IGSN Technical Documentation of the IGSN

Syntax Guidelines

The following is a summary of the syntax guidelines for the IGSN ID:

  • The IGSN ID must be unique and is case insensitive.
  • In consideration of human readability the IGSN should be as concise as possible. IGSN IDs will be displayed on-line and in print and will be re-typed by human users.
  • Organisations assigning IGSN IDs may choose to adopt a consistent, logical system that can be easily documented and readily understood by employees of your organization. This helps to ensure the uniqueness of assigned IGSN IDs and makes it easier for the task of assigning IGSNs to be passed from one employee to the next. You might therefore consider including existing internal identifiers already in use within your organization.
  • Suffix nodes may be used to reflect hierarchical information or levels of granularity. However, in trying to keep IGSN IDs as short as possible, careful consideration should be taken before adopting a naming scheme that makes use of extending already existing IGSN IDs.
  • In general, an IGSN ID should not be considered “derivable”. For example, sample repository structures may change over time. Repository information encoded in the IGSN ID may become obsolete and possibly meaningless.

Please refer to the DataCite Guidelines for IGSN IDs for further detail on the technical implementation.

Recommended Practice

Unlike many other persistent identifiers, an IGSN ID is used not only used by machines but also needs to be handled by humans. The labelling of sample containers prescribes a limit to the number of characters that fit on a label. Also, IGSN IDs in lists and tables will often need editing by humans. Long character strings increase the risk of mistypings. To reduce the risk of mistypings, the IGSN ID is case insensitive and we recommend to avoid characters that can easily be confused, such as ‘1’ and ‘I’, or ‘0’ and ‘O’.

Since IGSN IDs are intended to be combined into a URI, in order to retain maximum compatibility with URI production rules it is suggested to limit the characters that can be used in the Code to the so-called ‘unreserved’ + ‘reserved’ set, but not allow any other or percent-encoded characters which may exist on the keyboard or other character sets (e.g. no accented characters or non-latin alphabets, no space, CR, LF characters).

Characters a-z and A-Z in the IGSN ID string are case insensitive (e.g. ABC is identical to AbC). It is recommended to use upper case characters in all cases. If an IGSN ID were registered as ABC, then abc would resolve it and a later attempt to register AbC would be rejected with an error message stating that the IGSN ID already exists.

Displaying IGSN IDs

The canonical form of an IGSN ID is a complete https://doi.org/ URL using the form: https://doi.org/10.21384/AU1234

IGSN IDs are sometimes displayed in locations where a complete https://doi.org/ URL is not appropriate. In these cases, IGSN IDs should be displayed with only the DOI prefix and suffix or, if necessary, only the suffix.

Preferred: The DOI prefix and suffix (e.g., igsn:10.21384/AU1234)
Alternate: Only the suffix (e.g., igsn:AU1234)

Note that the short display form should be typically preceded by an “igsn:” tag to specify that it is an IGSN ID. However, in cases where IGSN IDs are already clearly denoted, such as in the column header of a data table, the preceding “igsn:” tag may be excluded from the short display form.

Where possible, all representations of IGSN IDs should be hyperlinked with the IGSN ID’s complete DOI link.

QR codes for IGSN IDs should contain the complete DOI URL. For example, https://doi.org/10.21384/AU1234

If a QR code is applied to a sample or its container, the label should also display the IGSN ID short display form in a human-readable way.

See also https://support.datacite.org/docs/displaying-igsn-ids

Resolving IGSN

Although some IGSN IDs may be generated according to an algorithm, it is preferable to look them up through a resolver system (see examples below), as there is no guarantee that a generated IGSN ID has been registered with DataCite or that it will resolve.

Standard IGSN Resolver

The standard way to resolve IGSN IDs is through https://doi.org/

Example (IGSN):        BGRB5054RX05201
Resulting IGSN URI:    <https://doi.org/10.60510/BGRB5054RX05201>

Legacy IGSN IDs

Legacy IGSN IDs registered before 31 December 2022 following the legacy / pattern will continue to resolve.

Example (IGSN):        	BGRB5054RX05201
Resulting IGSN URI:    <https://igsn.org/10273/BGRB5054RX05201>

IGSN Examples

Example from SESAR

A sample from the Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory, registered through SESAR on behalf of the Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University

Example (IGSN ID):      SSH000SUA

Applying the above rule, the resulting resulting URI is https://doi.org/10.58052/SSH000SUA

Example from Geoscience Australia

A sample from the collection of Geoscience Australia.

Example (IGSN ID):        AU1101

Resulting IGSN URI:  <https://doi.org/10.60516/AU1101>

Example from MARUM

Example from the International Scientific Continental Drilling Program (ICDP), registered by MARUM on behalf of ICDP:

Example (IGSN ID):        MBCR5034RC57001

Resulting IGSN URI:  <https://doi.org/10.58095/MBCR5034RC57001>

Example from the core repository of the German Federal Geological Survey (BGR), registered by MARUM on behalf of BGR:

Example (IGSN ID):        BGRB5054RX05201

Resulting IGSN URI:  <https://doi.org/10.60510/BGRB5054RX05201>

The sample BGRB5054RX05201 was derived from ICDP5054ESYI201.

Examples from GFZ Potsdam

Example from the International Scientific Continental Drilling Program (ICDP), registered by GFZ Potsdam on behalf of ICDP:

Example (IGSN ID):        ICDP5054ESYI201

Resulting IGSN URI:  <https://doi.org/10.60510/ICDP5054ESYI201>

Example of assigning an IGSN to a drill hole (sampling feature):

Example (IGSN ID):        ICDP5054EEW1001

Resulting IGSN URI:  <https://doi.org/10.60510/ICDP5054EEW1001>

Example from CSIRO

Example from the collection of CSIRO at the Australian Resources Research Centre in Kensington, Western Australia:

Example (IGSN ID):        CSRWA275

Resulting IGSN URI:  <https://doi.org/10.58108/CSRWA275>

The above example is part of a sub-collection with its own IGSN:

Example (IGSN ID):        CSRWASC00001

Resulting IGSN URI: https://doi.org/10.58108/CSRWASC00001

Using IGSNs in Manuscripts

IGSN IDs are sometimes displayed in locations where a complete https://doi.org/ URL is not appropriate. In these cases, IGSN IDs should be displayed with only the DOI prefix and suffix or, if necessary, only the suffix.

Preferred: The DOI prefix and suffix (e.g., igsn:10.21384/AU1234)
Alternate: Only the suffix (e.g., igsn:AU1234)

Note that the short display form should be typically preceded by an “igsn:” tag to specify that it is an IGSN ID. However, in cases where IGSN IDs are already clearly denoted, such as in the column header of a data table, the preceding “igsn:” tag may be excluded from the short display form.

Since May 2017 IGSN IDs can be included in the asset tabs of all Copernicus earth science journals. The use of IGSN IDs is also endorsed by the Coalition for Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences.