To resolve a Compact ARK (ie, an ARK beginning "ark:") it must initially be promoted to a Mapping ARK so that it becomes actionable. On the web, this means finding a suitable web Resolver Service to prepend to the compact form of the identifier in order to convert it to a URL (cf [CURIE]). (This is more or less true for any type of identifier not already in URL form.)

id string: the sequence of characters that is the identifier string itself, possibly modified by adding a well-known prefix (often starting with http://) in order to turn it into a URL. identifier: an association between an id string and a thing; e.g., an identifier “breaks” when the association breaks, but to act on an identifier requires its id string. actionable identifier: an identifier whose id string may be acted upon by widely available software systems such as web browsers; e.g., URLs are actionable identifiers.

These findings provide strong indicators that scholarly contentproviders reply to DOI requests differently, depending on the request method,the originating network environment, and institutional subscription levels