ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a non-profit organisation, which provides unique identifiers (ORCID iDs) for authors. These IDs are utilized for author identification by many ORCID members – including research organisations, publishers, funders and professional associations.
ORCID iD
The ORCID iD is a persistent identifier for individuals. It contains 16 digits grouped in blocks of four. As part of a web address it refers to a person's ORCID record, in which further data can be stored – permanently and affiliation independently – such as:
- name variants in order to make name changes due to marriage or different spellings of a name transparent
- addresses of websites and blogs
- links to other identification management services and author profiles (e.g. Google Scholar Profil, ISNI, ResearcherID).
For more information on the relevance of author profiles and how to create and maintain them please consult the university library's info sheet "Academic Identity Management".