Identify My Data

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This guide explains what Identify My Data does, who it is for and how it can be accessed.

What does it do?

Identify My Data is an ANDS product that provides cost free creation (called minting), resolution and support for user updating of persistent identifiers for the Australian research and cultural collections sectors.

What is a persistent identifier?

A persistent identifier (PID) is a number or a code that is allocated to an object or a resource as a long lived identifier. Persistent identifiers provide a globally unique identification. Persistent identifiers can be used to create hyperlinks on a web page. When clicked on, the hyperlink will take the web-user to the URL associated with the identifier.

Persistent identifiers are stored in a database along with the URL(s) and description(s) of the objects that they identify.

Persistent identifiers are useful because when an object or resource changes location on the internet, the persistent identifier does not change. The owner of the resource is able to communicate with the persistent identifier database and change the object location associated with the persistent identifier. All links which use the persistent identifier will then point to the new location without the resource owner needing to update them.

Who is it for?

Identify My Data is useful for:

• software developers needing to build software which assigns persistent identifiers to objects within their application where there is a requirement to assign, update and resolve identifiers.

• individuals wishing to provide persistence for citing materials held on their web site who may want to assign identifiers to individual pages, papers, or a web site

• institutions acting as an authoritative source of information about people, organisations or community vocabularies where globally unique identifiers need to be assigned to individual records

• institutional repositories not wishing to manage their own identifier service who may wish to assign persistent identifiers to their holdings

How does it work?

Identify My Data uses the international Handle System developed by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI).

The Handle System provides identifier resolution services for use on the Internet. It includes a set of protocols that enable a distributed computer system to store identifiers – known as handles – and to resolve those handles into the information necessary to locate, access, contact, authenticate, or otherwise make use of the associated resources. This allows the handle of an item to persist despite changes of location and other changes.

The Handle system is very robust and is widely used internationally among repositories. More information can be found at: http://www.handle.net/

ANDS Identify My Data uses the Handle technology but adds an extra layer in order to simplify access and administration.

ANDS does not impose policies about using persistent identifiers minted with Identify My Data. However, to make the best possible use of persistent identifiers these policies should be considered by the person or organisation minting the persistent identifier.

ANDS does not update the information stored with persistent identifiers which have been minted using Identify My Data. This is the responsibility of the person or organisation that minted the persistent identifier.

How can I access Identify My Data?

Identify My Data has two different components. One (a Web Service) can be used to integrate Identify My Data with other software. The other component is a website (an Online Service) which allows self-service of individual persistent identifiers.

I want to integrate Identify My Data with my software application

Before your software can use the Identify My data web service it needs to be registered as a trusted client in the ANDS database. Once this simple registration process is complete, HTTP requests will be serviced.

Identify My Data includes service points to mint, update and administer persistent identifiers.

To register your software to use Identify My Data or to obtain technical documentation on the Identify My Data service points, please email services@ands.org.au

I want to use the Identify My Data service to mint self-service persistent identifiers

Access to this service is controlled via a login through the Australian Access Federation (AAF). If your organisation is not a member of the AAF then you need to register for ARCS Services at https://idp.arcs.org.au/idp_reg/

Identify My Data (self service) is found at: https://services.ands.org.au/home/pids/

Where can I get more information?

Other ANDS Guides on persistent identifiers are available from: http://ands.org.au/guides/

Information on the Australian Access Federation is available from:  http://www.aaf.edu.au/

Information on the Australian Research Collaboration Service is available from http://www.arcs.org.au/

If you have any questions or comments on ANDS Identify My Data then please email: services@ands.org.au

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.