- Email: [email protected]
Unique identifiers
Unique identifiers
15
15.1 Introduction Authors’ names may be presented in different ways: full first name and second initial, abbreviated first name and second initial, and abbreviated first name and no middle initial. Chinese names are most often given in full, sometimes with the given name first, sometimes with the family name first, and sometimes initialized. American last names often contain tags such as “Junior” or “Senior.” We have to admit that sometimes, authors also bear responsibility for the way they present their names. The transliteration of names from non-Latin alphabets and especially from Asian languages could be difficult and inconsistent. This is a very serious problem, as the number of publications and patents from Asian countries is growing rapidly. Publishers are using different strategies to handle variations in authors’ names. Some databases provide the option of searching for alternative spellings, as discussed below, but their practices are not always transparent—in this process, it is not clear whether the users benefit from such options or if they are being misled. Only the authors themselves would be able to identify which of the different available spellings of their names are associated with their publications.
15.2 Unique author name identifiers To solve the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication, new unique persistent digital identifiers have been introduced. They make it possible to distinguish authors from each other to ensure that researchers’ individual work is recognized.
15.2.1 ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) www.orcid.org
ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) provides a persistent digital identifier, allowing the clear identification of any individual researcher. ORCID is a nonprofit organization solving the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication by creating a central registry of unique identifiers. Anyone who registers for ORCID is assigned a unique number, which can be integrated in research and funding workflows, manuscript submissions, grant applications, and patent applications. Organizations may link their records to ORCID identifiers and register their employees and students to obtain ORCID numbers. ORCID ID example: 0000-0001-6298-2335
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data Copyright © 2015, Svetla Baykoucheva. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
138
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data
15.2.2 International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) www.isni.org
ISNI is a global standard persistent unique number assigned by an international body. It is used to uniquely identify contributors to creative works, including researchers, inventors, writers, artists, performers, producers, publishers, and those involved in works distribution.
15.2.3 ResearcherID (Thomson Reuters) ResearcherID.com is a free resource for the international scholarly research community. After registering, researchers are assigned an individual ID number that stays with them over the course of their careers, regardless of name changes or change in institution affiliation. Authors can create and update their profile, build their “My Publications” list by uploading works that they authored from Web of Science, manage their publication list with EndNote, make their profiles public or private, view citations in Web of Science, find collaborators, and review publication lists. Institutions can designate an administrator to update ResearcherID publication lists of their researchers. ResearcherID provides tools for a visual analysis of research networks based on subject category, country, institution, author name, publication year, and geographic location. These tools allow authors to visually explore who is citing their published works (Figure 15.1), the subject areas of the citing papers (Figure 15.2), and from which geographic locations they come from (Figure 15.3).
Figure 15.1 ResearcherID shows who has cited an author’s works.
Figure 15.2 ResearcherID shows the areas of science that are citing an author’s works.
Figure 15.3 ResearcherID map showing the geographic locations for publications that have cited an author’s works.
140
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data
ResearcherID example: B-9809-2012 All screen captures from ResearcherID are reproduced with the permission of Thomson Reuters.
15.3 Handling of author names by publishers 15.3.1 SciFinder SciFinder searches for alternate spellings of authors’ names. As shown in Figure 15.4, an author search produced eight different variations of my name. Some of the variations were caused by the fact that SciFinder simultaneously searches two databases—the Chemical Abstracts (CAplus) and MEDLINE databases—and some of the journals that they cover are the same. The variations included different spellings of my last name; first and middle initials; full or abbreviated first name; and the presence or absence of middle initial. I found out that some of my publications were indexed exactly as they were published in the article, while other references of the same article had my first name abbreviated to an initial. While it was not difficult for me to see that all these were variations of my name, it might not be possible for anyone else to make such distinction.
Figure 15.4 Variations of the author’s name, as shown in SciFinder. Screen capture used with the permission of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society.
Unique identifiers141
15.3.2 Scopus Author Identifier Scopus Author Identifier allows grouping documents published by the same author under a single identifier number, using an algorithm that matches author names based on their affiliation, address, subject area, source title, dates of publication citations, and coauthors. It also takes into consideration last name variations, all possible combinations of first and last names, and the author name with and without initials. The result is that searches for a specific author include a preferred name and variants of the preferred name. Figure 15.5 shows the Scopus interface when searching by author’s name. The author details page (Figure 15.6) provides information about authors who have more than one document matched to them in Scopus. The information includes the author's publishing and citation information, name variants, and the author’s unique identifier number. On the author details page, users can see the individual author's documents. From this page, authors can request corrections to their names and other details. They can also evaluate an author’s performance (e.g. from the h-index), view an author’s affiliations, find and group potential author matches, and add author details to ORCID.
Figure 15.5 Searching for an author’s name in Scopus.
Figure 15.6 The author detail page allows the selection of any individual author’s different “identities.” Authors can use this page to request the merging of their multiple profiles.
142
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data
Figure 15.7 Reviewing an author’s profile in Scopus.
Figure 15.8 Variations of an author’s name can be matched to a single name chosen by the author for the Scopus profile.
Authors can report errors or provide other feedback using the author feedback form. An author can review her profile (Figure 15.7) and also select which variation of her name should be the main form for the profile (Figure 15.8). Variations can be added; for example, when I found out that in one of my publications my last name had been misspelled, I contacted Scopus and requested that this variation of my name be added to my profile. All screen captures from Scopus are used with the permission of Elsevier.
15.3.3 Web of Science Web of Science also allows authors to manage their names. They have to contact the publisher (Thomson Reuters) to do so. Searches for authors’ publications in WoS can also be carried out using ORCID or ResearcherID, discussed earlier in this chapter.
Unique identifiers143
15.4 Other unique identifiers 15.4.1 Digital object identifier (DOI) www.doi.org
Most journal articles can now be identified by a digital object identifier (DOI), issued by CrossRef (www.crossref.org), a nonprofit organization, in which most scholarly publishers participate as members. (CrossRef is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 of this book.) A DOI is used to identify a digital object such as a journal article, a book chapter, or even a dataset. Each DOI is associated with the metadata that identify the content of the item and points to its location on the Internet. DOIs are similar to International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), allowing persistent and unique identification of a publication (or even part of a publication), independently of its location. DOIs are also used for other kinds of content. DataCite (www.datacite.org) is another nonprofit organization that can issue DOIs, and it does so mainly for datasets. Other unique identifiers include PubMed ID, ArXiV ID, and PubMed Central ID. Material posted in university repositories may also be assigned a DOI.
15.4.2 Identifiers for chemical names The International Chemical Identifier (InChI) is a textual identifier for chemical substances to encode molecular information and to facilitate the search for such information in databases and on the web (Heller et al., 2013). It was initially developed by IUPAC (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) (www.iupac.org) and NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) (http://nist.gov), using a format and algorithms that are nonproprietary. SMILES (Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry System) is another chemical nomenclature and data-exchange format that is widely used. Another unique identifier for chemical compounds is the CAS Registry Number, discussed in more detail in Chapter 5 of this book.
15.5 Conclusion After registering for an author identifier, researchers are assigned an individual ID number that stays with them over the course of their careers, regardless of how their names or institution affiliations change. While anybody can get an ORCID number, a ResearcherID number can be assigned only to those who are already authors of scientific publications, and their publications are covered in Web of Science. Now many publishers provide the option to search for authors’ publications using their ORCID and ResearcherID numbers instead of their names.
References Heller, S., McNaught, A., Stein, S., Tchekhovskoi, D., Pletnev, I., 2013. InChI - the worldwide chemical structure identifier standard. Journal of Cheminformatics 5, 7. http://dx.doi. org/10.1186/1758-2946-5-7.
15
15.1 Introduction Authors’ names may be presented in different ways: full first name and second initial, abbreviated first name and second initial, and abbreviated first name and no middle initial. Chinese names are most often given in full, sometimes with the given name first, sometimes with the family name first, and sometimes initialized. American last names often contain tags such as “Junior” or “Senior.” We have to admit that sometimes, authors also bear responsibility for the way they present their names. The transliteration of names from non-Latin alphabets and especially from Asian languages could be difficult and inconsistent. This is a very serious problem, as the number of publications and patents from Asian countries is growing rapidly. Publishers are using different strategies to handle variations in authors’ names. Some databases provide the option of searching for alternative spellings, as discussed below, but their practices are not always transparent—in this process, it is not clear whether the users benefit from such options or if they are being misled. Only the authors themselves would be able to identify which of the different available spellings of their names are associated with their publications.
15.2 Unique author name identifiers To solve the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication, new unique persistent digital identifiers have been introduced. They make it possible to distinguish authors from each other to ensure that researchers’ individual work is recognized.
15.2.1 ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) www.orcid.org
ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) provides a persistent digital identifier, allowing the clear identification of any individual researcher. ORCID is a nonprofit organization solving the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication by creating a central registry of unique identifiers. Anyone who registers for ORCID is assigned a unique number, which can be integrated in research and funding workflows, manuscript submissions, grant applications, and patent applications. Organizations may link their records to ORCID identifiers and register their employees and students to obtain ORCID numbers. ORCID ID example: 0000-0001-6298-2335
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data Copyright © 2015, Svetla Baykoucheva. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
138
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data
15.2.2 International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) www.isni.org
ISNI is a global standard persistent unique number assigned by an international body. It is used to uniquely identify contributors to creative works, including researchers, inventors, writers, artists, performers, producers, publishers, and those involved in works distribution.
15.2.3 ResearcherID (Thomson Reuters) ResearcherID.com is a free resource for the international scholarly research community. After registering, researchers are assigned an individual ID number that stays with them over the course of their careers, regardless of name changes or change in institution affiliation. Authors can create and update their profile, build their “My Publications” list by uploading works that they authored from Web of Science, manage their publication list with EndNote, make their profiles public or private, view citations in Web of Science, find collaborators, and review publication lists. Institutions can designate an administrator to update ResearcherID publication lists of their researchers. ResearcherID provides tools for a visual analysis of research networks based on subject category, country, institution, author name, publication year, and geographic location. These tools allow authors to visually explore who is citing their published works (Figure 15.1), the subject areas of the citing papers (Figure 15.2), and from which geographic locations they come from (Figure 15.3).
Figure 15.1 ResearcherID shows who has cited an author’s works.
Figure 15.2 ResearcherID shows the areas of science that are citing an author’s works.
Figure 15.3 ResearcherID map showing the geographic locations for publications that have cited an author’s works.
140
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data
ResearcherID example: B-9809-2012 All screen captures from ResearcherID are reproduced with the permission of Thomson Reuters.
15.3 Handling of author names by publishers 15.3.1 SciFinder SciFinder searches for alternate spellings of authors’ names. As shown in Figure 15.4, an author search produced eight different variations of my name. Some of the variations were caused by the fact that SciFinder simultaneously searches two databases—the Chemical Abstracts (CAplus) and MEDLINE databases—and some of the journals that they cover are the same. The variations included different spellings of my last name; first and middle initials; full or abbreviated first name; and the presence or absence of middle initial. I found out that some of my publications were indexed exactly as they were published in the article, while other references of the same article had my first name abbreviated to an initial. While it was not difficult for me to see that all these were variations of my name, it might not be possible for anyone else to make such distinction.
Figure 15.4 Variations of the author’s name, as shown in SciFinder. Screen capture used with the permission of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society.
Unique identifiers141
15.3.2 Scopus Author Identifier Scopus Author Identifier allows grouping documents published by the same author under a single identifier number, using an algorithm that matches author names based on their affiliation, address, subject area, source title, dates of publication citations, and coauthors. It also takes into consideration last name variations, all possible combinations of first and last names, and the author name with and without initials. The result is that searches for a specific author include a preferred name and variants of the preferred name. Figure 15.5 shows the Scopus interface when searching by author’s name. The author details page (Figure 15.6) provides information about authors who have more than one document matched to them in Scopus. The information includes the author's publishing and citation information, name variants, and the author’s unique identifier number. On the author details page, users can see the individual author's documents. From this page, authors can request corrections to their names and other details. They can also evaluate an author’s performance (e.g. from the h-index), view an author’s affiliations, find and group potential author matches, and add author details to ORCID.
Figure 15.5 Searching for an author’s name in Scopus.
Figure 15.6 The author detail page allows the selection of any individual author’s different “identities.” Authors can use this page to request the merging of their multiple profiles.
142
Managing Scientific Information and Research Data
Figure 15.7 Reviewing an author’s profile in Scopus.
Figure 15.8 Variations of an author’s name can be matched to a single name chosen by the author for the Scopus profile.
Authors can report errors or provide other feedback using the author feedback form. An author can review her profile (Figure 15.7) and also select which variation of her name should be the main form for the profile (Figure 15.8). Variations can be added; for example, when I found out that in one of my publications my last name had been misspelled, I contacted Scopus and requested that this variation of my name be added to my profile. All screen captures from Scopus are used with the permission of Elsevier.
15.3.3 Web of Science Web of Science also allows authors to manage their names. They have to contact the publisher (Thomson Reuters) to do so. Searches for authors’ publications in WoS can also be carried out using ORCID or ResearcherID, discussed earlier in this chapter.
Unique identifiers143
15.4 Other unique identifiers 15.4.1 Digital object identifier (DOI) www.doi.org
Most journal articles can now be identified by a digital object identifier (DOI), issued by CrossRef (www.crossref.org), a nonprofit organization, in which most scholarly publishers participate as members. (CrossRef is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 of this book.) A DOI is used to identify a digital object such as a journal article, a book chapter, or even a dataset. Each DOI is associated with the metadata that identify the content of the item and points to its location on the Internet. DOIs are similar to International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), allowing persistent and unique identification of a publication (or even part of a publication), independently of its location. DOIs are also used for other kinds of content. DataCite (www.datacite.org) is another nonprofit organization that can issue DOIs, and it does so mainly for datasets. Other unique identifiers include PubMed ID, ArXiV ID, and PubMed Central ID. Material posted in university repositories may also be assigned a DOI.
15.4.2 Identifiers for chemical names The International Chemical Identifier (InChI) is a textual identifier for chemical substances to encode molecular information and to facilitate the search for such information in databases and on the web (Heller et al., 2013). It was initially developed by IUPAC (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) (www.iupac.org) and NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) (http://nist.gov), using a format and algorithms that are nonproprietary. SMILES (Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry System) is another chemical nomenclature and data-exchange format that is widely used. Another unique identifier for chemical compounds is the CAS Registry Number, discussed in more detail in Chapter 5 of this book.
15.5 Conclusion After registering for an author identifier, researchers are assigned an individual ID number that stays with them over the course of their careers, regardless of how their names or institution affiliations change. While anybody can get an ORCID number, a ResearcherID number can be assigned only to those who are already authors of scientific publications, and their publications are covered in Web of Science. Now many publishers provide the option to search for authors’ publications using their ORCID and ResearcherID numbers instead of their names.
References Heller, S., McNaught, A., Stein, S., Tchekhovskoi, D., Pletnev, I., 2013. InChI - the worldwide chemical structure identifier standard. Journal of Cheminformatics 5, 7. http://dx.doi. org/10.1186/1758-2946-5-7.