  The increasing centrality of persistent identifiers (PIDs) to scholarly
ecosystems and the contribution they can make to the burgeoning 'PID graph' has
the potential to transform scholarship. Despite their importance as originators
of PID data, little is known about researchers' awareness and understanding of
PIDs, or their efficacy in using them. In this article we report on the results
of an online interactive test designed to elicit exploratory data about
researcher awareness and understanding of PIDs. This instrument was designed to
explore recognition of PIDs and the extent to which researchers correctly apply
PIDs within digital scholarly ecosystems, as well as measure researchers'
perceptions of PIDs. Our results reveal irregular patterns of PID understanding
and certainty across all participants, though statistically significant
disciplinary and academic job role differences were observed in some instances.
Uncertainty and confusion were found to exist in relation to dominant schemes
such as ORCID and DOIs, even when contextualized within real-world examples. We
also show researchers' perceptions of PIDs to be generally positive but that
disciplinary differences can be noted, as well as higher levels of aversion to
PIDs in specific use cases and negative perceptions where PIDs are measured on
an 'activity' semantic dimension. This work therefore contributes to our
understanding of academics' 'PID literacy' and should inform those designing
PID-centric scholarly infrastructures, that a significant need for training and
outreach to active researchers remains necessary.
