The ORCID (; Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a nonproprietary
alphanumeric
Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric ch ...
code to uniquely identify authors and contributors of
scholarly communication
Scholarly communication involves the creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of academic research, primarily in peer-reviewed journals and books. It is “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evalu ...
as well as ORCID's website and services to look up authors and their bibliographic output (and other user-supplied pieces of information).
This addresses the problem that a particular author's contributions to the
scientific literature
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.''
Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...
or publications can be hard to recognize as most
personal name
A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...
s are not unique, they can change ( such as with marriage), have cultural differences in name order, contain inconsistent use of first-name abbreviations and employ different
writing system
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
s. It provides a persistent identity for humans, similar to tax ID numbers, that are created for content-related entities on digital networks by
digital object identifier
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; they a ...
s (DOIs).
Uses
ORCID aims to provide a persistent code for humans, to address the problem that a particular author's contributions to scholarly communication can be hard to recognize as most personal names are not unique and thus multiple persons of the same name could contribute to the same scholarly field, even from the same institutional department. Further, names can change ( such as with marriage); there are cultural differences in name ordering conventions; journals make inconsistent use of first-name abbreviations,
name suffixes
A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal ...
, and middle initials; and employ different
writing system
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
s.
The ORCID organization, ORCID Inc., offers registered users to maintain "a constantly updated ‘digital curriculum vitae’ providing a picture of his or her contributions to science going far beyond the simple publication list,"Editorial (2009). "Credit where credit is due". ''Nature''. 462: 825. . hosted by ORCID, edited by the user.
Development and launch
ORCID was first announced in 2009 as a collaborative effort by publishers of scholarly research "to resolve the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication". The "Open Researcher Contributor Identification Initiative" - hence the name ORCID - was created temporarily prior to incorporation.
A prototype was developed on software adapted from that used by
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
for its
ResearcherID
ResearcherID is an identifying system for scientific authors. The system was introduced in January 2008 by Thomson Reuters Corporation.
This unique identifier aims at solving the problem of author identification and correct attribution of work ...
system. ORCID, Inc. was incorporated as an independent nonprofit organization in August 2010 in Delaware, United States of America, with an international board of directors. Its executive Director, Chris Shillum, was appointed in September 2020; he succeeded the founding ED,
Laurel Haak
Laurel L. Haak, known as Laure, was the founding Executive Director (2012-2020) of ORCID, an international non-profit which generates and maintains unique identifiers for individuals to participate in the research lifecycle.
Haak received BS and ...
, who was appointed in April 2012. From 2016, the board is chaired by Veronique Kiermer of
PLOS
PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012 ) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and launc ...
(the former chair was
Ed Pentz
Ed, ed or ED may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Ed'' (film), a 1996 film starring Matt LeBlanc
* Ed (''Fullmetal Alchemist'') or Edward Elric, a character in ''Fullmetal Alchemist'' media
* ''Ed'' (TV series), a TV series that ran fro ...
interoperable
Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...
with other ID systems. On 16 October 2012, ORCID launched its registry services and started issuing user identifiers.
Adoption
* On 15 November 2014, ORCID announced the one-millionth registration.
* On 20 November 2020, ORCID announced the ten-millionth registration.
* , the number of live accounts reported by ORCID was 14,727,479.
To encourage others to join them in supporting the adoption of ORCID, an open letter dated 1 January 2016 was crafted with "publishers that signed this open letter committed to requiring ORCID iDs following specific implementation standards."
In a 2021 update to the
Springer Nature
Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a German-British academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macm ...
website, they noted that they would thenceforth "support verifying and crediting your review">eerreview activity directly from our manuscript submission systems to ORCID."
Identifiers
Formally, ORCID IDs are specified as URIs, for example, the ORCID ID for Josiah S. Carberry (a fictitious professor whose iD is used in examples and testing) is https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097 (both https:// and http:// forms are supported; the former became canonical in November 2017). However, some publishers use the short form, e.g. "ORCID: 0000-0002-1825-0097" (as a
URN
An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...
).
ORCID IDs are a subset of the
International Standard Name Identifier
The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is an identifier system for uniquely identifying the public identities of contributors to media content such as books, television programmes, and newspaper articles. Such an identifier consists of ...
(ISNI), under the auspices of the
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
(as ISO 27729), and the two organizations are cooperating. ISNI will uniquely identify contributors to
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
s,
television programme
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
s, and
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
s, and has reserved a block of identifiers for use by ORCID, in the range 0000-0001-5000-0007 to 0000-0003-5000-0001. It is therefore possible for a person to legitimately have both an ISNI and an ORCID ID – effectively, two ISNIs.
Both ORCID and ISNI use 16-character identifiers, using the digits 0–9, and separated into groups of four by hyphens. The final character, which may also be a letter "X" representing the value "10" (for example, Stephen Hawking's ORCID ID is https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9079-593X), is a MOD 11-2
check digit
A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity ...
By the end of 2013 ORCID had 111 member organizations and over 460,000 registrants. On 15 November 2014, ORCID announced the one-millionth registration, and on 20 November 2020 the ten-millionth registration. , ORCID reported 1258 member organizations and 14,727,479 live accounts. The organizational members include many research institutions such as
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
and
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
, and publishers such as
Elsevier
Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...
,
Springer
Springer or springers may refer to:
Publishers
* Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag.
** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...
,
Wiley
Wiley may refer to:
Locations
* Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town
* Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S.
* Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany
People
* Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer
* Wiley Mil ...
and
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...
. There are also commercial companies including
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
, academic societies and funding bodies.
Grant-making bodies such as the Wellcome Trust (a charitable foundation) have also begun to mandate that applicants for funding provide an ORCID identifier.
National implementations
In several countries, consortia, including government bodies as partners, are operating at a national level to implement ORCID. For example, in Italy, seventy universities and four research centres are collaborating under the auspices of the (CRUI) and the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Institutes (ANVUR), in a project implemented by Cineca, a not-for-profit consortium representing the universities, research institutions, and the Ministry of Education. In Australia, the government's
National Health and Medical Research Council
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is the main statutory authority of the Australian Government responsible for medical research. It was the eighth largest research funding body in the world in 2016, and NHMRC-funded rese ...
(NHMRC) and
Australian Research Council
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...
(ARC) "encourage all researchers applying for funding to have an ORCID identifier". The French scientific article repository HAL is also inviting its users to enter their ORCID ID.
Integrations
Both Wikipedia and
Wikidata
Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge graph hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, and anyone else, can use under the CC0 public domain license. ...
include pages with ORCID identifiers.
As of 2014 in addition to members and sponsors, journals, publishers, and other services have or had included ORCID in their workflows or databases. 2014 to 2016 some online services created tools for exporting data to, or importing data from, ORCID.
In October 2015,
DataCite
DataCite is an international not-for-profit organization which aims to improve ''data citation'' in order to:
*establish easier access to research data on the Internet
*increase acceptance of research data as legitimate, citable contributions to ...
, Crossref and ORCID announced that the former organisations would update ORCID records, "when an ORCID identifier is found in newly registered DOI names".
Some ORCID data may also be retrieved as
RDF/XML
RDF/XML is a syntax,RDF/XML Syntax Specification
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...
or
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...
. ORCID uses
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
as its code repository.
See also
*
Authority control
In information science, authority control is a process that organizes information, for example in library catalogs, by using a single, distinct spelling of a name (heading) or a numeric identifier for each topic. The word ''authority'' in ''au ...
*
Digital Author Identifier
In the Dutch research system, the Digital Author Identifier (DAI) system assigns a unique number to all academic authors as a form of authority control. The DAI links the PICA database in institutional libraries with the METIS national research ...
(DAI)
*
List of academic databases and search engines
This article contains a representative list of notable databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and ...
*
OpenID
OpenID is an open standard and decentralized authentication protocol promoted by the non-profit OpenID Foundation. It allows users to be authenticated by co-operating sites (known as relying parties, or RP) using a third-party identity provider ...
*
Ringgold identifier
A Ringgold Identifier (Ringgold ID or RIN) is a persistent numeric unique identifier for organizations in the publishing industry supply chain. Ringgold's Identify Database includes over 500,000 Ringgold IDs representing organizations and consorti ...
(RIN)
*
Virtual International Authority File
The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the OCLC, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).
History
Discussion about having a c ...