What is ORCID? from ORCID on Vimeo.

​ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) is a registry of unique identifiers for researchers and scholars. It distinguish a specific researcher from other researchers and is integrated into key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submissions. In addition, it also supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities to ensure accurate attribution of work to their authors, and thus enhances the discoverability of research. ORCID is free, flexible and easy-to-use and reaches across disciplines, research sectors, and national boundaries to help reduce reporting workload, improve attribution, and streamline research, collaboration, and evaluation workflows. 

​ORCID provides two core functions:

• a registry where you can obtain a unique identifier and manage a record of activities
• APIs that support system-to system communication and authentication

The ORCID web site maintains a list of institutions and organizations with established ORCID programs in place or in progress such as:

• Professional societies and associations (American Association of Immunologists, American Chemical Society, etc)
• Publishers and Presses (e.g. Elsevier, Wiley, Nature Publishing, etc)
• Research institutions (e.g. Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, National Institutes of Health)
• Federal Agencies (Food and Drug Administration, etc)
• Scholarly Sharing Service providers (CrossRef, FigShare, DataCite)
• Major Research Universities (Harvard University, Cal Tech, MIT, University of Michigan, etc)

• ORCID Helps You Eliminate Name Ambiguity
• ORCID Helps You Improve Discoverability
• ORCID Helps You Attribute and Connect to Your Work 
• ORCID Helps You Save Your Time
• ORCID is Required by Growing Number of Funders and Publishers

REGISTER: Get your unique ORCID identifier

• Go to https://orcid.org/register
• Fill in the required fields
• Decide if you want notifications on News
• Accept Terms of Use (you might want to read them) and done!
• You are provided with a 16-digit number that is your ORCID ID

• ---

  Provide additional personal or professional information to help raise your visibility if you like. You can choose different private settings for all entries individually. 

ADD YOUR INFO: Enhance your ORCID record with your professional information and link to your other identifiers (such as Scopus or ResearcherID)

• Publications, conference materials, intellectual property or other materials such as datasets, speeches can be imported manually or from databases, data repositories, grants, or publishers by using ORCID import wizards (CrossRef, Europe PubMed Central, ResearchID or Scopus, ÜberWizard, etc). 
   

USE YOUR ORCID ID: Include your ORCID identifier on your webpage or email signature, when you submit publications, apply for grants, and in any research workflow to ensure you get credit for your work.

• Some major publishers (e.g. Nature publisher group, Elsevier) and funding agencies (e.g. NIH) have implement ORCID into their workflows. 

Researcher privacy is a fundamental principle for ORCID.  Three settings (Public, Limited or Private) are provided to researchers 

Public

Information marked as "Public" can be viewed by anyone who comes to the ORCID.org website or consumed by anyone using the ORCID public API.  

Limited

Information marked as "Limited" can be seen by any Trusted Parties that a researcher has authorized to connect to his/her ORCID Record. The resesarcher will be asked if he/she would like to make a specific connection, and once the permission is confirmed, the Trusted Party will be able to see information that he/she has marked as limited-access.

Private

Information marked as "Private" can only be seen by the researcher. It is also used by ORCID algorithms to help distinguish identity from another person who may have a similar name, be in a similar field, or may be confused with him/her for other reasons. This information is not shared with others.