Scholar Identification Systems: ORCID

ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. It is an open, non-profit registry of researchers sponsored by universities, government agencies and publishers that can be used to link research activities and publications. Users from all disciplines and countries can register for an ORCID.

Researchers and scholars who register can provide information summarizing their career: education, employment, funding, publications, and presentations. They can also provide their ORCID ID when submitting papers and grant requests, and share it to direct people to their scholarly record.

Some funding agencies are considering asking for ORCIDs as part of grant applications. NSF is requesting ORCIDs for Graduate Fellowship applications. In addition, some professional organizations are asking members to provide ORCIDs when renewing memberships. Publishers are also asking for scholar's IDs when authors submit an article. Information in ORCID records can also be used to collect information needed by accrediting bodies.

Since ORCID is a an ID system developed and organized by an open, non-profit organization, there are several advantages. They include:

• Scholars can collect and share information about their work, control their profiles and the information they share.
• Persistent - can be used to track work over time, even if the author changes their name.
• Saves time when publication information is needed (provide ORCID to funding organizations and publishers).
• It can be used to direct others to a summary of your scholarly record (an ORCID can be provided as part of the author information or your electronic signature).
• It is not proprietary or commercial.
• Data can be imported from citation management systems (accepts BibTeX files; can connect to EndNote).

There could be some disadvantages of ORCID IDs:

• Could be used as a means of oversight.
• Open and free system (for now), but could that change?
• Because it is open and free, the long term viability is not known.