This document discusses ORCID iDs and the ORCID project at Imperial College London. It provides an overview of ORCID, what ORCID iDs are, and why they are useful for addressing name ambiguity and supporting interoperability. It describes the ORCID project at Imperial College London from 2014-2016 to issue ORCID iDs to all research staff and link publications. The project increased ORCID iD uptake and integration with Imperial's research management system. Ongoing support for ORCID iDs is provided through training, outreach and integration with additional research systems.

1. Library
Services
‘Let a Thousand ORCIDs Bloom’:
ORCID iDs and the ORCID Project at
Imperial
M25 Consortium CPD25 – Open Access and Repositories
Foundling Museum, 26th April 2017
Sarah Stewart – Research Data Support Assistant
Scholarly Communications Team, Library Services
Imperial College London

2. ‘Let a Thousand ORCIDs Bloom’
Presentation Overview
• ORCID and ORCID iDs
• ORCID Project at Imperial
• ORCID at Imperial
CC-BY: Torsten Reimer

3. Why Use Persistent Identifiers?
• Use of persistent identifiers has
increased as scholarly
communications become
increasingly digital.
• ORCIDs and DOIs support open
science through supporting
interoperability in research
infrastructures.
• For instance, DataCite, CrossRef
can use DOIs and ORCID iDs in
addition to other metadata to map
and link documents, data and
researchers.

4. People are unique, but not their names!
• Name changes
• Variant spellings
• Different versions
(Initials vs. full name)
• Transliteration and
special characters
• Multiple family
names
• Career and job
changes
• Variations in
metadata have
implications for
authorship and
linking research
outputs

5. ORCID iDs…
hinemizushima.com

6. The Name Ambiguity Problem in Research:
A Tale of Two Torstens

7. ORCID provides:

8. About ORCID
• Non-profit owned by member
organisations
• Provides research
contributors with free
identifiers
• Funded by membership fees
and external grants
• Supported by national
consortia (Finland, Germany,
UK, Italy)
• Mandated by funders and
publishers – Wellcome Trust,
Hindawi, Royal Society,
PLoS, IEEE, NIHR, etc.

9. ORCID in Numbers (April 21, 2017):

10. What is an ORCID iD?
• ‘Open Researcher & Contributor ID’
• Developed by ORCID, a non-profit community-owned organisation
• Provides a solution to name ambiguity in research and scholarly
communications
• Unique, persistent identifier for you as a researcher/academic.
Linked to your name, rather than to your institution
• Can be applied to your research outputs to identify, validate and
confirm your authorship
• Can be used to track research outputs

11. How can I register for an ORCID iD?

12. ORCID iD Profile

13. Why Get an ORCID iD?
• Credit for research outputs
• Makes research outputs more discoverable
• ORCID iD moves with the researcher as they move to other
institutions, ensuring continuity of identity across their academic career
• Keep track of research outputs and report on your work to funders,
publishers and institutions (interoperability of research systems)
• Reduced burden on reporting due to research systems interoperability
(CRIS, Grant applications, Manuscript submission systems)
• Many publishers and funders now mandate ORCID iDs including:
Wellcome Trust, Royal Society, PLoS, eLife, EMBO, IEEE, ScienceOpen,
Wiley, etc.

14. ORCID promotes System Interoperability:

15. How ORCID iDs work: ORCID and ISNI
ORCID is aimed at living research contributors
Individuals have to self-register for an ORCID iD
Individuals control their own iD and ORCID profile
ORCID profiles can contain information on works (research outputs) but also on
grants, employment history, etc.
ORCID iD is compatible with the ISNI ISO Standard
ORCID Registry randomly assigned ORCID iD numbers from a block of
numbers
Set aside for them by the ISNI International Agency.
ORCID and ISNI collaborate by linking ISNI and ORCID iDs.

16. How ORCID iDs work:
Systems Interactions

17. Publishers and ORCID iDs
• 2015: ‘Open Letter: Requiring ORCID in Publication Workflows’
• Connecting iD across multiple research information platforms enables
recognition and reduces reporting burdens for researchers
• More than 3000 journals already collect ORCID iDs from authors
• 75% of registrations occur because of publisher mandates
• Still some issues that need improvement, such as managing duplicate records
and verifying affiliations which require further communication and engagement
with authors.

18. Publishers and ORCID iDs: Best Practices
https://orcid.org/content/requiring-orcid-publication-workflows-open-letter

19. Publishers and ORCID iDs
https://orcid.org/blog/2017/04/12/orcid-open-letter-one-year

20. ORCID in the UK
•2013: Jisc-led group recommends ORCID as persistent
researcher identifier
•2014: Jisc-ARMA-ORCID Pilot project across 8 UK
universities (including Imperial College London)
•2015:
•Wellcome Trust mandates ORCID iD for grant applications
• RCUK commits to ORCID
• Jisc announces ORCID Consortium

21. Imperial College London
• Faculties of Engineering, Natural
Sciences, Medicine and Business
School
• Ranked 3rd in Europe/ 8th in the
world (THE 2015-2016)
• ~15K students, ~8K staff including
~3900 academic and research
staff
• 10-12K scholarly publications per
year
• 82K scholarly publications
downloaded from Spiral, the Open
Access Research Repository
(March 2017)
• Largest data traffic into Janet
Network of UK Universities

22. Imperial College ORCID Project: 2014-2016
• Part of the JISC-ARMA-
ORCID Pilot Programme
• Imperial College London
became a member of
ORCID
• In early 2014, all research
and academic staff issued
with an ORCID identifier.
• Project identified 764
previously-existing iDs
linked to College staff and
created 3226 new iDs.

23. Imperial ORCID Project: 2014-2016
• One-off activity to increase awareness and uptake of ORCID
• All academic and research staff to receive an iD unless they have actively
opted out, already have one or are not in public staff directory
• Institutional affiliation and publication lists added to ORCID profiles
• Everything in profile set to ‘private’ by default, apart from name
• Staff encouraged to link their iD to Symplectic Elements
• New staff encouraged to self-register via Symplectic Elements

24. A Note on Privacy
• Privacy could be considered a concern for academics,
however, ORCID records were set to ‘private’ by default,
with the exception of name and this could be changed by
the researcher
• Privacy therefore not perceived to be a problem by
researchers and was no barrier to uptake

25. Publications Tracking at Imperial: Pre-
ORCID Workflow

26. ORCID workflow: Metadata on
Acceptance

27. ORCID Workflow: Tracking Research
Outputs

28. ORCID Support in Symplectic Elements
Academics self-register to:
•Add existing iD
•Create new iD
•Auto-claims research outputs with DOI and iD
•College CRIS (Symplectic Elements) acts as a source of data and metadata
for ORCID
•Promotes system interoperability (ORCID-Symplectic-ResearchFish)
•Direct benefits in terms of efficiency and time management (less time filling out
multiple forms)

29. ORCID Project Timeline, 2014-2015

30. ORCID Project in Numbers (25/02/2016)

31. ORCID at Imperial Post-Project
• Actively encourage staff to use iDs and to link and
activate their ORCID to Symplectic Elements
• Outreach alongside Open Access and Research Data
Management Initiatives
• Invite new staff to self-register via Symplectic Elements
• Support via email at orcid@imperial.ac.uk

32. ORCID Support in Library Services
• Email and face-to-face
enquiries
(orcid@imperial.ac.uk)
• Informational webpages
and FAQ
• Direct link to register for
ORCID
• Regular outreach and
promotion events

33. ORCID in Numbers to Date (April 21, 2017)
Total Imperial ORCID iDs to date (in Symplectic): 1864
Staff ORCID iDs added to Symplectic since January 2017:
93

34. Conclusions
• ORCID iDs are becoming the researcher identifier for the HE sector
• Fast uptake, no problems with systems or privacy concerns
• Clear communications and collaboration within institutions is required
• Engage researchers and provide clear communications and workflow
• ORCID systems integrations (CRIS, Repositories, Library Catalogue)
improves interoperability and increases efficiency and benefits for systems
users
• Useful for tracking research outputs
• Summary of Imperial ORCID project: doi.org/10.1629/uksg.268

35. Future Developments at Imperial?
• Integration with Department of Chemistry-led research data
repository which mandates an ORCID prior to deposit
• Integration with Library Catalogue and Spiral, the College’s Research
Repository, to make research outputs and authors’ works more
discoverable

36. Any Questions ?
For more Information:
Webpages:
www.orcid.org
www.imperial.ac.uk/orcid
E-mail : orcid@imperial.ac.uk
Twitter: @OAImperial @ORCID_org
Sarah Stewart: sarah.stewart@imperial.ac.uk
@Biostew