What is Orcid ID?

Orcid ID is a system to identify scientific and scholarly authors and contributors. It can help distinguish between people with the same name, or help identify people whose name may appear differently over time or from one project to another. It also helps to address cultural differences with how names are presented. This unique and persistent identifier can also help bring all the work that a scholar has been associated with into one definitive place.

Orcid stands for OPEN RESEARCHER AND CONTRIBUTOR ID.

History ORCID was first declared in 2009 as a communitarian exertion by distributers of insightful research “to determine the creator name vagueness issue in academic communication”. The “Open Researcher Contributor Identification Initiative” – consequently the name ORCID – was made incidentally preceding incorporation.

A model was created on programming adjusted from that utilized by Thomson Reuters for its Researcher ID system. ORCID, Inc. was joined as a free philanthropic association in August 2010 in Delaware, United States of America, with a global leading body of directors. Its official Director, Laurel Haak, was selected in April 2012. From 2016, the board is led by Veronique Kiermer of PLOS. ORCID is uninhibitedly usable and interoperable with other ID systems. ORCID propelled and began giving client identifiers and registry services on 16 October 2012.

How to use Orcid ID?

1. To apply, an author or researcher would register at Orcid.org, a non- profit organisation. There is no fee. The person would be assigned a unique 16-digit number. The person would also give some brief biographical information such as education and employment and then link to or list published works or grants received.
2. The person would set their privacy preference and then round out their profile. From there on out, they would use their Orcid ID number with publishers, repositories, journals, funding bodies, associations, universities, research groups and governments. They would use it when applying for or receiving a grant or publishing a paper or 30 plus other scholarly endeavours or events.
3. As the person, would move through their career, changing jobs or locations, or even names, the Orcid ID would help keep track of the complete list of their works.

 Advantages of Orcid ID

1. One benefit of the Orcid ID is that it could reduce the amount of paperwork, which causes less confusion, and create more accurate profile of the person
2. Because of this more complete record is maintained, with all the while remaining unique to that person. It is essentially an ISBN (International Standard Book Numbering) or DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for a person.

Conclusion: Orcid has 2.5 million live Orcid IDs right now. The numbers would continue to grow, likely exponentially. No author and researcher should be without one shortly. Almost all scholarly publications and funding bodies will require one.