ORCID: Benefits for Researchers

Image: Copyright IDC/ORCID

By using ORCID's API the system works as a hub to connect many research activties.

One of the big problems for attributing research activities and outputs correctly to a researcher is name ambiguities:

• A researcher's name can appear as different variants (e.g. David Byrne, D. Byrne, David Walter Byrne, D.W. Byrne ...)
• Two or more researchers, even in the same institution or school, can have the same name (e.g. D. Byrne in Dublin, D. Byrne in Manchester)
• Names with diacritics or graphemes are often spelled in different ways (e.g. Jörg Müller, Joerg Mueller, Jorg Muller; M. Sandfær, M. Sandfaer)
• Names can appear in different writing systems (e.g. Tatiana Vagramenko, Татиана Ваграменко)

By registering and using an ORCID ID you can easily distinguish yourself and assure that your work is attributed only to yourself.

Unlike other platforms and databases which may only cover a portion of your total output (e.g. Scopus or Web of Science), or only certain types of outputs (e.g. journal articles), you can add all of your publications, works and activities to your ORCID record to create a comprehensive listing in one place, including outputs like datasets, peer review activities and more.  

You need to be able to easily and uniquely associate your identity to research outputs such as datasets, equipment, articles, media stories, citations, experiments, patents, and notebooks. By using ORCID you can ensure that all your research activities and outputs are easily discoverable.

An ORCID can reduce repetitive data entry. As ORCID is becoming increasingly implemented into other systems, the reuse of publication data is being facilitated more easily for manuscript submissions to publishers (e.g. Wiley), funding applications (e.g. Wellcome Trust), author ID systems (e.g. Scopus) and professional associations.