Add Property: identifierType to Class: Identifier

[leightonlc]

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Name: Leighton Christiansen

Affiliation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Type of issue: Schema Property

Issue: Add Property: identifierType to Class: Identifier

• https://doi-do.github.io/dcat-us/#properties-for-identifier
• https://support.orcid.org/hc/en-us/articles/360006971353-Metadata-in-the-Works-section
• https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/identifiers
• Currently in the Class: Identifier https://doi-do.github.io/dcat-us/#properties-for-identifier there is no Property that allows a user to specify the "Type" of identifier recorded. Ideally this would be a text field where folks would specify, from a controlled list such as the one ORCID has created at https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/identifiers (DOI, Handle, URI, etc.) or be able to enter the value "Other:" and some text such as "Organization-created identifier". The purpose of having an "Identifier Type" is that it is not always obvious from the Identifier Value which schema an identifier belongs to. And when users only enter a string such as "10.23640/07243.c.4232246" it may not be obvious to all that this is a Digital Object Identifier. A good practice to specify the use of the full identifier with web protocols, if applicable, such as: "https://doi.org/10.23640/07243.c.4232246". This would be similar in usage as the existing "Standard: Type" at https://doi-do.github.io/dcat-us/#standard-type.

Recommended change(s): Please add Property: identifierType to the Class: Identifier. Update documentation at https://doi-do.github.io/dcat-us/#properties-for-identifier and https://github.com/DOI-DO/dcat-us/blob/main/docs/examples/identifier.jsonld, and as needed elsewhere.

[dafeder]

See https://github.com/SEMICeu/ADMS/issues/10#issuecomment-2152363043

[dafeder]

I'm skeptical there will be a controlled vocabulary identified or established that will fit enough users' needs, an IRI for the scheme provides a unique identifier for the "identifier type" and is resolvable, even if there may be some inconsistency on which IRI is used for DOIs or ORCIDs or whatever. What I am confused about is that conformsTo in the dataset appears to require a Standard object, while the examples show it with just an IRI string literal that does not link to any structured data that I can see.

So, I believe conformsTo is the correct property to document for Identifier, but I'm unclear on whether it needs to contain an entire Standard object. If it does that allows for even more granular metadata about the identifier scheme/standard, but that's a lot of nesting just to say "it's a DOI".