12 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 302 2021 The DOI string itself is just the beginning, however. The discoverability and usability of the data set will be limited unless the DOI metadata contains additional information about the resource. This metadata is best enriched with other persistent identifiers that can optimize the DOI for discovery and usability. For example, including an ORCID ID in metadata for the data creator—as opposed to just including the creator’s name as a text string—allows for the creator to be unambiguously identified with the work, and for scholarly reporting systems to better locate all of the research associated with this particular ORCID ID. In a similar vein, including a ROR ID—as opposed to a text string—for the creator’s institutional affiliation allows for this institution to be linked to the work, and for systems to better track all of the research associated with the institution. Enriching data-set metadata with identifiers also enables best practices with data-citation and data-usage tracking. When a data-set DOI is used in citations, services can capture this usage information.7 Rich metadata included with the DOI provides more context about the research. When other PIDs are included as part of this metadata, that optimizes the metadata for machine-readability and for more efficient and comprehensive aggregation and reporting. Institutions can pursue the following concrete steps to maximize the potential of identifiers in data publishing. If your institution hosts one or more data repositories, make sure the repository assigns DOIs to the data, and guide researchers and data managers to supply rich metadata when they register the DOIs. If you do not host a repository, make sure researchers are guided to submit their data to repositories that do follow best practices when it comes to DOIs. Researchers should be encouraged to obtain ORCID IDs so they can provide these identifiers with their data publications. Researchers preparing and publishing manuscripts should include data citations in their manuscripts.
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