ORCID is an attempt to provide researchers and authors with a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes one individual from other researchers. Utilizing this standard through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, automated linkages between an individual and their professional activities is made and ensures their work is appropriately attributed. ORCID has had seen rapid uptake in its’ first year with over 350,000 registered researchers and is expected to continued steady growth in the future. It is extremely easy for a researcher/author to register for ORCID. Simply fill out the form provided and then seek to import works through one of the various linking platforms made available. Researchers/authors can chose to link to other identifiers such as SCOPUS ID or Researcher ID to create connections in that manner as well. Librarians and library organizations are dedicated to the promotion of ORCID and have helped register many researchers during OA Week activities. The management of the ORCID standard is overseen by a Board of Directors with a wide representation of stakeholders on various working groups and teams. Almost all the major STM publishers are members and support ORCID and see the value in having an author identification standard that is widely adopted. In addition, many of the major funding agencies have joined with ORCID to promote the standard and serve as members. Authors will continue to see greater benefits of utilizing an ORCID in the future as more and more content providers and abstracting and indexing services utilize this identifier to link authors’ work from one system to another.
For librarians involved in the production of faculty works from local library platforms, inclusion of the ORCID as part of the metadata used for ingested content will enhance discoverability and recognition of the institutional repository. When considering a checklist for open access advocacy, ORCID is a must have.
Register for your own ORCID ID here
The other very significant identifier to academic librarians is the ability to correctly identify the institutions to which a researcher may be associated. This is best accomplished with the utilisation of I2 (Institutional Identifier) which has been published as NISO RP-17-2013 a recommend practice by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). This identifier helps to create the appropriate association between a researcher and their parent organization/research unit.
NISO partnered with the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) International Agency to adopt their infrastructure for institutional identification. The recommended practice document outlines the partnership between the two groups and the recommended practice for institutional identification. This recommended practice was fully adopted in March 2013. The I2 attributes are:
- Identify organizations
- Be an opaque string of characters
- Support the creation of a core metadata set that describes an institution sufficiently for unambiguous identification
- Support registration of institutions in a decentralized manner
- Address community-specific registry needs
- Allow URI’s from third party registries to be submitted and stored
The intent of the I2 recommendation is to provide a solution to a global problem of a proliferation of identifiers being used being assigned to institutions through various workflows for commercial content and locally created content. Librarians managing institutional repositories are best served by the utilization of an International Standard Name Identifier (ISO 27729). Organizations participating in the information supply chain should ask for an ISNI from the ISNI Registration Agency (ISNI RA) and implement this identifier on all works to which it applies. The recommended practice outlines various use case scenarios.
3.1 Open Access Metadata & Indicators
3.2 ORCID
3.3 FundRef
3.4 CrossMark
3.5 Preservation & Storage Formats
3.6 Alternative Metric Schemes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.