We live in information age where everything is available at the click of a mouse and search engines are an integral part of our lives. Likewise, the world of scientific research has also undergone metamorphosis with onus shifting toward digital age. Check out the success of Google scholar, PubMed, ResearchGate, and Mendeley: the most powerful tools for researchers all over the world. Just a thought for magnitude: PubMed is the biomedical literature library that provides upto 1 million papers each year. PubMed makes medical literature available to the common man, a digital innovation of the US government.
With digital nature of publications, information science has also undergone metamorphosis. Today we live in a world of digital libraries, and a system was required to integrate and collaborate researchers all over the world. The latest data and science had to be available to researchers living anywhere in the world, thanks to the internet of things.
An ORCID iD account
ORCID is the acronym for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. It is an important digital platform that connects researchers with latest research publications and innovations all across the world. ORCID Inc was launched on October 16th, 2012. ORCID ID is a digital identifier, which is an alphanumeric, 16 digit code. It is a unique identification number, which stands for the digital identity of each individual working in the research industry: professor, independent scholar, post-doc researcher, science writer, academic author, doctorate student, etc.
These digital numbers are used by each researcher to get access to scientific research across the globe. At the same, ORCID creates a massive integration of the entire research publication process, right from submission of grants to the publication of manuscripts. It is a unique way of getting research work recognized, advertised and promoted.
Uses of ORCID ID
As an ORCID account holder, your efforts in terms of publications and conferences are provided to all members of ORCID; researchers across overseas and domestic frontiers can easily collaborate and gather resources for research grants and funding. ORCID number traces the following activities:
- Research publications
- Research papers related the researchers’ papers
- Published patents
- Research grants
- Research blogs
- Affiliations to institutions and research organizations
- Awards and recognition
- Evaluation scores
- Wikipedia articles
In totality, ORCID account simplifies the manuscript submission/acceptance process for any scientist bridging the gap between academia and industry. ORCID is acceptable by all scientific publishers, so researchers can submit their papers easily to all publishers. They do not have to refurbish their information and credentials each time.
In terms of manuscript writing, ORCID account provides access to most scientific literature. Thus, scientists can easily scour the literature and cite relevant literature in their manuscript for improving the authenticity/quality of their research study.
Here is the list of prominent publishers which have mandatory ORCID requirements for authors:
- Hindawi
- PLOS
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- Science
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
- American Geophysical Union
- American Chemical Society
- Nature
- Wiley
Today researchers from different universities and research organizations from across the world can collaborate and gather research funding, thanks to the most successful platform: ORCID. The most prestigious governmental research funding in Australia is received from NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council) and ARC (Australian Research Council). They have made ORCID compulsory for all researchers in Australia for receiving grants. In the USA, the research funding agency NIH (National Institute of Health) has streamlined the process of integrating their user name with ORCID.