Scholarly Impact Challenge: Day 1: Register for ORCID
Day 1: Register for ORCID
This is the first of five challenges to work through over the next week. Each message contains one activity to help you take control of your online scholarly presence and better understand and communicate the impact of your research. Each activity should take between 5 and 30 minutes.
This week, we will focus on managing your online scholarly identity: how others find you and your work on the web. Let's get started!
First up, the Day 1 challenge: Register for ORCID
Activity
What is ORCID?
An ORCID is a unique 16-digit researcher ID number associated with you (such as: 0000-0001-5083-7835). The term ORCID also refers to the registry of all such numbers, which makes it possible to unambiguously associate publications, funding, and other information with the correct person.
- ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-based effort to create and maintain a registry of unique research identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers
- ORCID provides a standard unique author identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission systems, helps to ensure you get credit for your work by automatically linking between you and your professional activities
- ORCID Registry aims to prevent authorship confusion
An ORCID ID is increasingly required by publishers, funding agencies, and other application and submission systems that want to ensure they have identified you correctly.
Getting Started
- Create your ID on the ORCID website.
- Once your ID is created, spend a little time filling out your profile.
- Take a moment to add your ORCID to your email signature, your personal webpage—anywhere you typically post your name, affiliation, and contact information. It’s also a good idea to keep it on a sticky note near where you work so you can easily find it and enter it when asked!
- Don’t forget to use your ORCID whenever the opportunity arises! The more it is used, the more useful it will become as a tool to connect your scholarship all across the web.
Learn More
- Fondren Library ORCID Guide
- “Six Things to Do Now You’ve Got an ORCID iD,” blog post from ORCID
- List of publishers requiring ORCID
Remember
- ORCID is institution-neutral. Your ORCID stays the same and travels with you no matter where you go. Consider registering with a personal email rather than your Rice email. Or, remember to update your email if your institutional affiliation changes.
- ORCID privileges the autonomy, authority, and privacy of each researcher. That means that only you can register an ORCID on your own behalf (Rice University cannot do this for you, and nor can any other institution). Only you can control what information is visible on your ORCID profile and to whom. And only you can authorize third-party applications to read from or write to your ORCID profile.
- With your permission, ORCID is ready and waiting to pull in information about your work from other sources, which can save a lot of time and effort when filling out your profile.
Bonus Challenge
If you already have an ORCID ID, consider using the time to edit your profile, check that your work is linked to the profile, and/or add your ID to your email signature, webpage, etc. This video discusses the importance of regularly reviewing and updating your profile.
Preparing for the next challenge:
Congratulations! You’ve completed Day 1 of the Scholarly Impact Challenge: registering for ORCID! On Day 2, you'll claim your Google Scholar profile.