Scholar Identification Systems: Comparing the Systems

Who is the Provider? Is it commercial or non-profit?

• ORCID - Non Profit; developed by a group of scholarly institutions and organizations; supported by publishers, scholarly organizations and educational institutions; recognized by grant agencies (NSF, NIH).
• ResearcherID - Commercial; developed by Thomson Reuters, the owner of Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
• Scopus Author Identifier & Profile - Commercial; developed by Elsevier as part of their Scopus database.
• Google Scholar Citations - Commercial; provided by Google as part of Google Scholar.

What are the subject interests of participants?

• ORCID - All subjects.
• ResearcherID - All subjects; information on publications that are not indexed Web of Science can be added by authors.
• Scopus Author Identifier & Profile - All subjects; information on publications not indexed by Scopus cannot be added.
• Google Scholar Citations - All subjects; information on publications not included in Google scholar can be added manually by authors.

Can scholars manage their information in the profile?

• ORCID - Managed by individual scholar. Scholars can edit their entries and add biographical information (current & former institutional affiliations; education; degrees).
• ResearcherID - Managed by individual scholar. Scholars can edit their entries and add biographical information (current institution and keywords describing research interests).
• Scopus Author Identifier & Profile - Managed by Scopus. Scholars cannot edit the information provided; scholars can request corrections, but cannot add information to their profiles.
• Google Scholar Citations - Managed by individual scholars. Scholars can edit their entries and add biographical information (current institution).

What publications are included in a profile? Can the system can be updated?

• ORCID - Contains publication history provided by scholar; information can be uploaded in BibTeX format.
• ResearcherID - Contains publication history provided by scholar. Scholars can add publication information from Science Citation Index, Medline or Biological Abstracts searches, their EndNote library or upload information from other indexes in RIS format.
• Scopus Author Identifier & Profile - Contains publication information available in the Scopus database; scholars cannot update their information.
• Google Scholar Citations - Contains information on publications by the author found in Google Scholar; scholars must add information on other publications manually.

What type of metrics provided by each system (if any)?

• ORCID - Does not provide metrics.
• ResearcherID - Provides metrics on articles that are indexed in Web of Science.
• Scopus Author Identifier & Profile - Provides metrics on articles that are indexed in Scopus.
• Google Scholar Citations - Provides metrics on articles that are indexed in Google Scholar.

Can scholars manage their privacy settings?

• ORCID - Yes; researchers can choose the information that they share on their profile.
• ResearcherID - Yes; researchers can choose the information that they provide on their profile.
• Scopus Author Identifier & Profile - No; Scopus sets up the Author ID and provides the information based on the contents of the database; scholars cannot choose the information shown.
• Google Scholar Citations - Yes; scholars can choose to make their profile public or private.