Recommendation to use ORCID to refer to persons in data repositories where appropriate

1. Explanation of the Background and Benefits of the Recommendation

About ORCID

ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. It is a global, not-for-profit organization sustained by fees from its member organizations (see ORCID website:  https://info.orcid.org/what-is-orcid/). ORCID’s vision is a world where all who participate in research, scholarship, and innovation are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders, and time.

Website URL “ORCID”: https://orcid.org/ [Website opened on 2022-11-17]

According to ORCID: “ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier (an ORCID iD) that you own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other researcher. You can connect your iD with your professional information — affiliations, grants, publications, peer review, and more. You can use your iD to share your information with other systems, ensuring you get recognition for all your contributions, saving you time and hassle, and reducing the risk of errors.”

History and structure

ORICID issues ORCIDs since 2012 to identify autors in scientific publications (see https://info.orcid.org/orcid-launches-registry/). ORCIDS are globally unique. It maintains a stable governance overseeing the developments of the concepts and the underlying infrastructure. It is funded by the ORCID partners. The ORCID infrastructure has proven to be very reliable. Besides web interfaces it features an API, which can be accessed for data retrieval by machines. ORICD maintains a publicly available metadata schema, which is accessible through open interfaces. ORCIDs are free of charge to be used by anyone. 

Current Use of ORCID

ORCID is currently the most widely used system for referencing scientific persons / authors (Researcher / Contributor). Over the recent years numerous repositories and initiatives have recommended the use of ORCID. Among them the Alfred Wegener Instituit [1], the Fachinformationsdienst Geowissenschaften der Niedersächsischen Bibliotheken [2], the Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam [3], the Technical University Munich [4], DINI [7, 8, 9] FAIRsFAIR [10, 11] and others. Nowadays ORICDs are widely used as a de-facto standard to refer to authors of scientific publications by publishers and repository maintainers alike. 

Motivation

The Helmholtz Association is determined to make their data available according to the FAIR principles, thus making it findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. In order to achieve interoperability of datasets among various data infrastructures (DIS) within the Helmholtz Association, a common and agreed procedure to refer to people within and across the DIS is needed. 

In order to be able to uniquely and sustainably identify both researchers and employees in data infrastructures and repositories in the Helmholtz Association, the respective person should always be referenced with the persistent identifier (PID).

2. Possible alternative solutions

Besides ORCID other PID systems for autors of scientific publications exist. The most relevant are Scopus Author ID, Researcher ID / PublonsID, ISNI, Wikidata ID. 

3. Consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of implementing the recommendation

Specialities and Challenges

The use of ORCID in Helmholtz is slightly modified from the original intentions of the ORCID partners. Originally it was intended to typically identify people contributing to research, scholarship, and innovation as authors of publications in publication repositories. In this recommendation, we intend to broaden the use to anyone contributing to a dataset, independently of her or his role as an author. This is a slight difference to the general applications of ORCID in publication repositories. 

<mark class="marker-pink">Kommentar ap: Wir sollten uns mit ORCID dazu verständigen und das hier auch erwähnen.</mark>

According to the ORCID rules, IDs can only be registered and maintained by individuals [reference]. This means, that institutions or repositories can not rely on ORICDs to be present for every person referenced with published datasets. Centres should recommend and crerate incentives for their employees to use ORCIDs (see recommendation XX). 

In cases where an ORCID is not available for a person, we recommend the following : 
... [open / still to be done] 

Are data privacy issues important ? How do they need to be taken care of.

(quality of content, limitations, interoperability, sustainability: expected future dissemination / technical availability / funding)

4. The Recommendation

Wer! macht was! wo! wann! unter welchen Voraussetzungen! 

HMC recommends to use ORCID in all Helmholtz Data Infrastructures to uniquely and sustainably identify people and contributors to ressources in data infrastructures and repositories of the Helmholtz Association wherever possible. 

5. Naming of communities that have already implemented the recommendation

GFZ has already implemented ORCID integration in the identity management system. 
… [open / still to be done]

Pangaea

6. Documentation of the test to validate correct implementation

7. Examples of Instances  
(DataCite: XML / JSON, ISO: XML, Schema.org … [open / still to be done] )

a) DataCite Metadata Schema 4.4, Released 30 Mar 2021

https://schema.datacite.org/meta/kernel-4.4/example/datacite-example-affiliation-v4.xml [Website opened on 2022-1-18]

8. Further Information and references

[1] Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung: ORCID https://wiki.pangaea.de/wiki/ORCID

[2] FID GEO recommends the use of ORCID ID see page 30 in GMIT: https://doi.org/10.23689/fidgeo-5386

[3] GFZ recommends the use of ORCID ID see webpage: https://bib.telegrafenberg.de/publizieren/orcid-id

[4] TUM recommends the use of ORCID ID see webpage: https://www.ub.tum.de/orcid

[5] Schrader, A. C., Pampel, H., Vierkant, P., Glagla-Dietz, S., Schirrwagen, J. (2021): Die ORCID iD: Der persönliche Identifier in der Wissenschaft. - Handbuch Qualität in Studium, Lehre und Forschung, 77. hhttps://doi.org/10.48440/os.helmholtz.032

[6] Schallaböck, J., von Grafenstein, M. (2017): ORCID aus datenschutzrechtlicher Sicht: "Gutachten im Auftrag des von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) geförderten Projektes ORCID DE zur Förderung der Open Researcher and Contributor ID in Deutschland", Berlin : iRights.Law Rechtsanwälte, 51 p. https://doi.org/10.2312/lis.17.02

Relevant Community Recommendations

[7] Autorenidentifikation anhand der Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) - DINI Positionspapier, 2018, Vierkant et al. , DOI: 10.18452/19528

[8] R.3-7 The operating institution offers information about the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and about other author identification standards, DINI Certificate for Open Access Publication Services 2019, DOI: 10.18452/21759

<mark class="marker-pink">Kommentar ap: doppelt </mark>R.3-7 The operating institution offers information about the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and about other author identification standards, DINI Certificate for Open Access Publication Services 2019, DOI: 10.18452/21759

[10] R.6-6 Authors’ names are linked to norm data, DINI Certificate for Open Access Publication Services 2019, DOI: 10.18452/21759

[11] FsF-I3-01M Metadata includes links between the data and its related entities, FAIRsFAIR Data Object Assessment Metrics, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4081213 

[12] FsF-R1.2-01M Metadata includes provenance information about data creation or generation, FAIRsFAIR Data Object Assessment Metrics, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4081213 <mark class="marker-pink">Kommentar ap: neue Version - siehe: </mark>https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6461229