In the near future, CASRAI will be working to include the ORCID identifier in its common dictionary as one of the many data elements descriptive of individual researchers. “We are very pleased to collaborate with ORCID”, says David Baker, CASRAI Executive Director. “A clear and sustainable solution to author and contributor disambiguation is a key component in our goal of seamless interoperability across organizational and national boundaries within the research community.”
Likewise, ORCID will work to align the data elements it collects with equivalent concepts, where applicable, in the CASRAI dictionary. “The unique researcher identifier provided by ORCID is a key component underlying effective exchange of research information across systems. Equally important are other naming standards, as are described in the CASRAI dictionary,” explained Laure Haak, ORCID Executive Director.
CASRAI and ORCID, with other members of the research community, recently co-authored a policy article published in Science explaining the advantages of cooperatively advancing the reuse, sharing, and comparing of research information – a key component of the missions of both organizations.
The primary function of ORCID is to provide a registry of unique identifiers for researchers and to work with the research community to embed these identifiers in key workflows and document metadata. Launched on October 16, 2012, the ORCID Registry is now available free-of-charge for researchers to register for a unique identifier. A number of organizations have already integrated ORCID IDs, so it is possible for individuals to link their ORCID record with external IDs, including SCOPUS, and include it when submitting a manuscript to Nature and Hindawi Publishing journals. In addition, individuals may link to a wide range of research outputs, such as articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, datasets, blogs, notebooks, patents, grants, media stories, and online research profiles.
These functions match well with the goals of The Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI), an international community of leading research funders and institutions that work toward the seamless international interoperability of research information. CASRAI collectively develops and maintains a common data dictionary to advance best practices for data exchange and reuse between research teams, institutions, and funding agencies throughout the life cycle of research activity.
