ETD Guide

ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. It's a nonprofit organization that was launched as a community effort to solve problems regarding name ambiguity in research and scholarly communications.

Name ambiguity can become an issue when:

• Multiple researchers have the same name
• A researcher uses different versions of his or her name (for example, using a full name in some instances while using only initials in others)
• A name change occurs as a result of marriage or for other legal reason
• There are multiple family/last names

Find more information and sign up at orcid.org.

• Registration is free
• Researchers receive unique persistent identifiers and can use ORCID to connect to other identifiers, affiliations, and creative and scholarly works
• Enables auto-updates of a researcher's record when their creative and scholarly works are published.
• Researchers own their ORCID idenifier, control what is connected to it, and control the privacy settings on their account.
• Researchers can use the same identifier throughout their career, regardless of changes in discipline, location, name, or affiliation.
• ORCID records contain minimal data--records simply describe connections between identifiers and provide citations for source items.