by: John Erickson. January 19, 2010. DataCite and linked data — or, more to the point, the DOI and linked data — are in essence made for each other. A longer answer is that the DOI infrastructure provides conveniences, such as multiple resolution, and also certain advantages, such as security, as they pertain to referencing and accessing scientific and other datasets. The bottom line is that while the DOI infrastructure does depend upon the non-HTTP protocols of the Handle System “under the hood,” from the consumer’s perspective DOI-based name resolution can (and usually does) operate completely within the “web space.” For linking to articles or datasets, the more familiar URI form of DOIs which combines a given DOI with the URL of a Handle System proxy (e.g. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MIC.2009.93) may be used instead of the “native” DOI form.
voiD (from "Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets") is an RDF based schema to describe linked datasets. With voiD the discovery and usage of linked datasets can be performed both effectively and efficiently. A dataset is a collection of data, published and maintained by a single provider, available as RDF, and accessible, for example, through dereferenceable HTTP URIs or a SPARQL endpoint.