We are delighted to announce the establishment of the ORCID consortium in Colombia and to share its journey.
This consortium is the result of strong collaboration between ORCID and Consortia, the lead organization. Consortia is an independent organization that aims to improve access to high quality digital scientific information and tools for university libraries, students, researchers, and other contributors in Latin America. The Colombian consortium is formed by 61 institutional members and was officially established on 1 March 2021 with three main goals:
- To implement a coordinated approach towards ORCID adoption throughout the country;
- To improve visibility for researchers and their activities; and
- To improve research information infrastructure by enabling the interconnectivity of information between systems in a transparent, trustworthy way.
The Colombian consortium is our second consortia in Latin America and has tripled the number of members in the region to 94. It includes 59 universities; the national Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation; and Consortia as members.
A journey that began in 2016
Although the conversation between ORCID and Colombian stakeholders started back in 2016, it was only in 2018 that ORCID engaged in consistent conversations with ASCUN—the Association of Colombian Universities—and Colciencias (currently Minciencias – Colombian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation) to discuss the establishment of an ORCID national consortium, as the number of users and organizations interested in membership was clearly growing in the country.
Back then, both ASCUN and Colciencias agreed on the value of ORCID in the open infrastructure ecosystem and could foresee the advantages of enabling researchers to have their iDs connected to their national cv system, CvLAC, and of linking Publindex, the collection of Colombian journals, to the ORCID Registry with a Search & Link Wizard import tool, for the benefit of the whole community.
A strong signal from the community
In 2019, while these conversations were still ongoing, we continued to work directly with the community, building awareness to increase both individual and institutional adoption of ORCID. We participated in key events and discussion panels in the country, at the OpenCon, and in other conversations around PIDs and open research/open infrastructure. In the same year, we organized our first workshop in Colombia to discuss integration best practices and use cases with members and potential members.
Last year, we saw a turning point on the project as Consortia joined our efforts. In a collaborative and strategic approach, Consortia worked with ASCUN’s members to gather feedback from the representatives of the 60 universities that form their “Special projects commission 9” on their interest about ORCID membership and integrations. As a result of the survey, and approved by unanimity, ORCID membership was included as part of Consortia’s basic services. This was a strong signal from the community to move forward with the consortium project. We worked closely with Consortia hosting meetings and webinars to promote the benefits of ORCID among the Colombian community. Finally, earlier this year, the agreement to establish the consortium with 61 members was signed!
“The ORCID Colombian Consortium is a collaborative work between IES; ASCUN; the Ministry of National Education; the Ministry of Sciences, Technology and Innovation; and operated by Consortia to provide real and equitable access to different international platforms of scientific publications in order to stimulate the production of research in different disciplines, increasing the standard of national publications, and having greater visibility of Colombian scientific production in an international scale.”
César Rendón, Consortia’s CEO
Onboarding members into ORCID’s sixth-largest consortium
Since their launch in March, onboarding and supporting members has kept the Consortia team busy, considering the Colombian consortium is the sixth largest of our 24 national consortia.
The Consortia team
Paula Saavedra, Projects Director, is responsible for leading the consortium to increase the adoption and implementation of ORCID.
Johann Reyes, Tech Projects Specialist, coordinates technical activities and is responsible for the members technical support.
Marco Ruiz, Customer Loyalty Specialist, delivers training sessions and is responsible for the technical support to the academic and research community.
César Marín, Communications Coordinator, manages outreach and all activities related to promoting the consortium and its visibility..
Onboarding events and tools
During their first months as a consortium lead organization, the Consortia team—in close cooperation with ORCID—has been focused on engaging with their consortium members to promote ORCID within each member organization, to plan API integrations, and to organize training and outreach sessions. So far, Consortia has held more than 70 meetings with 51 members and 8 training sessions with more than 2,000 attendees.
Currently there are eight complete institutional integrations, and in addition, 16 members are developing new system connections and testing the Member API in the Sandbox. Consortia and ORCID are co-hosting an open webinar (in Spanish) on July 28th to showcase institutional adoption use cases.
We invite you to take a look at the ORCID Colombia Consortium’s website to find out more about consortial membership benefits, check out their ORCID API and integration guidance, and download some of the excellent outreach materials they have developed.
We invite all those interested to join and follow the progress of the ORCID Colombia Consortium!
