Applying Open Researchers and Contributors ID in scholarly journals

Article information

Sci Ed. 2015;2(1):28-31

Publication date (electronic) : 2015 February 28

doi : https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.33

Jeonghee Im

M2 Community, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence to Jeonghee Im heeya033i@m2community.co.kr

Received 2014 December 30; Accepted 2015 January 23.

Abstract

Open Researchers and Contributors ID (ORCID) launched its registry services in October 2012. Consequently, adding personal information to the ORCID registry became routine work for researchers. To add ORCID to an online article, the tag < contrib-id contrib-id-type = “orcid” > needs to be included in the Journal Article Tag Suite extensible markup language file, if such a file has been produced by the publisher. Subsequently, all co-authors’ ORCID can be easily and conveniently collected and then integrated into the manuscript management system. In the current age of information and the Internet, journals need to keep pace with the surge of new standards and technologies. Editors should be able to accept and apply these new systems rapidly.

Keywords: Open Researchers and Contributors ID; Scholarly publishing

Introduction

The Open Researchers and Contributors ID (ORCID) registry was launched on October 16, 2012 (http://orcid.org). This article presents a description of ORCID and a step-by-step guide for adding ORCID data to Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) extensible markup language (XML) files.

Definition of Open Researchers and Contributors ID

ORCID represents an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique identification for researchers. It is operated by ORCID, Inc., which has made the ORCID registry available free of charge to individuals. ORCID records hold non-sensitive information, such as the name, email, affiliation, and research activities of authors. ORCID offers two core functions: first, a registry provides a unique identifier and manages a record of activities; second, an application programming interface supports system-to-system communication and authentication [1]. Through ORCID, researchers can maintain and modify their research using their unique identifier. They can choose the information from their research results that they would like to share, including setting the range of their publicly available excerpt. With the permission of the researchers concerned, references can be downloaded in a standard form. Further, all development programs are disseminated by an open-source software license.

The structure of an ORCID is as follows: http URL+16-digit number. An example is http://orcid.org/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx or http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8559-8640. The numbers from 0000-0001-5000-0007 to 0000-0003-50000-0001 are issued and assigned randomly.

Why Add Open Researchers and Contributors ID

Many researchers inevitably share the same name, and as such, exact identification is necessary. Other systems have been proposed and used, including Thomson Reuters’s Researcher ID and Elsevier’s Scopus. As these two systems are operated by commercial companies, the founders of ORCID sought to provide a general, public registry system. An ORCID contains not only the published or presented works of authors but also information on authors’ bibliography, education, and funding history. For researchers registered in ORCID, their publications can be traced by institutes easily without needing to tap into the database of other institutions. As the ORCID system is adopted by many scholarly journals, authors can enjoy the advantages of having their complete records in ORCID.

How to Add Researcher Information to Open Researchers and Contributors ID

ORCID registration can be done at https://orcid.org/register. To add information to ORCID, researchers should sign in to the system through https://orcid.org/signin. Adding articles to ORCID is easy as long as they are registered in CrossRef, Scopus, Web of Science, Europe PubMed Central, and other platforms.

Coding of the Open Researchers and Contributors ID Tag and Integration into the Journal Article Tag Suite Extensible Markup Language File

The ORCID appears on the print copy either at the top or bottom of an article. It may be indicated, for example, as corresponding author: Sun Huh (http://orcid.org/0000-0002- 8559-8640), or ORCID, Sun Huh: http://orcid.org/0000-0002- 8559-8640.

Fig. 1. shows an ORCID appearing on the online version of a paper. To integrate an ORCID into the online version of the paper, certain tags need to be added to the JATS XML as shown in the following example for Sun Huh at the Department of Parasitology and Institute of Medical Education, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea:

Fig. 1.

Screen shot of an article that has an ORCID (Open Researchers and Contributors ID) tag (Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3946/kjme.2008.20.4.375).

<contrib-group>

<contrib-id contrib-id-type = “orcid”>http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8559-8640</contrib-id>

<given-names> Sun< /given-names>

</name>

</contrib>

<aff > Department of Parasitology and Institute of Medical Education, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Chuncheon < country > Korea < /country>

</aff>

</contrib-group>

If XML was not used in web publication, hypertext markup language coding can be added as follows:

Sun Huh<a href=“http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8559-8640” alt=“http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8559-8640” title=“http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8559-8640” target=“_blank”>

In this coding, orcid.gif is an icon of ORCID. Clicking this icon leads to the author at ORCID site.

Integration of Open Researchers and Contributors ID into the Manuscript Management System

The best way to add an ORCID tag is to integrate the ORCID info into the manuscript management system or e-submission system involved, as shown in Fig. 2. At present, many manuscript management systems provide an ORCID field on author information in their page.

Fig. 2.

Integration of author's ORCID (Open Researchers and Contributors ID) information into an e-submission system (Available from: http://submit.jeehp.org/).

Conclusion

Journal publication continues to adopt new international standards and information systems, bolstered by advances in information technologies, especially the Internet. At present, the online version of journal articles reaches a wider audience and provides more convenient than the print version. To survive in the information and Internet age, journals should be equipped with all the new systems for organizing data, including ORCID, which is simple to be introduced in online journal publishing, requires the inclusion of one ORCID tag only, namely <contrib-id contrib-id-type = “orcid” > </contribid> in the JATS XML file. Collectively, authors are encouraged to add their ORCID information by integrating an ORCID field in the manuscript management system.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by a research grant of the National Research Foundation of Korea (policy research-2013-003-academic infrastructure promotion) and Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (KOFST-2013), the Government of the Republic of Korea.

References

1. ORCID. What is ORCID? [Internet]. Bethesda, MD: ORCID [cited 2014 May 10] Available from: http://orcid.org/node/47.

Article information Continued

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Fig. 1.

Screen shot of an article that has an ORCID (Open Researchers and Contributors ID) tag (Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3946/kjme.2008.20.4.375).

Fig. 2.

Integration of author's ORCID (Open Researchers and Contributors ID) information into an e-submission system (Available from: http://submit.jeehp.org/).