ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID)
From the About page:
ORCID, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to solving the name ambiguity problem in scholarly research and brings together the leaders of the most influential universities, funding organizations, societies, publishers and corporations from around the globe. The ideal solution is to establish a registry that is adopted and embraced as the de facto standard by the whole of the community. A resolution to the systemic name ambiguity problem, by means of assigning unique identifiers linkable to an individual’s research output, will enhance the scientific discovery process and improve the efficiency of funding and collaboration. The organization is managed by a fourteen member Board of Directors.
ORCID’s principles will guide the initiative as it grows and operates. The principles confirm our commitment to open access, global communication, and researcher privacy.
Accurate identification of researchers and their work is one of the pillars for the transition from science to e-Science, wherein scholarly publications can be mined to spot links and ideas hidden in the ever-growing volume of scholarly literature. A disambiguated set of authors will allow new services and benefits to be built for the research community by all stakeholders in scholarly communication: from commercial actors to non-profit organizations, from governments to universities.
Thomson Reuters and Nature Publishing Group convened the first Name Identifier Summit in Cambridge, MA in November 2009, where a cross-section of the research community explored approaches to address name ambiguity. The ORCID initiative officially launched as a non-profit organization in August 2010 and is moving ahead with broad stakeholder participation (view participant gallery). As ORCID develops, we plan to engage researchers and other community members directly via social media and other activity. Participation from all stakeholders at all levels is essential to fulfilling the Initiative’s mission.
I am not altogether certain that elimination of ambiguity in identification will enable “…min[ing] to spot links and ideas hidden in the ever-growing volume of scientific literature.” Or should I say there is no demonstrated connection between unambiguous identification of researchers and such gains?
True enough, the claim is made but I thought science was based on evidence, not simply making claims.
And, like most researchers, I have discovered unexpected riches when mistaking one researcher’s name for another’s. Reducing ambiguity in identification will reduce the incidence of, well, ambiguity in identification.
Jack Park forwarded this link to me.
[…] occurred to me to check if Crossref was participating in ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) and they are. Could well make a difference for articles being currently published as well as for […]
Pingback by Crossref’s gift of metadata « Another Word For It — September 23, 2011 @ 6:25 pm
[…] ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) « Another Word For It ORCID, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to solving the name ambiguity problem in scholarly research and brings together the leaders of the most influential universities, funding organizations, societies, publishers … Source: tm.durusau.net […]
Pingback by ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) « Another Word For It | ResearcherID | Scoop.it — October 4, 2011 @ 10:16 am