Globally Unique Identifiers: What, why, when, which and what now? Dave Thau University of Kansas

WHAT? Why? When? Which? What now? (is a GUID?)

GUIDs in the World

More GUIDs Patent numbers: (laser guided cat exercise) GenBank accession numbers: AP Digital Object Identifier: /3212 Life Science ID: urn:lsid:pdb.org:1AFT:1

Common Features of GUIDs A short name for a complex entity Useful for locating information about the entity Each name identifies only one entity There is some sense of permanence

Differences Between GUIDs Can an item have more than one GUID? –Patents, no –GenBank accession numbers, yes –Web URLs, YES Is issuance of the GUIDs at all decentralized? –Patents, no –ISBNs, yes (publishers get a block) –LSIDs, YES (there’s no central control)

What? WHY? When? Which? What now? (do we want them for taxonomic concepts?)

IDs and the TES … … Plantae Genus

Goals for a GUID Useful internally for systems dealing with data objects (e.g. databases). Useful for communicating between separate, unaffiliated systems which deal with data objects. Integration with other communities Typical GUID goals –Short –Permanent –Unique –Resolvable

Why not use… Existent database IDs (e.g. IPNI, ITIS)? –Most are currently name based –Can’t guarantee permanence Taxon_author_year_publication –Very long! –How do you represent publication? –How do you deal with non-ascii characters? –Just a name is not resolvable

What? Why? WHEN? Which? What now? (should a GUID be assigned?)

What gets a GUID? Taxonomic Concepts Publications Specimens Data Providers? Authors? Journals?

When is a GUID assigned? When a “new” concept is added –How do you define concept for the system? –When is a concept new enough to get a new GUID? –What minor changes are allowable?

Examples of a New Concept A revision adds a new species to a genus –The species is a new concept –So is the genus A revision adds a synonym to a taxon A flora misspells a scientific name

Do These Get New Concepts? Page numbers in the reference are wrong The journal title is misspelled The author is misspelled Solution: Give the data provider the choice and trust!

What? Why? When? WHICH? What now? (kind of GUID?)

Candidates Home Grown Web Service –t3_17555 GRID resource locator –ecogrid://ku.edu/tcs/t3_17555 LSID –urn:lsid:ku.edu:tcs:t3_17555 Handle System –1883/t3_17555

LSID urn:lsid:pdb.org:1AFT:1 Backed by IBM, HP, UCSD, Chiron, U. Manchester, to name a few Uses web services protocols Support for caching, authentication, and metadata about the service Completely decentralized Specification under 2 years old

The Handle System 1883/ t3_17555 Underlies DOIs –Many journals use them (Nature, ACM) –More than 11 million DOIs are in use Mature – specification 10 years old Proprietary central system assigns and resolves prefixes Doesn’t use internet standards

For Our First Prototype Functionally, they’re very similar We’re going with the Handle System –More mature –Better built in authentication methods –Easier to separate handles from issuers –More likely to be accepted by publishers

What? Why? When? Which? WHAT NOW?

Challenges and Questions Specification and Implementation! When is one concept different from another? Can there be more than 1 GUID per concept? What will encourage people to assign and utilize GUIDs?

Topics For Discussion Are GUIDs really necessary? Are there alternative GUID systems? Is the “only 1 GUID per concept” rule necessary? What will encourage people to use and assign GUIDs?