help track their work regardless of organizational or institutional affiliation. An example is the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID).
- Institutional-level PIDs apply to bodies such as academic institutions or funding agencies. This links the organization, institution, etc. to the output produced by a creator. An example is the Research Organization Registry ID (ROR ID).
cIRcle-Relevant PIDs
The inclusion of PIDs support cIRcle’s goals of making UBC scholarly material accessible for the long-term to support teaching, learning, and research. cIRcle applies a variety of object-level PIDs for each item. To demonstrate this further, let’s take a look at Standing in the Doorway : Representations and Realities of Punjabi International Students in Canada in cIRcle, co-authored by Lisa Brunner (Research Associate, Centre for Migration Studies).
Upon deposit to cIRcle, digital objects are assigned a Handle, which directs the user to an object’s location using a URL. This is found in the item’s metadata field.
Additionally, UBC-hosted DOIs are generated for the item in cIRcle. This is found in the DOI metadata field and is also visible on the right side of the item’s record page, beneath “Permanent URL (DOI)”.
A newly deposited item may have a visible UBC-hosted DOI that doesn’t yet resolve (i.e. direct a user to the item). This is because UBC-hosted DOIs are activated weekly. If you’ve recently deposited an item to cIRcle and the UBC-hosted DOI doesn’t resolve within a week, please contact the cIRcle Office.
cIRcle metadata also captures existing DOIs that have been assigned from a publisher, found in the Publisher DOI metadata field. Unlike Handles and UBC-hosted DOIs, not all cIRcle items will have a Publisher DOI; these are only found for items where a publisher-issued DOI was previously assigned (such as a journal article).
Further Reading on PIDs
If you would like to learn more about PIDs, you can review the Scholaris Metadata and Discovery Expert Group’s (S-MDEG) Briefing Document on Persistent Identifiers. You may also consider reviewing the Canadian National Strategy for PIDs (a collaboration between the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CKRN) and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada), which is part of an effort to support and promote the implementation of PIDs in Canada.
If you are interested to learn more about PIDs and its impact on research, you can check out this recording of a prior US/CA PIDs Community Call: PIDs for increasing research visibility and representation. Additionally, the session Better Data, Lower Burden, Higher Impact: the Value of Persistent Identifiers Across the Research Ecosystem from CKRN’s 2025 virtual conference may be of interest.
Deposit Your Work in cIRcle
If you are a UBC faculty, student, or staff member and want to ensure your research and/or teaching outputs are assigned PIDs and be will available for the long-term, please review cIRcle’s Submissions page or Contact Us.