Have you heard about ORCIDs? Not the plant. Open Researcher and Contributor IDs, aka ORCIDs, are a unique digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher out there, even the ones with the same name.
ORCIDs are a unique tag associated with your distinct identity. They follow you throughout your career, regardless of name and affiliation changes. They prevent your hard work from getting lost in the academic shuffle, and give you the agency to manage your scholarly identity. You and only you have control over your ORCID record, including what information is tied to your ORCID and whether that information is public or private.
ORCIDs have even become so popular in the scholarly publishing community that some journals now require them! PLoS, Highwire, Science, and more, all require ORCIDs as part of the submission process. Beginning this year, NIH, AHRQ, and CDC grant recipients are also required to have ORCIDs.
At Himmelfarb Library, we highly recommend that all researchers - faculty, student, or staff - register and use one. Registration is completely free, and can easily be done through the ORCID homepage.
If you have any questions about ORCIDs, check out our Scholarly Publishing Research Guide’s ORCID@GW page. You can also reach out to Sara Hoover, our Metadata and Scholarly Publishing Librarian, at shoover@gwu.edu.
