Feature Request: Authority Control on Names #7937
Description
Feature Request: Authority Control on Names
Apologies if this has been discussed and is open/closed.
As DV grows in usage (datasets, users, instances), we are encountering more and more issues with authority control around author names and institution names. I appreciate the complexity of solving this problem, but it would be great to see it discussed some. I'm going to use the example of author names, but the issue is present with organizations, too.
Problem: inconsistent use of names affect search, facets, and interoperability
A Fix: authority control, either inside DV or against a PID (e.g., ORCID)
Example of Problem: (See screenshot below for visual examples)
Researchers will either upload data or have it curated. Sometimes, the usage of names will slip. Our repository has several examples:
- Middle initials may be included or excluded (See: Connon in facets
- Diacritics/accents may be included or excluded (See: Devoie in facets)
- Periods may have inadvertently been forgotten (See: Baltzer in facets)
The easy fix is to change the metadata and improve our practices going forward. While practices have been improved over the years, we don't want to change the metadata and effectively version-jump a dataset, even by a decimal, over an initial. (See examples above)
I propose that other pathways be considered:
1. "very Minor" ("micro?") changes to metadata that will not affect a version change? If people were on board, sure. but it doesn't solve the authority control issue.
2. Authority control in the system. Can there be a way for DV to work to identify existing values in the name fields in its DB (within the local instance) to help people see if a matching/similar name exists? Even better: Linking in the background of name variants, which will solve this problem as well as others (e.g, name changes).
3. Authority control according to a PID. There are so many PIDs out there, but making this happen would be a dream come true.
Going forward, I know we could make a policy at our local institution that says a researcher is required to have an ORCID (for example) and that the name in this PID is the name we'll put into the record. But that doesn't help DV's that have an open deposit policy. Ideally, this solution here should have a technical component as well as a policy component.
Thank you! xoxo.
