Debate

Do we need a Unique Scientist ID for publications in biomedicine?

Andreas Bohne-Lang¹ and Elke Lang²

¹  German Cancer Research Center Heidelberg, Central Spectroscopy – Molecular Modeling, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

²  University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Information and Knowledge Management, Campus Dieburg, Max-Planck-Strasse 2, 64807 Dieburg, Germany

Biomedical Digital Libraries 2005, 2:1doi:10.1186/1742-5581-2-1

Published:	22 March 2005

Abstract

Background

The PubMed database contains nearly 15 million references from more than 4,800 biomedical journals. In general, authors of scientific articles are addressed by their last name and forename initial.

Discussion

In general, names can be too common and not unique enough to be search criteria. Today, Ph.D. students, other researchers and women publish scientific work. A person may not only have one name but several names and publish under each name. A Unique Scientist ID could help to address people in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. As a starting point, perhaps PubMed could generate and manage such a scientist ID.

Summary

A Unique Scientist ID would improve knowledge management in science. Unfortunately in some of the publications, and then within the online databases, only one letter abbreviates the author's forename. A common name with only one initial could retrieve pertinent citations, but include many false drops (retrieval matching searched criteria but indisputably irrelevant).