The survey gathered feedback from 223 ORCID stakeholders and interested parties on awareness and expectations of the ORCID initiative. Key findings included that author disambiguation and unifying research data were seen as the most important uses of ORCID. While some respondents were willing to pay for ORCID services, many felt it should remain free and open access in order to have widespread adoption and achieve its goals. Respondents saw researchers, their institutions, or publishers as being responsible for creating and maintaining ORCID profiles.

1. ORCID
Survey Results
December 2010

2. “This [ORCID] is the most exciting
initiative in research publishing of the
decade.”
“About time! “
“The initiative is definitely great and
impacts all research community.”

3. Background and objectives
• Objectives: to gather feedback on current level of
understanding and expectations of what ORCID will
or should deliver
• Method: an online survey (administered by the
Wellcome Trust)
• Fieldwork: from Thursday 7th October till Friday 29th
October 2010
• The results are representative of those who
completed the survey only, not the whole survey
universe

4. n=223
n=94 n=129
ORCID stakeholders Interested parties
(personalised link) (open link)
• Directed at those who already • Open survey posted onto the
registered their interest in ORCID ORCID.org website and also circulated
• Survey link sent via a personalised to potential interested parties
email • 129 complete questionnaires
• 49% response rate

6. Who participated in the survey?

7. Who participated in the survey?
Academic sector
includes: universities,
independent research
institutions, hospitals,
independent libraries,
scholarly societies,
independent
researchers
Base: All respondents (n=223)
Q: Which sector do you primarily represent/work in?

8. Awareness of the ORCID initiative in your community -
Organisation type (%)
*Funding agencies -
small sample size (n=9)
Base: All respondents (n=223), Academic (n=118), Publishers (n=43), Commercial institutions (n=23), Funding agencies (n=9)
Q: Would you say that the ORCID initiative is currently well known in your community?

9. Willingness to pay for ORCID
services

10. “Don't go for the pay model. Don't go for
the pay model. Don't go for the pay
model(…).”
“Yes, I believe one should pay for
valuable information.”

11. Willingness to pay for ORCID services – Organisation type (%)
*Funding agencies -
small sample size (n=9)
Base: All respondents (n=223), Academic (n=118), Publishers (n=43), Commercial institutions (n=23), Funding agencies (n=9)
Q: If the services you require were available, would you consider paying for some/all of its services e.g. via a membership fee or a
fee-for service system?

12. Alternative ways of funding ORCID – Main themes
Universities
Charge for
added value
Donations
Advertising
Keep it simple Charge for large Funding agencies Publishers
scale use
Base: All who are not likely to pay for ORCID services and answered open ended question Q9 (n=57)
Q: Can you suggest alternative ways in which ORCID initiative can be funded in longer terms?

13. Alternative ways of funding ORCID – Verbatim examples
“Charge the publishers who are the ones most likely to benefit.”
“Publishers should pay a tax per article to ORCID, and in return get data to
populate their systems.”
“Universities would clearly pay to have access to these data. Most of the
institutions that we work with pay for data licenses. We then use those data licenses
to populate our databases. The data themselves are not intrinsically useful to us as a
company, their worth is to the university/research institution. Hence, there is a larger
market by licensing many universities rather than one company.”
“Funding agencies, groups like OCLC or Library of Congress or Google should
provide funding. If you charge individual or departmental fees then you won't have
everyone; if you don't have everyone then you have nothing.”
“For the longer term, I think ORCID could be funded through charging for large-
scale queries to the system (e.g. the api). One could imagine providing
institutional aggregate measures or even information to funding bodies at the
country level using ORCID information.”

14. ORCID free and open access?

15. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
“Yes, still valuable. The time has come
for author disambiguation!”
“Possibly, depends on how much
researchers will get out of it. ”
“No! The system needs to be
universal to really reach its goal.
Otherwise only minority will use it(…).”

16. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
n=120 n=119 n=45
circa circa circa
NO POSSIBLY YES
Base: All respondents who answered open ended question Q10 (n=198)
Q: If ORCID profile data for researchers were not freely and openly accessible, would it still be valuable for your purposes?

17. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
‘No’ (top 5 themes)
n=120
circa
Open
system
is
be,er
/
be,er
quality
data
/
must
be
open
for
everyone
to
use n=32
Free
/
cheap
/
open
service
means
more
people
will
use
/
subscrip>on
model
will
limit
uptake n=30
Would
be
of
no
value n=29
Should
be
free
/
no
subscrip>on
/
won’t
use
if
I
have
to
pay
n=9
Closed
/
subscrip>on
system
contradicts
the
idea
of
ORCID
/
science
n=8
Other answers: Closed system / data is useless / inhibits search / data linking n=7, Doubt our organisation would fund it, Closed /
subscription model would hamper our own projects n=3, Closed system invites legal / licensing issues / confusion n=2
Base: All respondents who answered open ended question Q10 (n=198)
Q: If ORCID profile data for researchers were not freely and openly accessible, would it still be valuable for your purposes?

18. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
- Verbatim examples
“No, it would be virtually invisible”
“Having a pay/closed system would make the system virtually useless. Let's be
very honest here, most of the point of a system like ORCID is to deal with authors
from non-western countries with masses of people that share the same anglicized
name. If those users can't access the system due to financial constraints, what's the
point of implementing ORCID in the first place?”
“Well, look how far you get with the current researcher ID. To make an ORCID really
useful it has to be open.”
“No, it would not be so valuable. That's why ORCID would be less known than
other initiatives (ISI, SCOPUS, PUBMED, etc.) and less useful for researchers to let
the people know about themselves.”
“Much less valuable as it needs to be a tool not only for paying members but for
the public at large.”

19. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
‘Possibly’ (top 6 themes)
n=119
circa
Only
of
value
if
it
was
the
universal
standard
/
had
cri>cal
mass
n=31
Would
be
of
limited
value
/
less
useful
/
restric>ve
n=24
Would
depend
on
the
charge
/
only
if
inexpensive
/
non-­‐profit
basis
n=16
Disambigua>on
is
the
primary
issue
–
not
interested
in
profile
informa>on
/
other
features
n=13
Free
disambigua>on
service
/
pay
for
more
advanced
features
n=9
Publishers
/
ins>tu>ons
could
pay
subscrip>on
n=9
Other answers: Author should have control over data =7, Doubt our institution / organisation would fund it n=4, If paying for data, no
limits should be placed on its use n=3, Depends n=3
Base: All respondents who answered open ended question Q10 (n=198)
Q: If ORCID profile data for researchers were not freely and openly accessible, would it still be valuable for your purposes?

20. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
- Verbatim examples
“Yes, it would still be valuable even though probably not as comprehensive
(…).”
“It will only be valuable if it is as comprehensive as possible - so there needs to
be a critical mass of participants”
“This would depend on the eventual uptake of the service. When there are a
large enough collection of researchers in the system and third parties referencing
the IDs the cost of licensing access may become justifiable”
“Profile data to me is out of scope, so as long as I can do author disambiguation
and uniquely identify authors, I don't care about the profile data”
“'Maybe, depends on how much researchers will get out of it. Perhaps an institution
could pay the subscription instead of individual members, or have both options”

21. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open? ‘Yes’
n=45
circa
Yes,
would
s>ll
be
of
value n=38
My
ins>tu>on
/
organisa>on
would
subscribe
/
I
would
ask
them
to
subscribe n=6
Closed
system
ensures
privacy n=1
Base: All respondents who answered open ended question Q10 (n=198)
Q: If ORCID profile data for researchers were not freely and openly accessible, would it still be valuable for your purposes?

22. Would ORCID profile information be valuable if not free and open?
- Verbatim examples
“Yes, I believe one should pay for valuable information.”
“Yes, makes the publishing business more efficient, helps save costs elsewhere”
“Yes, depending on scientists' recommendations for purchase based on usefulness
and ease of ORCID access.”
“Yes; it's a time-saving service that streamlines the grant process.”
“Yes, I think my institution would subscribe to gain access.”
“To avoid privacy issues, it probably has to be limited to members/subscribers only.”
“For our purposes, probably would be OK given that our institution would probably
be a member. However, we would like the profile information and publication claims
deposited for our users to be available openly to all, at least at some level.”

23. Key use/rationale for ORCID

24. Key use/rationale for ORCID (top 10 themes)
Author disambiguation / ability to identify unique authors with similar
names n=69 31%
Unification of data / link data together / ease of search / indexing n=52 24%
To search for a particular author / obtain profile information /
automated CVs n=39 18%
Bibliometric publication analysis / publication list n=30 14%
Integrate into other databases – e.g. PubMed, WoS, Scopus, arXiv,
SSRN n=27 12%
Access to bibliographies n=17 8%
Good API / interface – reliable / good design / documentation n=16 7%
To track an author – progress / publications / funding / grants / career n=13 6%
To ensure the correct author gets credit / recognition / attribution n=13 6%
ORCIDs simplify the submission process / articles / grants n=13 6%
Base: All who answered open ended question Q6, (n=220)
Q: Can you provide a description of how you would like to make use of the ORCID in your own context?

25. Key use/rationale for ORCID – Verbatim examples (1)
Author disambiguation / ability to identify unique authors with similar names
“I work for a journal, and one of our biggest problems is duplicate records in
our manuscript tracking database. Having a unique ID number for researchers
would help greatly in this area.”
“As an editor of an open access journal, single IDs for authors is helpful.
As an independent researcher having a single online ID (I'd like to use myopenid )
would be quite helpful.”
“Just concentrate on the assignment and disambiguation. Like in Hollywood,
get a unique ID allocated and other groups can do the rest (IMDB etc).”
“Unambiguously identifying authors when searching for peer reviewers; when I
click on a name I want PubMed to actually search by ORCID rather than by name..”
“An API to help disambiguate author names or normalise spellings.”

26. Key use/rationale for ORCID – Verbatim examples (2)
Unification of data / link data together / ease of search / indexing
“I am interested in developing tools for department and institution evaluation
and ranking as well as quantifying differences between male and female
researchers in terms of publications, impact and awarded grants.”
“I need a link to bind together both a library system, a national authority system,
multiple institution archive systems and a national research system.”
“Would love the ability to cross-search between our in-house publications
database and search indexes on authors name, to check for publications.”
“Making sure the ORCID database is comprehensive. If it only covers 75% of
people, it won't work.”
“We would allow researchers to register their ORCID identifier with our software so
that we could automatically import their research publications and other data from
ORCID - this reduces rekeying activity as researchers might then be able to manage
their data in one place and not have to duplicate effort. We would also be interested in
allowing researchers to upload data from our systems within universities into the ORCID
system.”

27. Key use/rationale for ORCID – Verbatim examples (3)
Search for a particular author / obtain profile information / automated CVs
“We would simply be adding the ids to our articles and checking that names and ids
are used consistently.”
“As a librarian, to be able to do a successful author search.”
“'I am using publication data matched to individual scientists in order to understand
academic career outcomes. Having ORCID IDs available would make this work
much easier.”
“We would like to be able to search/track our faculty's publications. The ORCID
would make it possible to positively search for all publications authored by a specific
faculty.”
“I am hopeful that the names associated with ORCID can be matched with library
authority data to assist with collocation of materials described in library catalogs and
article-level information.”

28. Maintaining ORCID profiles: Who? (%) YES (net)
73%
67%
64%
40%
35%
Base: All respondents who are not individual researchers (n=220)
Q: Thinking about the ORCID profile information of individual researchers, who do you believe will create and/or maintain this
information in the future? Don’t know answers are not shown

29. What ORCID services would be
useful?

30. How useful or not useful you consider the following ORCID services to be?
All (Top 7)
Useful (net)
Base: All respondents (n=223)
Q: How useful to you/your organization do you consider the following potential ORCID services to be?

31. How useful or not useful you consider the following ORCID services to be?
All (8-14)
Useful (net)
Base: All respondents (n=223)
Q: How useful to you/your organization do you consider the following potential ORCID services to be?

32. Future developments

33. How best we can inform you of ORCID initiative developments over the
next 12 months?
“Blogs/online
Webinars
Conferences
Mailing lists”
Base: All respondents (n=223)
Q: How best we can inform you of ORCID initiative developments over the next 12 months?

34. Further comments – Verbatim examples (1)
“(…) minimize operational cost, allow duplication, distributed hosting, etc. Get
libraries involved, who are more than likely to help out here, and get the Open
Source scientific community helping out with software development. Don't leave
this to the publishers; they have shown quite inadequate in many aspects of
publishing; author identification and citation identification two prominent examples.
There is not reason to believe that after 10 years of no innovation, they can pull this
off using their models.”
“Don't get institutions (universities etc) involved. Do this through the journals/
conferences and participation will follow.”
“Keep it simple. Stay true to the published mission statement. Registration must
be free for authors. Clearly publish how privacy is affected and protected by this
effort.”
“This has the potential to be an essential new development, but it will have to
become the single community standard, or at least map 100% to other such
initiatives.”
Base: All respondents who answered open ended question Q15 (n=60)
Q: Finally, if there are any further comments you would like to give, please use the box below.

35. Further comments – Verbatim examples (2)
“Please go ahead with your initiative ”
“The initiative is definitely great and impacts all research community.
Therefore, you have a lot of stakeholders. But, with such a huge board and amount
of people involved you risk to become unmanageable (and also it costs a lot,
probably). So, try to keep the core small and put all others in "watchers" that can
step up and contribute, participate in discussions, but are not necessarily involved
in the decision”
“We're 100% behind this - it will be a hugely significant development for
academic publishing. Good luck!”
“ORCID needs to develop its product portfolio and then work our how it should
market itself and make it be known that it is not an agency of a publisher - that
it is a not-for-profit initiative that is doing something that for the benefit of all
those involved in supporting the research process. There might need to be
some work done to be explicit about what the publishers will get out of this”
Base: All respondents who answered open ended question Q15 (n=60)
Q: Finally, if there are any further comments you would like to give, please use the box below.