Identifiers and Research: ORCID Basics and Plans – Interview with Laure Haak

Brazil is promoting a remarkable advance in the adoption of the research identifier ORCID with the formation of the Brazilian ORCID Consortium led by CAPES with the participation of several organizations, among which SciELO. All SciELO Brazil journals will publish articles with authors’ ORCID as of 2019. An interview with Laure Haak highlights the importance of ORCID.

Why are persistent identifiers important in research information systems?

Research information is useful only if it can be shared, whether that is to cite a person’s body of work, to evaluate impact of a funding portfolio, or to benchmark a university’s contribution to teaching and research. All of these examples require that information must be shared and, in our digital age, that means shared between data systems. Persistent identifiers provide unique keys that enable accurate mapping of information between systems, even if a person’s name is expressed differently, or a title or journal name is abbreviated, or an organization name is listed in different languages.

What is ORCID and how are ORCID iDs different from other identifiers for researchers?

ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers (an ORCID iD). ORCID is different from other researcher identifiers because we are non-proprietary, interdisciplinary, and global in scope. ORCID iDs are collected in research workflows so that researchers can use their iD as they do their work – and benefit from seamless connections to their contributions and affiliations, saving them time when filing reports and application forms. In addition, ORCID empowers researchers, who own and manage their identifier and associated record. Connections are made only with the researcher’s explicit permission, and they can use their iD throughout their career, wherever they go and whatever they do.

What is your vision for embedding ORCID throughout the research ecosystem?

Researchers are integral to research, scholarship, and innovation. We envisage a world where researchers are seamlessly connected to their contributions and affiliations. Where iDs are collected from researchers every time they interact with a research system – when they join a new organization, apply for a grant or use a research facility, or submit their work for publication. A world where these interactions become digital records of that researcher’s contributions, which they can easily share.

Why is ORCID important for publishers and publishing workflows?

Published works – datasets, journals, books, or any number of other contributions – are the main way that research findings are reviewed and shared with the community. Publishers are a critical component of the ecosystem, mediating the connections between authors and their works. ORCID provides a means to uniquely identify researchers – authors, reviewers, editors – across journals, publishers, languages, and databases. When used by publishers, ORCID supports the research process by enabling search, discovery, recognition, and collaboration. In addition, ORCID can help with more prosaic endeavors, including reducing the time researchers spend submitting manuscripts through single-sign-on and population of submission forms with information from the author’s ORCID record. In Brazil, as of May 2018, 62 journals are collecting ORCID iDs from authors during manuscript submission, because of our partnership with SciELO.

What is the current status of ORCID implementations in Latin America?

Researchers in all Latin American countries are using ORCID. At present, we have 23 member organizations in the region – in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru – that are in various stages of implementing ORCID into funding, publishing, and university research systems. In addition, Brazil launched a national ORCID consortium in 2017, with the goal of integrating ORCID across the whole research lifecycle.

What is ORCID’s strategic vision for Latin America in general and Brazil in particular?

Regardless of country, our vision is to support the sharing of research information, with the researcher at the center. Our goal is to support communities of practice in using open research infrastructure to build the tools that support open research. This takes different forms depending on the local context. Communities around the world are adopting ORCID as an essential component of open research policy, as with Redalyc (Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y el Caribe, España y Portugal) in Mexico. In Brazil, the research community is implementing these policies through its ORCID consortium.

What is ORCID doing at national level around the world?

ORCID has close to five million registered users around the world, and continues to grow. Over 850 organizations have joined ORCID as members, most of which are part of national consortia in 17 countries. Our members are building ORCID into research systems, and working with us to expand our data model (see, for example, recent work on affiliations, research resources, and funding). We are clarifying best practices for implementing ORCID, and working with organizations that build research systems to ensure their ORCID integrations support community use cases.

Where do you hope ORCID will be in three years time – in Latin America and globally?

We just completed a strategic planning process, from which we articulated our core strategies and developed a three-year roadmap. Over the course of the next three years, we will continue our work to improve how researchers can use ORCID to share information about their research contributions, clarify how assertions are made and used, and test our work in constant engagement with our global community. In 2018, we are focusing our work on the funding community; in 2019 our focus will be on researchers; and in 2020 we will be engaging with researchers and organizations outside of our core academic community. Through this work, our goal remains the same: to serve the community as a trusted and neutral actor in sharing research information.

We are particularly excited about the ORCID community developing in Brazil. CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) and ORCID signed an unprecedented partnership in December 2017, for consortial and coordinated adoption of ORCID across research information systems in the country. This agreement is unique and promising in that it involves, at the national level, all institutions responsible for collecting and disseminating research information. It represents an important step toward information interoperability in the Brazilian research ecosystem – and provides an example for collaborative action on an international stage.

The Brazilian ORCID Consortium includes CAPES, the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPQ), the Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT), the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), the Conselho Nacional das Fundações Estaduais de Amparo à Pesquisa (CONFAP), and the Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), which acts as a facilitator. Within the framework of the consortium, ORCID will serve as an information hub, ensuring transparency, higher data quality, and less manual work for researchers as they interact with different research systems.

We hope the Brazil’s experience with ORCID will be shared across the Latin American region, for the benefit of the whole research community.

References

2018 Project Roadmap [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/about/what-is-orcid/mission/2018-project-roadmap

DEMERANVILLE, T. Expanding Affiliations in ORCID: An Update [online]. ORCID Blog, 2018 [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/blog/2018/03/01/expanding-affiliations-orcid-update

HAAK, L. Acknowledging Research Resources: New ORCID Data Model [online]. ORCID Blog, 2018 [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/blog/2018/04/10/acknowledging-research-resources-new-orcid-data-model

HAAK, L. ORID: We won’t be sold [online]. ORCID Blog, 2016 [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/blog/2016/08/16/orcid-we-wont-be-sold

Integration Point: Sign In Using ORCID Credentials [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://members.orcid.org/api/integrate/orcid-sign-in

MEJIAS, G. ORCID in Latin America: An Update [online]. ORCID Blog, 2018 [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/blog/2018/03/02/latam-update-en

MORTATO, N. Instituições discutem consórcio para assinatura de identificador digital [online]. CAPES. 2017 [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://www.capes.gov.br/sala-de-imprensa/noticias/8641-instituicoes-discutem-consorcio-para-assinatura-de-identificador-digital

ORCID for Consortia [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/content/orcid-consortia

ORCID in Publication Workflows: A Step-by-Step Guide for Publishers [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/content/orcid-publication-workflows-step-step-guide-publishers

ORCID Trust – Individual Control [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/about/trust/control

Our Mission [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/about/what-is-orcid/mission

Our Principles [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/about/what-is-orcid/principles

Our strategic plan [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/about/what-is-orcid/mission#strategic-plan

The ORBIT project [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/organizations/funders/orbit

Welcome to Collect & Connect: ORCID’s integration and engagement program [online]. ORCID [viewed 18 May 2018]. Available from: https://orcid.org/content/collect-connect

External Links

Member Support Center <https://members.orcid.org/>

ORCID Member <https://orcid.org/member>

ORCID Members: Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa <https://orcid.org/members/0010f00002DzH58AAF-rede-nacional-de-ensino-e-pesquisa-rnp>

Redalyc <http://www.redalyc.org/home.oa>

About Laurel Haak

Laurel L. Haak, Executive Director. Laure drives awareness of the ORCID mission, building strategic relationships, working with a broad range of constituents, ensuring organizational persistence, and directing ORCID staff and contractors. Previously, Laure was Chief Science Officer at Discovery Logic, Inc.; a program officer for the US National Academies’ Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy; and editor of Science’s Next Wave Postdoc Network at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Laure received a BS and an MS in Biology from Stanford University and a PhD in Neuroscience in 1997 from Stanford University Medical School, and she was a postdoc at the US National Institutes of Health.