Though I have already been assigned my personal element for our class Digital Indexing Project, I've felt compelled to spend some extra time browsing through the other DC elements to get a better understanding of what they all do. Possibly one of the more underestimated elements, especially in the digital environment, is the Identifier tag, which contains unique identifying information for a particular resource. There are a wide variety of possible identifiers, including: ISBN numbers, file names, accession numbers, and URLs, and each can help play a role in helping users to locate the exact specific document or resource that they are searching for.
One of the more useful classes of identifiers that may show up in this metadata field are those known as DOIs, or Digital Object Identifiers. To help explain what a DOI does, consider the much experienced-scenario of a user having finally found the information research they've been searching for, and when they click on the link to reach it...Object Not Found HTTP 404. Don't you hate that? To help avoid such frustration, some information resources possess a DOI, which is a unique character string by which the resource can be searched for and found, wherever in the ether of the web it may have moved to. While not all informational objects possess a DOI, the practice is becoming increasingly common, especially with items such as journal articles.
For another take on the Identifier element, head over to my classmate Kasie's blog, where she provides some brief information as well as some helpful links on the topic.
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