The Case for Stable VIVO URIs

1. Melissa Haendel, Brian Lowe, & Violeta Ilik
VIVO 2014
Austin, TX
August 8, 2014
The Case for Stable VIVO URIs

2. INSTITUTION
PUBLISH
CONSULT
EXPERIMENT
FUND
DEPOSIT

3. The problem
•Each system creates identifiers for each author and co-
author
•Need to link and disambiguate researchers across
institutions
•Need to preserve institutional authority over scholarly
contributions
•VIAF and LCNAF collate scholar’s identifiers from many
places
•Not all authors have ORCID or other unique identifier

4. Need to link people
 How many scholarly works has Michael
Conlon published?
 Who has expertise in bioinformatics and
evolutionary biology in the southeast?
 How can we identify external advisors for an
interdisciplinary training program?
 Which research topics lack funding in our
consortium?

5. TITLE: “VIVO: A Semantic Approach to Scholarly Networking and Discovery”

6. …It isn’t him!

7. We can use VIVO Profiles to relate
people to their works

8. Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PPC)
Task Group on the creation and Function of
Name Authorities in a Non-MARC
Environment
 Relate external named entity identifiers and
information to library authority data and
bibliographic data
 Structure library authority data for use in linked data
environment and library systems
GOALS:

9. OCLC: Registering Researchers in Authority Files

10. 10 types of scholarly systems
 Authority hubs
 Current Research Information System (CRIS)
 Identifier hubs
 National research portal
 Online encyclopedia
 Reference management
 Research and collaboration hub
 Researcher profile systems
 Subject author identifier system
 Subject repository
OCLC: Draft Registering Researchers in Authority Files report (dated 2014-03-28)

11. Examples

12. Why we need persistent identifiers
across systems
Different systems have different data that can be
utilized across sources

13.  Multiple names/transliteration
 Change of names
 Pseudonyms - privacy issues!!!
Challenges in linking records

14. An example resource addressing
similar issues in science
 Resolvable identifiers
 Location independent
 Free to use
 Granularity of identifiers
 Customizable behaviors
 RDF support
 Community driven
 Curated resource
 Reliable
 Unrestricted scope

15. Identifiers and Profiles in
bibliographic records – new
developments
Plug in ORCiD identifier and any other identifier
(ISNI, VIAF) in Name Authority Records in 024 field
with delimiter |2 qualifier value of orcid, isni, viaf …
Example on Eric Childress NAR:
http://errol.oclc.org/laf/no2005-43559.html

16. Eric Childress in LC NAF:
But no VIVO URI?
http://errol.oclc.org/laf/no2005-43559.html

17. VIVO and ORCID
Example: Michael Conlon
VIVO URI: http://vivo.ufl.edu/individual/n25562
and
ORCiD: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1304-8447
 VIVO URI identifies person but also returns linked data published
by the University of Florida.
 ORCID controlled by individual.
We need both.

18. Distributed Person Data
Former Institution
VIVO URI
Current Institution
VIVO URI
Future Institution
VIVO URI
sameAs link
sameAs link
sameAs link

19. Distributed Person Data
 Each institution publishes authoritative data about
researcher's activities during a given time period.
 URIs for VIVOs that commit to maintaining the
historical data should be registered for ongoing
discoverability.
 Each VIVO records ORCID iD to aid in sameAs
linking.

20. Creating stable VIVO URIs
Institution A Institution B
ID:123
http://vivo.institutionA.edu/
individual/n64866
http://vivo.institutionB.edu/
individual/n88764
http://vivo.institutionA.edu/
individual/n45891
Mary Jane
Co-authorship
Joe Shmo Joe Shmo

21. Goal:
Registering VIVO URIs with OCLC PURL
server?
Making vivoweb.org/ontology URIs
persistent

22.  Ontology URI already HTTP redirect
 Locally hosted VIVO profiles (the persistence
of these will depend on the same guidelines
as for the ontology, except at a local level)
 VIVO hub (vivoweb.org? OCLC? ORCID?)
Creating stable VIVO URIs

23. Conclusions
To support maximal data integration across
sites and platforms, we need to support:
 Persistence of VIVO person URIs
 Management of sameAs assertions for
person instances across platforms
 Registration of VIVO person URIs in VIAF

24. Thank you