What is ORCID?

What is ORCID?

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a unique identifier for scientific authors. This ID links scientists to their research and scientific work.

The special feature of ORCID is its institution-independence and the possibility to combine other person IDs (Researcher ID, Author ID) as a superordinate ID and to interact with other Persistent Identifiers (PI).

It is therefore possible to assign authors to their scientific results despite different spellings of names and/or affiliations to institutions.

The creation of an ORC ID is voluntary; BOKU recommends that its scientists register with ORCID and use this ID in their daily scientific work.

Advantages for scientists

The benefits for researchers run through the entire administration of publications, research projects and the presentation of their own performance, from submission to recording in the research information systems (FIS or CRIS) of the institutions.

By specifying and linking, the allocation of the scientific output becomes unambiguous(er) and the associated scientific achievement identifiable.

ORCID and research funding

Since 1 January 2016, the ORC ID has been mandatory for FWF applications, i.e. the FWF is also an institutional ORCID member in order to facilitate the administration of internal databases and to enable the correct allocation of scientists. The FWF is also a signatory to the "Funders Supporting ORCID Integrations: Open Letter", a petition for the uniform use of ORCID as a personal identifier in the systems of funding organisations info.orcid.org/funders-open-letter/.

ORCID in science and academia

As of April 2021, more than 110 publishers have made it mandatory to include an ORCID iD in their editorial management systems info.orcid.org/requiring-orcid-in-publications/.  At the European level, too, an anchoring of ORCID for scientists is preferred and is being discussed for the development of the EOSC.

What does an institutional ORCID membership at BOKU mean?

Since August 2018, BOKU supports ORCID as an organisation with its ORCID membership (see BOKU Magazine 4/2018). For members, interfaces to the data of those scientists with an ORCID iD are therefore available. Within the reprogramming of the BOKU research information system FIS some of these interfaces are used.

ORCID and data security

ORCID places a very high value on data protection, is TrustArc  certified and has adapted to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In addition, ORCID's external data protection settings are based on a three-level principle (everyone - public, trusted - restricted access and only me - private), which are always controlled by the individual researchers themselves.

Who is behind ORCID?

ORCID is an international non-profit company that has been issuing the identifier since 2012 and is now supported by many scientific publishers, research institutions, funding bodies, etc. The ORCID consortium is the largest of its kind in the world. As of April 2021, ORCID has 1241 organisational memberships and 24 consortia from different countries, including the ORCID-Austria consortium.

How can I create an ORCID?

How can I create an ORCID?

At https://orcid.org/ you will find the menu item "Register for an ORCID iD". To get this ID, only the fields first name and email address are obligatory, a password must also be chosen and settings for the visibility of the ORCID profile must be made. The "Info page" of ORCID https://info.orcid.org/ contains a lot of information about ORCID, registration and the settings of the ORCID profile.

Further FAQs on ORCID can be found here.