Get a Unique Researcher ID for Free and Help Identify Your Research Outputs

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What is ORCID?

ORCID
Image from: https://members.orcid.org/sites/default/files/28-banners.png

ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID

  • Creating an ID is free
  • The ORCID registry is maintained by a not for profit organization, funded through organizational membership and subscription fees

Why should I get one?

You can create a unique, persistent identifier which you can use to better identify yourself with your research outputs, such as publications and data sets.

  • It links you together with all your publications, whatever version of your name they are published under. That means if you change your name, or a different variation of it is used (eg middle name or initial), your publications will still be linked to your identity and will be collected in your ORCID record. And, what’s more, you can continue to use the same ID when you change organisations.

 

  • It’s also useful for clarifying which publications aren’t yours but have been published by someone with the same name – especially helpful if there’s someone with a similar name in the same field or the same organization as you.

 

  • It can link to many different types of research outputs, including datasets and software, as well as journal articles, meaning that you can easily get credit for all your published work.

 

  • ORCID integrates with a variety of other systems, such as funder applications and publisher manuscript systems, saving you from having to put the same information over again (see the section Who can see the information? below to find out how this works). Some actually require ORCID IDs, such as the Wellcome Trust’s grant applications system (and here’s some more on why they made that choice).

 

ref
Image from: http://www.ref.ac.uk/

ORCID and REF

The recent REF 2021: Decisions on staff and outputs says “The funding bodies consider that the benefits offered by persistent staff identifiers are significant, in terms of increased efficiency, transparency and interoperability in the research data landscape.” While not mandated for REF 2021, ORCIDs look likely to be required for future funding assessments, and HEFCE “strongly encourage” an ORCID ID to be provided for Category A submitted staff in REF 2021.

ORCID and CRIS

There will be some exciting developments with SGUL’s CRIS later this year when the CRIS is upgraded. If you have an ORCID ID, CRIS will retrieve records from data sources that have the ORCID ID in their metadata (such as Europe PubMed Central, PubMed, Web of Science). Once you have confirmed that the ORCID ID is yours, CRIS will retrieve any future records from those data sources with that ORCID ID in their metadata, and automatically add the records into your publications list.

How do I get an ORCID?

If you haven’t already got one, go to the ORCID website and click “Register now”. You can add your professional information and any other identifiers you might have to your account.

Who can see the information?

  • You control the content in your ORCID, who can see it
  • There are three visibility settings : everyone, trusted parties, or only me. Visibility to items can be set individually. For more information see Visibility settings
  • If you are happy to have the information visible to anyone, you can set visibility to ‘everyone’.
  • This means the profile will be visible via the orcid.org website, and importantly can be searched for via the API, which means the data can be reused.
  • If you want to be able to let the data update across systems that are registered /integrated to use ORCID data, then set it to ’trusted parties’
  • You can register your ORCID record with Research Fish, and this will enable you to add publications in your Research Fish portfolio to your ORCID record (so if it is in Research Fish, it will be included then in ORCID). Also you can use the publications search in Research Fish to fetch publications from ORCID and add them to your Research Fish portfolio.

Useful links:

Building your ORCID record and connecting your iD

ResearcherID & ORCID Integration – how to associate ORCID with ResearcherID

EPMC: How do I link my articles to my ORCID?

 

Jennifer Hughes, Research Publications Assistant

Jennifer Smith, Research Publications Librarian

Contact: openaccess@sgul.ac.uk

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