Organization PID
Persistent identifiers for organizational affiliations (e.g., ROR, ISNI, or other unambiguous organization identifiers)
Justification
Unambiguous organization identification enables institutional disambiguation and aggregation. SHARE does not require ROR specifically — it requires a clear, standard way to identify organizations. ROR is used by default because it is open, free, widely adopted, and works across universities, private institutes, and nonprofits alike. Any identifier system that is persistent, publicly resolvable, uniquely identifies the organization, and is not proprietary or paywalled can be accepted under the same constitutional principle. DataCite supports affiliationIdentifier with ROR. RDA-I2-01M (Important) requires FAIR-compliant vocabularies. Over 100,000 organizations are registered in ROR.
Practical Guide
ROR IDs are usually auto-enriched. Low depositor effort.
ROR IDs enable institutional disambiguation and aggregation, but they're typically auto-enriched by repository platforms rather than manually provided by depositors. Dryad shows 87-97% ROR coverage despite it being optional — platforms add them automatically. SHARE intentionally excluded this from citation analysis because auto-enrichment measures platform behavior, not depositor effort.
Why this signal matters despite the numbers
Intentionally excluded from citation analysis. ROR IDs are auto-enriched by platforms (Dryad: 87-97% coverage), measuring platform behavior rather than depositor effort. Correlation with citations is near-zero.
For Repositories
- Auto-enrich ROR IDs from affiliation strings using the ROR API
- Map to DataCite affiliationIdentifier
- Display institutional affiliations in dataset landing pages
For Depositors
- Enter your institutional affiliation accurately — the platform will likely add the ROR ID
- Check that your affiliation displays correctly after deposit
- If your institution isn't in ROR, submit a request at ror.org
Auto-enriched by most platforms. Repositories should enable it, but depositors rarely need to act.
Standards Sources
Convergence score: 2/4 independent sources —
| Standard | Field / Property | Obligation Level |
|---|---|---|
| DataCite 4.6 | affiliationIdentifier (sub-property) | Optional |
| RDA FAIR | RDA-I2-01M | Important |
FAIR Principle Alignment
Primary mapping: Interoperable (I2)
- I2: (Meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles
RDA FAIR Data Maturity Model Indicators:
- RDA-I2-01M: Metadata uses FAIR-compliant vocabularies
How This Signal Is Measured
Presence of a persistent organization identifier (e.g., ROR) in affiliation metadata. Binary: organizational PID present or absent.
Empirical Evidence (Zenodo, n=1.3M)
Per-signal statistics use Zenodo as the primary validation source because it is the largest general-purpose repository with structured DataCite metadata, natural variance across all 25 signals, and available citation/usage data. Domain-specific repositories exhibit ceiling effects or restricted variance that preclude per-signal discrimination. Cross-repository validation is reported separately.
Data Source
Zenodo (CERN)
1,328,100 records analyzed
Interpretation: Not directly measurable.
Cross-repository note: ROR adoption tracked via Dryad (atleast_one_ror field). Over 100K organizations registered.
Quantitative Evidence
Scoring Formula
affiliation_ror ∈ record → 4 pts
Contribution: 4 of 100 points · Harmonization bucket (0–20)
Empirical validation not yet available for this signal
ROR IDs are auto-enriched by repository platforms (Dryad shows 87–97% coverage despite being optional). Auto-enrichment measures platform behavior, not depositor effort — violating SHARE’s core measurement principle. Correlation with citations ≈ 0.005 (near-zero). Intentionally excluded.
Method: Excluded — auto-enriched · Source: N/A
H — Harmonization Bucket
All signals in this bucket: