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.
In general, names can be too common and not unique enough to
be search criteria. Modern life advances this point. In former times only a few
scientists, normally professors in universities and academic health sciences
centers, published scientific results of their work under their names. Most
scientists were men. Their names were consistent and did not change by marriage.
Today, Ph.D. students, other researchers and women publish scientific work.
Women may be using a married name, which may be a compound name for authorship.
Thus a person may not only have one name but several names and publish under
each name. In Germany, there can be nameconfusion for titles of nobility from
former times or for composed names. Claus-Wilhelm von der Lieth (with
'Claus-Wilhelm' as forename and 'von der Lieth' as surname) is cited in several
mutations, such as 'Vonderlieth CW', 'Lieth von der CW' or only 'Lieth CW'.
Especially with a view to the future, such a Unique Scientist
ID could help to address people in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. One such network
based article reference P2P network is Bibster . Bibster is a Java-based system
which assists researchers in managing, searching and sharing bibliographic
metadata in a peer-to-peer network.
How can one easily find articles written by a particular
person? A Unique Scientist ID could help to address persons. A Unique Scientist
ID should contain all the versions of a scientist's name. As a starting point,
perhaps PubMed could generate and manage such a scientist ID. Adding the
Scientist ID should become as routine as adding an email address to the
article's citation
A Unique Scientist ID would improve knowledge
management in science. At the moment authors of publications are only addressed
in most online databases by name, initials and address. Unfortunately in some of
the publications, and then within the online databases, only one letter
abbreviates the author's forename. A search for a special author is successful
if the name is quite unique or a combination of authors is used for the search.
In such a case, a common name with only one initial could retrieve pertinent
citations, but include many false drops (retrieval matching searched
criteria but indisputably irrelevant).
