IDENTIFYING PERSONS UNAMBIGUOUSLY The DAI (Digital Author Identifier ) project in the Netherlands Chris Baars, euroCRIS Sept Brussels Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

OUTLINE − What is a Digital Author Identifier? − The need for a Digital Author Identifier − The project: Assigning a DAI to all scientific authors − Problems faced: don’t underestimate the complexity − Some results and benefits − Conclussion 2

WHAT IS A DIGITAL AUTHOR IDENTIFIER? info:eu-repo/dai/nl/

WHY IS A DIGITIAL AUTHOR IDENTIFIER NEEDED? − To avoid name ambiguity and variants − To keep track of people across institutes during academic career − To distinguish people with the same name During the project …… − Computer readable names helps to build services − Services can profit from work already done 4

ORION PROJECT: DARE PROGRAM, SURFFOUNDATION (2003) With ID vs Without ID Name ambiguity and variants 5

NAME AMBIGUITY AND VARIANTS 6

OUTCOME ORION PROJECT − Need for national approach and national thesaurus of author names − Authors want to submit information once. DAI helps to connect information with other systems − DAI can help to bridge CRIS en OAI world 7

SCIENTIST ABOUT THE NEED FOR IDENTIFICATION 8 Researcher idenfitication: the right needle in the haystack Lancet vol 371, June 28, 2008 Life could be a lot easier if every scientist had a unique identification number. The question is: who should provide them? Science vol 323, 27 march 2009

2009: DAI PROJECT 9

HOW CAN WE DISTINGUISH PEOPLE? Prof.dr. J. de Haan ? 10

HOW CAN WE DISTINGUISH PEOPLE? Prof.dr. J. de Haan ? info:eu-repo/dai/nl/ info:eu-repo/dai/nl/

ASSIGNING DAI’S METIS (CRIS) as source 12

PRESENT SITUATION IN THE NETHERLANDS − All researchers of universities & KNAW have a DAI (45.000) − Thesaurus hosted by OCLC − IR’s in progress (still 5 universities without DAI) − 50% of the Open Access publications has min. 1 DAI − Plans made for non-university institutes (like RIVM, KNMI, NWO etc.) 13

PROBLEMS FACED − CRIS’s contained many duplicate names and name variants. CRIS’s needed to be cleaned-up − Project started with universities: but there is a large world outsite the universities. − Synchronisation between CRIS en IR − Time span of project − Many project-participants made coordination complicated 14

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OTHER SERVICES WITH THE DAI − Widgets for Scientists − Expert Finder project − Resource maps − Webservices on national level (SRU) − Dutch Ministries integrate data in their intranet 16

CONCLUSSION A Digital Author Identifier is not only about ‘giving every person a number’, but also about authenticity of scientific output. Without author identification information services are not helpful and they will not be accepted by the public. 17

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences