ORCID: The number that every academic needs by Debbie Currie.
From the post:
Do you have your ORCID identifier yet? You might not even know what that is. But if you’re a researcher or academic, or planning to become one, you’re going to need one.
The Open Researcher and Contributor identifier—or ORCID—easily connects a researcher to his or her research output and allows others to access and share that body of work. ORCID streamlines publication submission and enhances discoverability. And, increasingly, granting bodies are requiring the ORCID as part of their application process.
“I tell my students it’s the social security number for a scientist,” says Denis Fourches, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and a resident member of the Bioinformatics Research Center. “Then I show them an example of it that not only facilitates your life, but also the compilation of all the papers you reviewed, the compilation of all the papers you published, the compilation of all the presentations you gave at conferences.”
“‘Want that done automatically?’ I ask. And they say ‘Yeah, I like that.’”
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The ORCID is a unique, 16-digit, ISO-compatible number. For instance, NCSU Libraries Chief Strategist for Research Collaboration Christopher Erdmann’s ID is 0000-0003-2554-180X. Once you register for free, you can then add information to your ORCID record (some of which will be automatically populated), and link your record to other identifier systems and profiles you might already have such as Scopus, ResearcherID, DataCite, or LinkedIn.
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In lieu of the NSA sharing its global identifier for you, ORCID is your next best option. 😉
One of the advantages over your NSA global identifier is that people besides the NSA and its streams of careless contractors use your ORCID identifier.
Take the plunge, at least for your public persona.
I did, not much there (at present) but I’m now identified by: 0000-0003-3057-4833.
It doesn’t roll off the tongue but identifiers rarely do.
Register and start using your ORCID!
PS: Of course you can create an ORCID for your non-public personas as well. Bear in mind the risk of identity disclosing mistakes as you switch from one to the other.