What are persistent identificators?

Persistent identifcatiors are names that are given to publications of any kind (research results, data, software). These names are linked to the place of their publication within a table. If this place changes, only the reference within the table has to be changed while the identificator stays the same. This usually happens automatically, unbeknownst to authors and users.
Through this, literature research, quoting and links of publications and accompanying data are possisible in the long term. Examples for these identificators are the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), the Uniform Resource Name (URN), ePIC or Handle.

Further information on this can be found in chapter 13.2 of the nestor guidebook “Eine kleine Enzykopädie der digitalen Langzeitarchivierung”.