Make 2017 the year of the ORCID
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[This post was created for the Wolters-Kluwer author newsletter Author Resource Review and has been reproduced with permission.
This post has been authored by Alison McGonagle-O’Connell. Alison has nearly 15 years’ experience in the scholarly publishing industry. Before joining Aries, Alison worked for Houghton Mifflin’s College Division, Wiley-Blackwell, and EBSCO Information Services. She joined Aries in 2014 and plays a leading role in the marketing of Aries’ products including Editorial Manager®, EM for Books, and ProduXion Manager®. She holds a Master’s degree in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.]
Have you ever come across a request for an “ORCID iD” when submitting a manuscript or signing on as a peer reviewer for a journal? You may be wondering exactly what this iD is and why you should have one. Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) is a nonprofit association of publishers and academic organizations that maintains a central registry of digital names—or personal identifiers—for researchers, authors, and other contributors to research journals. By associating this identifier, or iD, with research activity and affiliations across platforms, ORCID enables recognition of authors and contributors across platforms and cuts down on burdens to compliance with reporting requirements for researchers.
Some publishers, for example Wolters Kluwer Health, collect ORCID iDs from authors when they submit a manuscript for publication or sign on as a peer reviewer. Having an ORCID iD number allows authors and peer reviewers to use this personal identifier to support automated linkages between them and their professional activities.
As if control over one’s own scholarly record and convenient compliance with researcher activity reporting weren’t enough, there is more! ORCID IDs enrich the content discovery process and signify trust in the increasingly digital research environment.
In 2016, dozens of publishers have signed ORCID’s open letter committing to require iDs from researchers, authors, and other workflow participants in the publishing process. Nearly 3 million researchers, authors, and workflow participants have registered for their own ORCID iD.
Don’t have an ORCID iD yet? Make it a priority this year! Simply visit www.orcid.org. The sign-up process is free, simple, and will pay dividends by making publishing activity more secure and simplified, and keeping all forms of contribution connected.
You might also be interested in watching this video interview with Nobuko Miyairi, who is the Regional Director for Asia Pacific region at ORCID: An ORCID iD is more than a number.