ORCID

The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (“ORCID”) was established to solve name ambiguity and researcher identification problems by giving individuals a unique numeric identifier that persists over time. Unlike other author identifiers, ORCID is not limited by discipline or by geographic region or to any proprietary publisher or information provider.  Major publishers, funders and research institutions have been adopting this international standard to support improved data exchange between scholarly search platforms and information systems.

In 2017 the University of Toronto Libraries joined ORCID-CA, the ORCID Consortium in Canada. For further support, ask your Liaison Librarian or contact scholarly.communications@library.utoronto.ca

Read more about other researcher identifiers in our Research Impact LibGuide.

What does an ORCID iD do? 

An ORCID iD is a unique, persistent sixteen-digit number (e.g. 0000-0001-2345-6789) assigned to an individual researcher. This iD uniquely distinguishes an author of research contributions from all others in the world and ensures work is correctly attributed - this includes publications, grants, data sets, and all research inputs.  

Why do I need an ORCID iD? 

ORCID allows you to:

  • Ensure your work is discoverable and connected to you throughout your career
  • Minimize the time you spend entering repetitive data online, and
  • Eliminate name ambiguity, distinguishing you from other researchers and ensuring proper attribution

Publishers and funders around the globe are increasingly requiring authors to provide ORCID iD for linking researchers, their grants and their scientific output. Additionally, you can include your ORCID iD within your CV, web page, professional society membership, link it to other identifiers/profiles, etc.

How do I register for an ORCID iD? 

Registration is free and fast - it takes about 30 seconds! Simply go to the ORCID website https://orcid.org/register and sign up for an instant iD.

You determine what, how and with whom the information in your ORCID record is shared. Read more about ORCID's visibility settings. 

I registered my ORCID iD. Now what? 

ORCID has been working with many member organizations to make it easy to connect your ORCID iD and import information from their records. You can use a wizard to import your publications from Crossref, Scopus, and other databases - as explained in this guide and in this video from ORCID.

You can also set long-lasting permissions to allow trusted parties such as CrossRef, DataCite, and others to populate your record with all new outputs for which you have included your ORCID iD during the submission process.

ORCID Auto-update

Where can I find more information? 

Useful resources and tutorials:

Contact us: scholarly.communications@library.utoronto.ca