Speaker
Description
Introduction to the Africa PID Alliance and the Digital Object Container Identifier (DOCiD ™️)
The Africa PID Alliance is an Open Infrastructure program of the Training Centre In
Communication that is focused on producing African African-originated persistent Identifiers designed to enhance the representation, sovereignty, and visibility of African research output globally. This program aims to bridge the gap in access to Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) across African institutions, ensuring greater visibility and recognition of African research, including grey literature, indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage, and patents, in global scholarly ecosystems.
Why is this important?
The Lack of digitizing research outputs is a real challenge in Africa. Through the Africa PID Alliance innovative projects, through reliable open research infrastructure services, we will make access to knowledge and metadata about digital objects closer to the wider communities, including indigenous knowledge and patent metadata, starting from Africa. We intend to solve these challenges by producing Persistent, Accessible Affordable Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) in Africa.
The System: Digital Object Container Identifier (DOCiD ™️)
The Digital Object Container Identifier (DOCiD ™️) is a persistent identifier (PID) developed by the Africa PID Alliance. DOCiD started as a vision to create a unified platform for managing Digital Object Identifiers in Africa, focusing on making research output on indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage and Patents more discoverable and reusable.The system is structured to be multilinear in nature, enabling it to accommodate different types of persistent identifiers such as,CSTR, Handles, DOIs, Ark Keys, ROR and RAID. It seamlessly integrates the entire DOI ecosystem by allowing multiple persistent identifiers to be assigned to various outputs linked to the original object.
DOCiD ™️ System Interface is made up of the following
• Resource Types: Crucial information or systems that are focus areas for DOCiD™️.
• Publications: Integration of various categories of African Research Outputs.
• Documents: This includes the integration of and is not limited to datasets, audio, video and images .
• Creators: Integration of tools that help in identifying and Tracking researchers and their academic output
• Organizations: Integration of systems that assign PIDs to organizations involved in research
• Funders: Integration of research funding organizations
• Projects: Integrations of systems that assign ID to research projects
What stage are we in?
DOCiD™️ 1.0 is live and we are working with use cases in the following personas : 1)Researcher,2) Librarian,3)Museum Collections Manager/Curator from the following respective institutes, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Thomas Sankara University, Burkina Faso, North West Maphikeng University South Africa, National Museum of Tanzania and Kigulu Cultural Centre, Uganda.
Conclusion
Africa PID Alliance is transforming how African knowledge is owned and represented globally by enhancing research visibility, promoting data sovereignty, and securing Africa’s intellectual assets.
Call to Action: Stakeholders are invited to join the initiative and prioritize African data sovereignty. https://africapidalliance.org/sign-apa/
For more information visit
docid.africapidalliance.org, africapidalliance.org
