Digital Author Identifier (DAI)
The Digital Author Identifier (DAI) is a unique national number assigned to every author who has been appointed to a position at a Dutch university or research institute or has some other relevant connection with one of these organisations. The DAI brings together various different ways of writing the author’s name and distinguishes between authors with the same name.
Other Author Identifiers
The DAI forms part of the national knowledge infrastructure. In the scientific world, other identifiers are also in use, for example ResearcherId or ScopusId. The DAI is, however, the only independent (i.e. non-commercial) number for Dutch researchers. The DAI is ready for the international ISNI standard.
The DAI in links
In collaboration with OCLC PICA, SURFshare has set up a link with the PICA National Thesaurus of Authors’ Names (NTA); the latter is added to and managed by the university libraries. One very important factor in this system is the link between the Metis research information system and the repositories.
Applications
The DAI can be used in a wide variety of ways. For example, it can be used to assemble an author’s portfolio, even if the author in question has worked for several different institutions. An author’s entire output can be viewed at a glance (regardless, for example, of whether work has been published under a female researcher’s married or maiden name). One example of application of the DAI is its use by NARCIS. A tool allows publication lists to be generated on the basis of the DAI. The publications are taken from the various repositories of Dutch scientific/scholarly institutions. Using the DAI makes it possible to present the information from the various repositories in an integrated manner.
Not names but “shirt numbers”
In July 2008, the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad published an article entitled “Not names, shirt numbers!”. This was in response to a publication in The Lancet the previous month about the Thompson ResearcherID and its authors (two Dutch researchers) argued in favour of an independent author ID. The authors did not know at the time that such an ID already existed, namely the Digital Author Identifier, or DAI. Read the update, 25 August 2008.
See also “Are You Ready to Become a Number? Life could be a lot easier if every scientist had a unique identification number. The question is: Who should provide them?“ by Martin Enserink in Science, 27 March 2009, vol. 323, p.1662 – 1664 (not available with Open Access).
More information and contact
More information about the DAI.
Or contact Maurice Vanderfeesten on +31 (0)30 234 6600.