Recommendations for Using ORCID in Repositories

History

Back in June, we announced the launch of the ORCID in Repositories Task Force, an intrepid group chaired by Michele Mennielli, International Membership and Partnership Manager at DuraSpace. The group was charged with drafting recommendations for repository platform developers, intended to ensure a consistent base level of support for ORCID across different platforms, allowing repository administrators to implement ORCID effectively ‘out of the box’.

A diverse team of 15 repository experts representing 12 countries on six continents convened and unveiled a draft recommendations for public comment in October 2018. After several weeks of vigorous discussion among ~30 community contributors and a final round of review by the Task Force, I’m thrilled announce the publication of the Task Force recommendations.

Outcomes

Key components of the recommendations include:

• Support collecting authenticated ORCID iDs, which means that users sign into their ORCID accounts and authorize the repository to obtain their ORCID iD and (optionally) permission to update their ORCID records
• Support other ways of obtaining ORCID iDs, including in mediated deposits and bulk uploads by repository managers, as well as automated deposits from other systems
• Allow administrators to request authenticated ORCID iDs and ORCID record update permission from authors and co-authors, in cases where iDs are missing or have not been authenticated
• Support displaying ORCID iDs wherever user/contributor information is displayed. ORCID iDs that have not been authenticated by their owner should be displayed slightly differently from those that have been authenticated
• Support pulling and pushing information to and from ORCID
• Provide testing, logging and reporting features for administrators
• Support exposing ORCID iDs in metadata outputs, such as OAI-PMH XML, wherever possible
• Provide documentation about ORCID features, for both administrators and end users

Thank you!

Many thanks to the Task Force members for their dedication and hard work, as well to all those who contributed to the public discussion. Input from such a diverse range of perspectives highlighted differences and commonalities among repositories, resulting in a document that embodies both consensus and compromise — very much a reflection of the multi-faceted repository community.

Next steps

With community-endorsed recommendations complete, the next steps for ORCID and the repository community are:

1. Advocate for adoption of the recommendations by repository platform providers
2. Educate and support developers working to implement the recommendations

Leading the way, DuraSpace is the first organization to take up this charge. According to Michele Mennielli:

“DuraSpace will support and promote the Task Force recommendations throughout its community. The recommendations will be brought to the Governance of its community projects to be considered for the next roadmaps, and DuraSpace will collaborate with ORCID on outreach efforts aimed at spreading the word about the details of the recommendations.”

We hope that many more repository platform providers will follow! Repositories are an integral and essential part of the global research infrastructure and rely on a network of systems connected by identifiers. Helping the global research community get the best from this network is our shared goal.