PrefixCommons is an international effort to provide information about identifier schemes used in the life-sciences. It enables users to search, browse, and query a repository of identifier schemes compiled from more than 15 registries. PrefixCommons uses software integration and manual curation to transform this data into a data model.
Several excellent platforms exist for registration and resolution of prefixes. The mission of PrefixCommons is thus not to dictate to any community what a prefix should or should not be; that is the responsibility of the primary registries relevant in those contexts. Instead, it aims to aggregate and present circulating prefixes and identifier schemes (e.g. HTTP URIs) are that are already in use. It exposes collisions (many authorities to one prefix) and scatter (many prefixes for one authority).
A demonstrator of the integrated prefix metadata can be found at http://prefixcommons.org. A prefix ping service is planned for fall 2017 that will fetch data in realtime about whether a prefix has previously been registered, in what registry, and where to find more details about the record. Prefix registries can use this service to explore whether a prefix has previously been used before assigning new ones.
PrefixCommons is a collaboration between the Monarch Initiative and the Institute of Data Science @ Maastricht University, and has received funding from NIH grants U24AI117966-03S1, 1OT3TR002027-01, and 1OT3HL142479-01