New service for publishing physical samples 

We’re excit­ed to intro­duce our new ser­vice to reg­is­ter phys­i­cal sam­ples, designed to help researchers man­age and share these sam­ples more effec­tive­ly. This new fea­ture enables researchers to reg­is­ter and pub­lish phys­i­cal sam­ples with a glob­al­ly rec­og­nized per­sis­tent iden­ti­fi­er — an IGSN.

Phys­i­cal sam­ples are fun­da­men­tal research objects in many fields, includ­ing earth sci­ences, envi­ron­men­tal sci­ences, mate­ri­als sci­ence, and engi­neer­ing. Whether it’s a rock spec­i­men, water sam­ple, plant mate­r­i­al, fos­sil, ani­mal spec­i­men, or syn­thet­ic mate­r­i­al, these sam­ples often form the basis of sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies. How­ev­er, track­ing and link­ing them across datasets, pub­li­ca­tions, and projects can be chal­leng­ing.

By reg­is­ter­ing an IGSN (Inter­na­tion­al Gener­ic Sam­ple Num­ber) for your sam­ples, you make them eas­i­er to dis­cov­er, cite, and con­nect to relat­ed research out­puts.

What is an IGSN?

An Inter­na­tion­al Gener­ic Sam­ple Num­ber (IGSN) is a per­sis­tent, glob­al­ly unique iden­ti­fi­er for phys­i­cal sam­ples. Sim­i­lar to a DOI (Dig­i­tal Object Iden­ti­fi­er) for pub­li­ca­tions and datasets, an IGSN pro­vides a per­ma­nent ref­er­ence for a sam­ple through­out its life­cy­cle.

An IGSN helps researchers:

• Unique­ly iden­ti­fy phys­i­cal sam­ples
• Improve sam­ple dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty
• Link sam­ples to datasets, pub­li­ca­tions, and oth­er research out­puts
• Sup­port repro­ducibil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in research
• Enable prop­er cita­tion and attri­bu­tion

Getting Started

The phys­i­cal sam­ple reg­is­tra­tion ser­vice is avail­able today to researchers affil­i­at­ed with the 4TU mem­ber insti­tu­tions (TU Delft, Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente, Eind­hoven Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Wagenin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty & Research).

To reg­is­ter your first sam­ple:

1. Log in to 4TU.ResearchData at https://data.4tu.nl 
2. Select Reg­is­ter Phys­i­cal Sam­ple from your Dash­board page
3. Com­plete the sam­ple meta­da­ta form
4. Once all required fields have been com­plet­ed, select Sub­mit for Review

The reg­is­tered sam­ples will under­go the same review and cura­tion process that we pro­vide for datasets and soft­wares, ensur­ing the FAIR­ness of your sam­ples.

After pub­li­ca­tion, your sam­ple will receive its own IGSN iden­ti­fi­er and a ded­i­cat­ed land­ing page, mak­ing it eas­i­ly dis­cov­er­able and citable by oth­er researchers.

Land­ing page for phys­i­cal sam­ple in 4TU.ResearchData test envi­ron­ment

Learn More

Vis­it our web­site for detailed guid­ance and addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion:

👉 https://data.4tu.nl/info/about-your-data/igsn 

We invite you to explore this new func­tion­al­i­ty and look for­ward to hear­ing your feed­back. Please con­tact us at researchdata@4tu.nl for any ques­tions you may have about the new ser­vice.

Start reg­is­ter­ing your sam­ples today and give your phys­i­cal research objects the vis­i­bil­i­ty and recog­ni­tion they deserve.