As part of our 2019 Year of the Researcher celebrations, we invited researchers to tell us why they would like to join us for our annual ORCID staff retreat. Out of an excellent candidate pool we are delighted to announce that Dr Andre Leon S 
Gradvohl (pictured), a professor at the School of Technology at the University of Campinas, and ad hoc consultant in the Brazil Ministry of Education and São Paulo State Council of Education, will be joining our team for a day.
In his application, Andre told us: “I have known ORCID for some time. In fact, well before my institution joined ORCID. At that time I was looking for a way to concentrate all the information about my intellectual production, including papers in scientific journals or conferences, and data repositories, in a single place. Since then, ORCID has been very useful for me, especially in recent times with the integration with some data repositories (Zenodo in particular), as well as other bibliographic databases that automatically update my ORCID registry. In particular, I like two ORCID features. The first is the possibility of having a reliable repository on the web that concentrates all the information about my academic life, my intellectual production – including other productions besides the papers – as well as prizes, affiliations and projects funding, among others. Another feature I really like is the automatic update of the Registry. This saves us time and, in parallel, provides reliable information from an authorized source.”
As well as spending time with the whole ORCID team, Andre will also be interviewed by our UX Designer, Mallory Robertson, as part of our ongoing efforts to improve the ORCID user experience; and by the communications team, to help us craft more effective messaging for researchers.
While all the applications we received were of a high quality, three others in addition to Andre’s really stood out: Dr Paula Carina Araujo (Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil), Dr Lasith Gunawardena (University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka), and PhD candidate, Emma McGrath (University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland; and Notre Dame University, USA).
One of our questions for applicants was what they liked most about ORCID. Lasith responded that:“My first name and, especially, surname are rather common in Sri Lanka and there are others in diverse fields, including some who have more illustrious research profiles. [ORCID] helps me stand out and be uniquely identified without ambiguity … One of the features which I highly desire and often refer during these presentations the ability to re-use information stored in the ORCID profile in other platforms.”
Emma’s response was: “I like the idea [of ORCID] because science involves a global community and we only progress as a society through collective knowledge. Consolidating the contributions of individual researchers through a single platform is vital as a step in removing barriers to information and connecting scientists and organizations.”
We also asked what applicants like least about ORCID, and Paula told us that, although she believes ORCID is “part of a new paradigm in scholarly communication,” she would “suggest some improvement on the data visualization on ORCID … in the Works section, for example, it would be better if the user could see the different types of works separately.” Great feedback, which have added to our new public User Feedback Trello board.
And, of course, we asked everyone why they wanted to join us at our staff retreat: what they hoped to get out of the day, and what they would contribute to it. Here are a few of the responses:
- “I want to understand if such tools [as ORCID] are useful for my students who will not continue to be involved with research but as professionals will be “consumers” of research.” (Vanessa Yingling, California State University – East Bay, USA)
- “I would love to have an inside look at how those who work with ORCID everyday talk about it. Because I talk about it so regularly in my work I would really appreciate more language and knowledge from experts. Help me learn to convince others to not only set it up but also use it in innovative ways.” (Kortney Rupp, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA)
- And, in the words of our winner: “I strongly believe in ORCID’s potential as a trusted and universal repository for academic records. Therefore, I think I can contribute to the discussion about the features that ORCID implements now and other features that you can implement in the future.”
Our thanks to all who participated for your interest and support. We are looking forward to our Day with a Researcher!