ORCiD (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) is a 16-digit number that uniquely and persistently identifies a scholarly researcher (for example, http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9718-6515).
ORCiD is a not-for-profit organization, and its work is open, transparent, and non-proprietary. ORCiD adheres to principles of privacy and researcher control.
Here are a few reasons why:
Funders (e.g., NSF, NIH) and journal publishers are increasingly requiring that researchers have an ORCiD, and many more encourage its use. Learn more about ORCiD.
What is ORCID? from ORCID on Vimeo.
For more details and screenshots, see these presentation slides (slides 40-69, link goes directly to slide 40). There are four basic steps to populating your ORCID works: connect to your Scopus Author Profile, choose one or more automatic import options, import a BibTeX file, and merge or delete duplicates.
Tip: If you have many publications and sources for importing (e.g., Scopus, Google Scholar), you can import from multiple locations first and then merge or delete duplicates (Step 4).
ORCiD is integrated with Elements (EFARs) and the Virginia Tech Data Repository. To set up a sync of ORCiD with Elements, sign in to Elements and go to Menu (upper left corner) > Settings > Automatic Claiming.
Need help? Send an email to orcid@vt.edu.
The University Libraries is currently working to integrate ORCiD with:
In August 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technical Policy (OSTP) released a new public access memo for federal agencies to make all federally funded research freely available. The memo also includes specific guidance on digital persistent identifiers (DPIs, also known as persistent identifiers (PIDs)) for researchers, as defined in the NSPM-33 Implementation Guidance.
Although ORCID is not mentioned specifically in the NSPM-33 guidance or the OSTP public access memo, ORCID is currently the only DPI option for individuals that meets the requirements stipulated in the NSPM-33 guidance.
If you are a researcher who receives funding from federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and/or the National Institutes of Health (NIH), then you will need to ensure you have an ORCID iD and that you include the following on your ORCID record:
You will also need to ensure that the information on your ORCID (specifically the information listed above) is made publicly available. By default, when you initially setup your ORCID record, it is set to private. Be sure to toggle your bio, funding, and scholarly works to public:
If there is sensitive information on your ORCID, you can always set individual items to private (such as grant/funding data). Visit the Visibility settings page from ORCID for more information.