By Verena Weigert February 3, 2015
Blog

Next steps for ORCID adoption : ORCID consortium membership for the UK

On 22^nd January 2015 we held our final Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot workshop. Time has passed quickly since the 8 pilot HEIs started their work last May. At the same time at Jisc, we’re now preparing the next steps for ORCID adoption post the HEI pilot phase and are considering how we can build on what has been learned during the pilot.

The final ORCID pilot workshop on 22^nd January 2015 was well attended. ARMA UK our partners in the pilot were there of course as well as representatives from the 8 pilot HEIs, numerous other HEIs, ORCID, HEFCE, RCUK, UCISA, The Conversation, system vendors, developers and the ORCID Wikimedian in Residence.

There was lots of discussion and interest in the pilot project’s achievements but in this post I’m focussing on Jisc’s plans to coordinate ORCID consortium membership for the UK.

While the ORCID registry is free to use for individual researchers, organisations support ORCID through paying membership fees in exchange for access to specific API features and technical support.

At the meeting, Josh Brown, ORCID Regional Director Europe described the new ORCID consortium membership model which would allow universities and other UK not-for-profit or government organisations (e.g. RCUK) to join ORCID with premium level benefits at greatly reduced rates.

There is also detailed overview of member benefits and different member agreements on the ORCID website: http://orcid.org/about/membership/comparison

The fee for a group of 20 members is US$ 4,000 per member per year for premium ORCID membership (it would be US$ 10,000 for a small sized organisation joining on an individual basis) and goes down to US$ 200,000 per consortium per year for 100+ members.

Interestingly, ORCID won’t offer a ‘creator’ licence as part of the premium consortium membership model. Looking at the lessons from the Sloan funded ORCID Adoption
and Integration in the US and also the UK Jisc-ARMA pilots we can see that there is a trend away from institutional creation of ORCID identifiers. As a result, ORCID are now encouraging universities to use a ‘create-on-demand’ workflow which involves facilitating record creation and providing linking tools to local systems.

Currently, 13 individual UK HEIs are ORCID members and interest in ORCID consortium membership has already built up considerably. The Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot participants and many other HEIs that have been engaging with us as part of the pilot, have confirmed that they would support the formation of and intend to join an ORCID consortium coordinated by Jisc.

Jisc is now:

• Preparing to consult with the sector to gauge level of interest in ORCID consortium membership – watch this space!
• Considering what other support we can provide post the Jisc ARMA ORCID pilot – e.g. technical support
• Re-convening the ORCID implementation group (Jisc, ARMA, HEFCE, RCUK, UCISA, HESA, SCONUL, RLUK, Wellcome Trust, BL) to keep everyone informed about the proposed next steps and to seek comments and input
• Working on the dissemination of the results of Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot. This will include a final report & cost benefit analysis published in early March, sessions at conferences, blog posts etc.