9. When to create a new PID?

Instruments can be changed or modified over time. For example, when a component is changed or an instrument is upgraded to meet new requirements in measurement capability. Defining the exact moment when a new PID should be created is challenging because different stakeholders will have different reasons for each evolution. Indeed the PIDINST WG has not been able to settle on a definitive answer. Thus to accommodate varying stakeholder needs, it is recommended that a PID will evolve when there is a significant change in context that is important to an institutional instrument provider. Significant changes might include when an instrument is cited in the literature and changes, there is a need to preserve the instrument history, major changes in measurement capability that affect automated workflows such as quality control, or modifications to an instrument’s firmware etc. Whatever the reason an institution chooses to create new PIDs, it is recommended that instrument providers identify the succession in the PIDINST metadata schema using the relatedIdentifier property with a relationType attribute IsNewVersionOf for the new PID and, IsPreviousVersionOf for the superceded PID as shown in Snippet 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4.

Snippet 9.1 The use of the relatedIdentifier property to represent superseding PID records in XML

  <relatedIdentifiers>
     <relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="DOI" relationType="IsNewVersionOf">10.4232/10.CPoS-2013-02en</relatedIdentifier>
  </relatedIdentifiers>

Snippet 9.2 The use of the relatedIdentifier property to represent superseded PID records in XML

  <relatedIdentifiers>
     <relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="DOI" relationType="IsPreviousVersionOf">http://hdl.handle.net/21.T11998/0000-001A-3905-F</relatedIdentifier>
  </relatedIdentifiers>

Snippet 9.3 The use of the relatedIdentifier property to represent superseding PID records in JSON

  [{
    "RelatedIdentifier":{
      "RelatedIdentifierValue":"10.4232/10.CPoS-2013-02en",
      "RelatedIdentifierType": "DOI",
      "relationType":"IsNewVersionOf"
    }
  }]

Snippet 9.4 The use of the relatedIdentifier property to represent superseded PID records in JSON

  [{
    "RelatedIdentifier":{
      "RelatedIdentifierValue":"http://hdl.handle.net/21.T11998/0000-001A-3905-F",
      "RelatedIdentifierType": "DOI",
      "relationType":"IsPreviousVersionOf"
    }
  }]