This is a draft; recommendations have not been finalized.
How to cite specimens
For Users
- To make it easier to cite specimens individually, which is critical for tracking usage, reproducible scientific methods, and provenance, Arctos has several recommendations and strongly urge users to use the information in the “cite_this_as” field in the Arctos download.
- If citing individual specimens is not possible or practical, contact the Curator(s) of the collection(s) with which you are working for guidance.
For Curators
At the moment, there are no clear universal guidelines for citing specimens, and there are potential complications for all specimen identifiers. When providing guidance for citing multiple specimens, the following should be considered in addition to the nature of the material (or data) being used, the nature of the work being done, and anything else which might effect how data and specimens (or samples) are ultimately accessed, both digitally and physically. The Arctos Working Group is available discuss specific use cases and problem-solve with you.
Considerations
When choosing an identifier, the following should be considered:
- Uniqueness: A “good” identifier cannot be ambiguous; there must be only one “thing” to which is refers.
- Persistence: A good identifier is easy to keep forever, and has no mechanism for becoming non-unique.
- Machine Resolvability: A good identifier will be easy for machines to recognize. If users cite machine-resolvable identifiers then Arctos can find them, even if there are no other clues that the data were used and the user fails to report the publication.
- Human Resolvability: A good identifier will be easy for humans to recognize, and use to locate specimens; it should probably be printed on specimen labels.
Possible Solutions
These are presented roughly in order of preference.
Full specimen GUID (http://arctos.database.museum/guid/UAM:Ento:145576)
- Uniqueness is guaranteed.
- Persistence is excellent
- Machine Resolvability is inherent, but reliant upon Arctos and the HTTP protocol. (It’ll probably work for a few more decades.)
- Human Resolvability is excellent; the GUID contains the primary specimen identifier (catalog number)
DOI (for specimen GUID - https://doi.org/10.7299/X75Q4W7G)
- Uniqueness is guaranteed.
- Persistence is excellent; the identifier can survive the deprecation of Arctos and the HTTP protocol.
- Machine Resolvability is inherent and has no dependencies.
- Human Resolvability is poor; most specimen labels do not include DOIs.
Locked Archives (http://arctos.database.museum/archive/ak-liogluta)
- Uniqueness is guaranteed.
- Persistence is very good, although data in Arctos is required to resolve to specimens.
- Machine Resolvability is inherent, but reliant upon Arctos and the HTTP protocol.
- Human Resolvability is poor; specimen labels do not include Archive Name.
DOI (for locked archives - https://doi.org/10.7299/X7JH3M91)
- Uniqueness is guaranteed.
- Persistence is excellent, although Arctos is required to resolve to specimens.
- Machine Resolvability is inherent, but reliant upon Arctos.
- Human Resolvability is poor; specimen labels do not include DOI.
Unlocked Archives (http://arctos.database.museum/archive/catnum12)
- Uniqueness is guaranteed.
- Persistence is intermediate. Arctos is required to resolve to specimens, there is nothing to prevent the Archive from being modified or specimens being encumbered or deleted.
- Machine Resolvability is inherent, but reliant upon Arctos and the HTTP protocol.
- Human Resolvability is poor; specimen labels do not include Archive Name.
“DWC Triplet” (UAM:Mamm:12)
- Uniqueness is extremely unlikely; there are at least 4 “UAM:Mamm” collections.
- Persistence is lacking
- Machine Resolvability is extremely unlikely.
- Human Resolvability is poor; someone familiar with the specimens and publication might figure it out.
Saved Searches (http://arctos.database.museum/saved/catnum12)
- Uniqueness is inherent.
- Persistence is nonexistent; results change as data are added or altered
- Machine Resolvability is dependent upon persistence, of which there is none. That is, these are machine-discoverable but the current specimens may have little to do with the used specimens.
- Human Resolvability is nonexistent.
Projects (Beringian Coevolution Project (BCP); https://arctos.database.museum/project/51)
- Uniqueness is inherent.
- Persistence is nonexistent; results change as data are added or altered
- Machine Resolvability is dependent upon persistence, of which there is none. That is, these are machine-discoverable but the current specimens list may change.
- Human Resolvability is poor; some resolution is possible, but results must be uncertain.
Random “local” identifiers (“12”)
These include AF, NK, ALAAC, collector numbers, bare catalog numbers, or catalog number with nonstandard prefix (“Alaska 12”)
- Uniqueness is extremely unlikely
- Persistence is poor
- Machine Resolvability is nonexistent.
- Human Resolvability is very poor; someone familiar with the specimens can possibly figure it out, sometimes, with low certainty.
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