Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A DataCite DOI 10.5061/dryad.xxxx assigned to a Dryad dataset.
- Is an instance
A Handle-based identifier issued by a Fedora repository for a deposited dataset.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A relative path on a personal webpage is not a persistent data identifier.
- Not an instance
An internal database row ID is not a persistent data identifier unless published with a PID.
Editorial commentary
‘Persistent identifier’ is the general term across every entity type a research-information system tracks — people, organisations, projects, publications, samples. ‘Persistent data identifier’ narrows that to PIDs minted specifically for datasets and their components. In practice the DataCite DOI ecosystem dominates this category, but it is not the only scheme in use: Handle-based repositories (older Fedora-based systems especially) also issue persistent data identifiers directly, and IGSN identifiers serve the adjacent case of physical research samples rather than digital datasets.
How this differs from Identifier scheme and PID metadata
Identifier scheme describes the abstract system — syntax, minting authority, metadata schema, resolution policy — that defines any PID type in general, using DOI, Handle, ARK, ORCID, and ROR as examples across all entity types. This entry is the entity-scoped instantiation of that concept for one entity type specifically: datasets. PID metadata is a third, orthogonal concept — the descriptive payload registered alongside any PID at mint time, generic across entity types, not specific to data. The three pages describe the general framework, its dataset-specific application, and the metadata layer that accompanies an identifier of any kind, respectively; none of the three duplicates the others.
Why data citation depends on it
FORCE11’s Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles makes this identifier the operational anchor of data citation directly — its fourth principle, ‘Unique Identification,’ requires that a data citation include a persistent identifier that is machine-actionable, globally unique, and widely used. Dataset-level identification also has to handle versioning in a way most other entity types don’t: DataCite’s relatedIdentifier types IsVersionOf/HasVersion, and the ‘concept DOI vs. version DOI’ pattern used by repositories such as Zenodo and Dryad, exist specifically because a dataset commonly needs both a stable identifier for the dataset as an evolving whole and a distinct identifier for each fixed version of it.
See PID minting for how a data DOI actually gets registered, and PID provider and Sample repository for the adjacent infrastructure.
References
- Brase J., ‘DataCite — a global registration agency for research data’, 2009.
- Force11 Data Citation Synthesis Group, Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, 2014.
Also known as
Data PID · Dataset DOI
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Persistent data identifier"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/persistent-data-identifier" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/persistent-data-identifier",
"name": "Persistent data identifier",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/persistent-data-identifier",
"description": "A persistent identifier (typically a DataCite DOI, but also IGSN for samples, Handle, ARK, or other PID-scheme identifier) assigned to a research dataset to support stable citation, attribution, and resolution over the long term.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/persistent-data-identifier",
"alternateName": [
"Data PID",
"Dataset DOI"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:20:23",
"dateModified": "2026-09-05T14:23:36",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
