ORCID Registry

ORCID provides a registry of unique identifiers for researchers and scholars that is open, non-proprietary, transparent, and mobile. ORCID invites all researchers to participate without entry fees or maintenance costs.

ORCID recognizes that first and foremost, individuals own their record.  A central principle of the ORCID initiative is that researchers control the defined privacy settings of their own ORCID record data. Individual record holders can control what information is displayed publicly, what is shared with trusted partners, and who those trusted partners are.

Registry features

When we discuss registry features, we mean “what can people do with our user interface?”.

• Researchers can register for an ORCID iD, either directly or when asked to sign in.
• Researchers can sign in and maintain their record – add, update and delete items and set their privacy levels.
• Researchers can grant ORCID member integrations permission to read trusted data and/or update their record as part of a member workflow.
• Researchers can remove previously granted permissions at any time.
• Researchers can grant trusted individuals permission to maintain their record for them.
• Researchers can download a BibTeX file containing their work metadata.
• Researchers can initiate a ‘search and link’ workflow which connects them with an ORCID member that helps them find their works and/or funding and add them to their record without manual entry.
• Researchers can link their ORCID account sign in with a federated institutional account, or social account to make sign in quicker and easier.
• Researchers are notified about activity on their ORCID record in the Inbox section of their account and via email.
• Researchers can deactivate their ORCID account if required.
• Individuals (for example, research office staff) can visit ORCID iD landing pages and view their public record.
• Individuals can register for Public API credentials.
• Individuals can search the registry.

Why?

Researchers and scholars face the ongoing challenge of distinguishing their research activities from those of others with similar names. They need to be able to easily and uniquely connect their identity to research objects such as datasets, equipment, articles, media stories, citations, experiments, patents, and notebooks. As they collaborate across disciplines, institutions, and borders, they interact with an increasing number and diversity of research information systems. They need to be unambiguously connected with the institutions they work with and the funding they are granted.

Entering this data over and over again can be time-consuming, error-prone and often frustrating. ORCID aims to reduce the burden put on researchers and improve the way information is shared.