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Researcher Identity Management

What is a researcher identifier?

A researcher identifier, also known as a unique author identifier, is a persistent identification number assigned to an individual author or creator that stays with them throughout their career.

Researcher identifier benefits

Researcher identifiers benefit individual researchers, research institutions and universities, and funding bodies by:

  • Eliminating publication misattribution
  • Giving researchers credit for their scholarly contributions
  • Improving publication discoverability
  • Supplying researchers with tools to analyze their research impact
  • Improving administrative efficiency, making it easier for
    • ​Funding Bodies to view a researcher’s previous work, and track a researcher’s work once funding has been granted
    • Research Institutions and Universities to track the contributions of their researchers
    • Publishers to maintain author records and sort manuscript submissions

Popular researcher identifiers

ORCID

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is an international, interdisciplinary, open, and not-for-profit organization that provides a registry of persistent unique identifiers for researchers and scholars. When you sign up for an ORCID iD you are assigned a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized.

For more on ORCID visit the ORCID section of our Research Impact & Research Identity LibGuide

Scopus Author ID

Scopus' Scopus Author ID is a proprietary researcher identifier that is automatically assigned to any scholar who publishes in a journal indexed by the Scopus database. Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer reviewed literature, and features smart tools that let you track, analyze and visualize scholarly research. Scopus Author Profiles can be used by other scholars, or funding bodies to view your subject areas, affiliation history, and co-authors, analyze your research output, and view your h-index, h-graph, and citation overview.

ResearcherID

Thomas Retuers' ResearcherID is a proprietary researcher identifier that lets you manage your publication lists, track your times cited counts and h-index, identify potential collaborators and avoid author misidentification. ResearcherID information integrates with the Web of Science and is ORCID compliant, allowing you to claim and showcase your publications from a single account.

Google Scholar Citations

Google Scholar Citations is a service offered by Google that allows researchers to create a researcher profile on the Google Scholar platform. A Google Scholar Citations Profile lets scholars track and manage their research contributions and citations to their work. A Google Scholar Citations Profile can be used to calculate research metrics including h-index, i10-index, and the total citations to your body of work. If you choose to make your profile public, other researchers, institutions, and funding bodies will be able to view your publications, metrics, and subscribe to updates when new articles are indexed by Google Scholar.

ISNI

An ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) is an open and certified global standard number established by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) that is assigned to contributors to creative works, such as researchers, authors, publishers, performers, and more. By providing a persistent unique identifying number to every contributor, ISNIs aim to reduce name ambiguity and promote effective search and discovery across multiple domains, databases, and directories worldwide. Because ISNI harvests data from many sources, you may already be assigned an ISNI.

VIAF

A VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) is an authority file established by the international cooperative effort of over 35 libraries and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center). A VIAF combines multiple existing name authority files into a single OCLC-hosted authority service. A VIAF helps libraries facilitate unambiguous author identification by linking an author and their associated authority records across langauges and major bibliographic databases internationally.

Read more about researcher identity management on our Research Impact & Researcher Identity LibGuide

For more information, or for help setting up or using researcher identifiers, contact the Scholarly Communications & Copyright Office at copyright@library.utoronto.ca