Persistent Identification of Facilities and Instruments within Scholarly Infrastructure

Persistent identification of scholarly entities is an ongoing challenge in the web environment. This poster reports on a project focused on understanding the purposes and benefits of persistent identifier (PID) assignment for research facilities and instruments. We present findings related to PID assignment practices, motivations, and use cases for stakeholders based in scholarly research institutions, as well as challenges related to facility and instrument evolution, granularity, and relationships. Overall, we demonstrate that diverse practices currently exist regarding how to assign PIDs to research facilities and instruments, and few broad conventions or norms have emerged.