US RAiD Pilot

FAQ

Why RAiD?

RAiD is a Persistent Identifier (PID) specifically for identifying and registering information about research projects to allow multiple stakeholders to share project information and contribute RAiD metadata. While ORCID is the open PID for researchers and ties a researcher’s affiliations, activities, and works information together all in one place, RAiD is the open PID for tying together all of the information about a research project and tracking the project over time. RAiD metadata is meant to include ORCID iDs for individual researchers who are involved, ROR IDs for organizational stakeholders, DOIs or other relevant object identifiers for outputs, and any relevant Grant IDs associated with the project. While many funders are starting to assign DOIs to grants/awards, not every grant has a 1:1 relationship with a project. Many projects are long-term, receiving multiple grants and involving multiple researchers and organizations as time goes on. RAiD provides a way to reliably consolidate and share that information. 

RAiD is specifically designed to support the dynamic nature of research projects: researchers and partner organisations may join or leave the project, project names may change, outputs are created over time, etc. RAiD tracks these changes and allows for a snapshot of the state of a project at a particular point in time. It is more than just a persistent identifier, it is also a global registry of research projects, with capabilities taylored to such projects, including:

  • Project-specific metadata — Uses a metadata schema specifically designed for research projects
  • Dynamic, automatically versioned metadata record — RAiDs are dynamic and designed to evolve as a project changes and matures. Version control is automated, for example, so that all changes to a RAiD are available at any time
  • Multi-user editing environment with access control — Collaborative editing of RAiD metadata, with appropriate access controls, allowing researchers or research support staff to create and edit RAiDs
  • Automatically generated landing pages — Automatic generation of standardised landing pages, obviating the need for organisations to build and host landing pages
  • Extensible metadata — Allows customisation and extension of that metadata schema for various domains or constituencies by RAiD Registration Agencies, while maintaining a stable core of metadata and coordinating any local adaptations
  • Support and development within a global RAiD community — Has a growing global user community developing good practice around project identification and description.

What does participation in the US pilot involve?

Once the US RAiD infrastructure is available, interested pilot organizations would experiment with the RAiD API and/or submit project metadata through a web form to test out the RAID creation workflow and the process for making updates to existing RAID metadata, give feedback on any improvements that might be needed from a user perspective, and get a sense of the usefulness of RAiD for each organization. Organizations with the interest and resources to integrate the RAiD API with local systems or workflows would be welcome, but also one-off testing with the API and/or web form would be just as helpful. Pilot organizations’ use cases would be documented and shared, and participants may be asked to present on their experience with RAiD at webinars or community calls. At this time, there are no costs to pilot participants and no requirements for how much or how little a pilot organization would be involved, as there is room for flexibility depending on the level of interest and resources available. If your organization has a potential use case for RAiD, please submit your use case(s) via our US RAiD Pilot Use Case Submission Form.

What is the RAiD metadata schema?

The RAiD metadata schema can be found at metadata.raid.org. RAiD uses an extensive metadata schema specifically for projects in order to accurately and effectively meet the needs for tracking research projects over time. RAiD metadata is dynamic, meaning that there is flexibility in which properties can be included in RAiD metadata records. Additionally, as changes are made to RAiD metadata, new information is appended, rather than over-written. Versioning takes place in the background, so changes are visible over the course of a project.

Is RAiD being used in other countries?

So far, RAiD is being used in Australia, and RAiD pilot initiatives are underway in Europe, led by SURF in The Netherlands. For example, the following article explores the use of RAiD in Research.fi, Finland’s national service for collecting, integrating and disseminating information on research conducted in Finland:

Tommi Suominen, Clifford Tatum, Sonja Sipponen, Walter Rydman, Shawn Ross, “Piloting the use of RAiD in Research.fi”, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 249, 2024, Pages 224-231, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2024.11.068