Innovative uses of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) at UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration to aid curation and interpretation of a complex data integration and a dynamic population sample

UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (LLC) is the national Trusted Research Environment (TRE) for the UK’s longitudinal research community. LLC integrates data from many UK Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS) and systematically links participants’ health, environmental and socio-economic records into a centralised TRE.

The breadth and volume of data, the many different data owners, and the complexity and dynamic nature of the LLC pooled sample requires innovative and flexible data curation approaches to ensure LLC supports FAIR data principles.

LLC’s model encompasses a wide range of components, each of which will be assigned a DOI that will resolve to LLC Guidebook (https://guidebook.ukllc.ac.uk) or LLC’s Data Use Register. With respect to the data in the TRE, DOIs will be assigned according to the following hierarchy: (1) individual data files; (2) logical groupings of data files, e.g. those collected at the same timepoint; and (3) data owner, e.g. an LPS.

In addition, a DOI will be assigned to each ‘data freeze’. Currently, the LLC sample includes 323,775 participants from 20 LPS, but the sample will change over time as new participants or new LPS join and others withdraw. Following quarterly updates from LPS, LLC establishes a ‘data freeze’, which comprises information summarising the broad characteristics of the LLC sample at that point in time.

Lastly, a DOI will be assigned to each approved project, reflecting the unique/seldomly shared combination of provisioned data and the related data freeze (the project DOI will encompass all ‘child’ DOIs). This will promote reproducibility, aid inference and permit straightforward citation.

A complex data scenario at LLC is driving innovative uses of DOIs, with an expansion to include additional components likely. A priority is to ensure clarity to users, in particular how the LLC approach aligns with the way DOIs and data are structured in other resources.