Identifierans

Identifierans is a field of information management that studies the systematic creation, assignment, and management of identifiers used to refer to objects, resources, or entities across multiple systems. An identifier in this context is a stable token that can be used to locate, disambiguate, or reference a resource without revealing incidental data about the resource itself. The practice covers both digital and physical objects, including documents, datasets, goods in a supply chain, and personal records.

Origin and etymology: The term identifierans is a modern coinage used in discussions of data governance and identity management. It combines the root “identifier” with the suffix “-ans” to denote a field of practice, rather than a single standard or technology. It is not tied to a specific organization and has no single canonical definition; its exact scope varies by community and domain.

Core concepts and types: Key principles include uniqueness, persistence, resolvability, and interoperability across systems. Identifierans distinguishes between identifiers that are meant to be persistent over time and those that are transient. It also emphasizes privacy by encouraging privacy-preserving identifiers and appropriate lifecycle management. Common identifier types include UUIDs, DOIs, ARKs, handles, URNs, and federated identity tokens. Techniques used include cryptographic hashing, namespace management, versioning, and the use of registries and resolvers.

Standards, governance, and use cases: Governance typically involves policies for issuance, update, deprecation, and metadata provision, often aligned with standards bodies such as ISO, NISO, and W3C. Registries, resolvers, and metadata schemas enable discovery and interoperability. Typical use cases span digital libraries and scholarly communication, research data management, product provenance and supply chains, patient identifiers in healthcare, and user account management in complex IT environments. Limitations include privacy considerations, potential fragmentation across communities, and the need for ongoing governance to prevent identifier proliferation and drift.

See also: Identifier, UUID, DOI, ORCID, ARK, GUID, persistent identifier. Note: As a term, identifierans is descriptive rather than prescriptive and may be defined differently in different sectors.