Identifiers | Databio Slides

# Identifiers

1. What are identifiers
2. Identifiers and scope
3. Authority-based identifiers
4. Content-derived identifiers
5. Proposed priority order

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## What are identifiers?

> labels that refer to specific objects, enabling structure, reference, and meaning

Examples:

- Uniprot accession: `A0A023GPI8`
- Genbank accession: `NM_153796`
- HUGO Gene name: `BRCA2`
- chromosome name: chr1, chr2 
- chromosome name: chr1

Notes:
- accessions are obviously identifiers
- but these local things are identifiers, too

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## Identifiers and scope

<pre class="mermaid" style="background:white">
timeline
    title Identifier Spectrum
    Global : DOI
           : 10.1038/nature12373
    Internet-wide : UniProt
                  : A0A023GPI8
    Organization : Internal DB
                 : user001234
                 : LAB-2024-0156
    Project : Sample ID
            : exp_sample_42
    Local : Variable
          : my_data
          : protein1, protein2, protein3, ...
</pre>

Increase in scope means an increase in interoperability

Increase in scope requires an increase in authority

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## Authority-based identifiers

### Pros
- Strong guarantees of uniqueness and persistence
- Clear ownership and responsibility
- Provides official recognition, driving reuse and interoperability

</div>

### Cons
- Authority has an ongoing cost
- Who can mint new identifiers? Third-party data doesn't belong
- Multiple authorities causes fragmentation
</div>

</div>

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## What are content derived identifiers?

Advantages: 
- provide strong guarantees of uniqueness and persistence
- reduced maintenance cost
- solve the challenge of minting identifiers

---
## Priority:
1. Content-derived identifier (if you can)
2. CURIE identifier
3. URL
4. Local identifier