Happy birthday to us! ORCID turned six this October. To celebrate our birthday and Open Access Week, we are releasing our 2018 Public Data File.Releasing the annual public data file is a key ORCID principle. The file is a snapshot of all ORCID record data that researchers have marked public, in the ORCID Registry at the time that the file was created on October 1, 2018 — information that our users have set to be visible to everyone. We publish this file once per year under a CC0 waiver.
Get the file
Our 2018 Public Data File can be downloaded from the ORCID repository. This year the file is available in v2.0 of the ORCID API message schema, the default since August 2018. API v2.0 supports quick views of ORCID records using summaries, displaying limited metadata in the activities section (affiliations, funding, works, and peer reviews). To provide all public Registry data, we have included a second file with all public data from each activity section of users’ ORCID records.
Previous files are available at our public data file page. See also our related support documentation.
Use our conversion library for JSON records
Unlike previous data files, the 2018 data file is available only in XML format rather than both XML and JSON. If you prefer JSON, we recommend using our ORCID Conversion Library available in our Github repository.
The converter is a single downloadable Java application and can generate JSON from XML in the default version ORCID message schema format (v2.0 and v2.1). Currently the converter can process only full record XML or the ORCID public data file. The converter is a new project, and we’re always looking for ways to improve it — let us know your feedback!
Let us know how you’re using file
What can you do with the public data file? Your imagination is the limit! Some recent examples: John Bohannon used data from the public data file to track researchers’ global migration in his study “Restless minds” published in Science (May 2017, Vol. 356, Issue 6339), which was awarded the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2018 Communication Award for newspapers and magazines. The Digital Research Yearbook created an “ORCID indicator” based on affiliation data in the public data file; the indicator is the proportion of researchers at an institution who have registered for an ORCID iD and connected it to their institution.
Use of the public data is governed by our Privacy Policy. As with other ORCID resources, we release the public data file under a CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication. We impose no restrictions on use the the file, and have created recommended community norms for use. Let us know how you put the public data file to use — and thank you!
