Version History

Identifier Association Policy for the PILIN Project

To cite the latest version of this work use http://resolver.net.au/hdl/102.100.272/3SYFCJ3QH

To cite this version of this work, use http://resolver.net.au/hdl/102.100.272/3LY1PKFQH

1 Purpose/Issue

This policy specifies what “things” are to be persistently identified within the PILIN Project, when an identifier should be associated with a thing, and the resolution behaviour of identifiers assigned by the PILIN project.

2 Background

In theory, it is possible to identify and manage every version, format and copy of every thing created by an activity. Achieving this goal, however, requires substantial information management infrastructure and policy.

The PILIN Project does not have the information management infrastructure necessary to manage every thing created by the project. Nor does it have a business need to persistently identify every thing created throughout the project. For these reasons, this policy specifies what PILIN things are assigned persistent identifiers.

The PILIN project does not currently have information management infrastructure that automates the assignment of identifiers to PILIN things. For that reason, this policy specifies when identifiers will be manually assigned to PILIN things.

The PILIN project will use identifiers as a way of accessing copies of PILIN things. For that reason, this policy specifies the resolution behaviour of identifiers assigned by the PILIN project.

3 Scope

This policy is for use by PILIN team members.

The policy applies to all things created by the project, but only assigns persistent identifiers to some of the things created by the project.

The policy does not define how identifiers are cited within things. For example, it does not specify how a document’s identifier shall be cited within the document. PILIN citation policy is defined in Citation of Handles Policy for the PILIN Project [1].

4 Policy Statement

The PILIN project shall assign an identifier to the following things from the PILIN information model11 The PILIN information model is described in definitions section below.:

• every citable work that crosses the PILIN curation boundary,

• every citable expression of a citable work,

• every citable manifestation of an expression that crosses the PILIN curation boundary.

The PILIN project shall assign a locator as an identifier for every PILIN managed item that crosses the PILIN curation boundary. For PILIN managed items hosted on the web, the item locator shall be a URI.

PILIN things may contain embedded citations for their associated identifiers. PILIN things shall have the following identifier associations:

• Each expression has a direct association with its own identifier. Each expression has an indirect association to the identifier for its work.

• Each manifestation has a direct association with its own identifier. Each manifestation has indirect associations to identifiers for the expression and work it manifests.

• Each PILIN managed item has a direct association with its own locator. Each PILIN managed item has indirect associations to the identifiers for the manifestation, expression and work it instantiates.

The PILIN Project shall assign an identifier to a thing:

• after the decision has been made to move the thing across the PILIN curation boundary; and

• before the thing moves across the PILIN curation boundary.

PILIN project identifiers shall be resolvable. Resolution shall provide results defined in the following table:

5 Definitions: PILIN Information Model

The PILIN Information model describes the things of interest to the PILIN project. It consists of a general information model defining works, expressions, manifestations, items and identified things, and a PILIN curation model defining citable works, the PILIN curation boundary, and a PILIN managed item.

The general information model is based on the FRBR model [2]:

A work is an abstract entity, defined as any distinct intellectual thing created by the PILIN project. For example, the intellectual content contained in all versions of a document would be considered a work.

An expression is an abstract entity, defined as the distinct intellectual realisation of a work. For example, every different version of a document is considered an expression.

A manifestation is a concrete entity, defined as the physical embodiment of an expression or work. For example, a document may have PDF and HTML manifestations.

An item is a concrete entity, defined as a single instance of a manifestation. For example, the PILIN demonstrator code may have a copy on the PILIN website in and a copy on the SourceForge website.

Within the PILIN general information model, an identified thing is a thing that has an identifier. For example, an identified work is a work that has an identifier, an identified expression is an expression that has an identifier, and an identified manifestation is a manifestation that has an identifier.

A citable thing is a thing that the PILIN Project has decided to individually identify. Within the PILIN Project, not all things will be citable. For example, a document containing diagrams may be a citable, but the individual diagrams themselves might not be citable. The curator of a thing shall decide whether the thing will be a citable work.

The PILIN curation boundary [3] is defined by who has access to PILIN things. Things inside the PILIN curation boundary can be accessed by members of the PILIN project team but cannot be accessed by other entities. Things outside the PILIN curation boundary can be accessed by members of the PILIN team and by non-members of the PILIN team.

A PILIN managed item is an item that is managed by the PILIN Project. Some items will not be controlled by the PILIN project and so are not PILIN managed items. For example, a PDF version of a document on the PILIN website may be copied and hosted by a third party. The third party copy is not considered a PILIN managed item because PILIN does not manage it.

6 References

[1] Citation of Handles Policy for the PILIN Project,
hdl:102.100.272/R67T0T0QH
http://resolver.net.au/hdl/102.100.272/R67T0T0QH

[2] International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions 1998, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR),
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm

[3] The notion of the PILIN Curation Boundary is inspired by work within the ARROW, DART and ARCHER repository projects; see Treloar, A., Groenewegen, D. 2007, ARROW, DART and ARCHER: A Quiver Full of Research Repository and Related Projects, Ariadne Issue 51,
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue51/treloar-groenewegen/

Copyright © Monash University

This work was created as part of the PILIN project. The PILIN project is funded by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training, (DEST) under the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative (SII) as part of the Commonwealth Government’s Backing Australia’s Ability – An Innovation Action Plan for the Future (BAA) under the ARROW Project.