UK ORCID consortium membership consultation

By Verena Weigert April 16, 2015
Blog

A coordinated national approach to ORCID integration

Jisc would like to consult you about your institution’s interest in joining a UK ORCID consortium membership agreement.

Jisc would act as the consortium lead and would coordinate invoicing and complement technical support provided by ORCID with UK based technical support, community workshops and advice and guidance building on what has been learned during the Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot.

To take part in the consultation you are advised to first read our ORCID consultation paper before completing the survey.

The consultation paper and survey are available on the Jisc Collections website.

Please fill in the survey by 12th May 2015

If you have any queries, please contact the Jisc Collections Helpdesk

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

By Verena Weigert February 3, 2015
Blog

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

On 22nd 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 22nd 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.

Institutional implementation and cost-benefit analysis

By Verena Weigert October 13, 2014
Blog

ORCID institutional implementation and cost-benefit analysis

The progress meeting on 17th September in London was also an opportunity to introduce Helen Henderson, Hazel Woodward (Information Power) and Rob Johnson (Research Consulting) Power to the project. Helen, Hazel and Rob will be working with us to

  • synthesise findings and draw together conclusions and recommendations from the HEI pilot case studies
  • calculate and document the costs and benefits of ORCID implementation in HEIs based on the examples of the HEI pilots. We will consider this in the context of the broader adoption in research management workflows including funders, publishers and RIM and CRIS systems

The aim of this work is to inform future institutional practice of how ORCID is implemented in HEIs and to support research managers when building a business case for ORCID adoption in HEIs.

The final report is now available. The report also includes a checklist summarising the lessons learned from the Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot project with regards to the implementation and promotion of ORCID within UK Higher Education Institutions.

Progress Meeting

By Verena Weigert
Blog

ORCID Pilot Progress Meeting 17th September in London

At the meeting the pilot HEIs and other institutions involved in ORCID related work came together to discuss common issues and challenges and solutions when implementing ORCID identifiers in HEIs. We’ve summarised the discussions at the meeting below. For further information see also the agenda and presentation slides from the meeting.

Summary of Discussion
Many thanks to Helen Henderson, Hazel Woodward and Rob Johnson for summarising the group discussions and to Laure Haak from ORCID for providing further information and comments on the questions.

Things that worked well so far in your ORCID pilot project. What would you would like to build on?

What hasn’t worked so well and suggestions for institutions implementing ORCID

  • Internal technical delays have hampered a number of pilot sites. All institutions should ensure that their CRIS and HR and other relevant systems are ‘ORCID ready’.
  • For some institutions there is confusion about ‘what is an ORCID’. Is it an identifier or an ORCID profile?
  • Some institutions have found it difficult to identify a specific group of researchers to focus the pilot project on. Some have selected those who have signed a specific contract, others those who have publications in the institutional repository
  • There appears to be an STM/ AHSS discipline divide in the take up of ORCID (with more take up from STM academics) which other project participants should note.
    This also came up during the ORCID implementation at the University of Colorado. They took the opportunity to broaden the conversation about reporting with their HSS departments. CU presented on this at the May ORCID Outreach meeting.   http://www.slideshare.net/ORCIDSlides/johnson-cu-boulderorcidoutreachmeetingslides (See slide 7)
    See also discussion at OR 14 ORCID workshop https://orcidpilot.jiscinvolve.org/wp/blog

 Suggestions and Questions for ORCID

  • It isn’t possible to easily see who from your institution has already got an ORCID identifier.Could ORCID develop a ‘push mechanism’ to provide member institutions with updates on the number of ORCID identifiers claimed and used by the institution’s researchers?

Laure Haak: We are currently looking into ways to support longitudinal reporting on records by email domain. We also encourage universities to (a) use the click and connect workflow so that no orphan records are created, (b) use the autofill functionality to add in the name and email address during the click and connect workflow so that it is possible to track registrations by email domain, and (c) include affiliation in the click and connect workflow as one of the types of information that can be linked to the person’s record once it is created. 

  • Duplicates of publications and other research outputs in ORCID records (this happens e.g. when importing publications from Scopus or ResearcherIDs) are problematic

Laure Haak: This will be addressed in a release in about 1 month. The back end and user interface have been updated to collate ‘works’ with the same persistent identifier (for example the same DOI/PubMed ID/ISBN). These ‘works’ will be grouped (not merged) in the interface. For a preview, log into your ORCID record, and add a 3 after the URL and click refresh. (https://orcid.org/my-orcid3). The issue with ResearcherID has also been addressed.

  • In some cases it isn’t easy to link an ORCID identifier to an institution as the list of institutions doesn’t have the correct structure. Could there be an option to just link to the top level of an institution?

Laure Haak: We encourage users and integrators to use the top-level organisation name. Any “bulk” creation process or outreach effort should include guidance to the researchers as to which organisation name to select (or to create a tool that pushes this info into the record). If there is an issue with the way the organisation is specified in the list, the ORCID member organisation should contact either ORCID or Ringgold to make an adjustment. See also
http://support.orcid.org/knowledgebase/articles/276884-organizations-in-orcid-ringgold-identifiers.

  • If HEIs create ORCID records on behalf of researchers these are made public (name and ID and any data marked as public) 10 days after creation whether they are claimed or not. There are concerns around the publication of unclaimed records. Is this going to be changed?

Laure Haak: For any organisation concerned about privacy with the bulk create process, we encourage you to use the click and create process. In this workflow, the record is not created until the researcher clicks on the button in a user interface or email. See above.

  • There is a large difference between basic and premium ORCID membership. It’s not entirely clear what the extra benefits of premium membership are.

Laure Haak: Premium membership provides access to a call-back API for push notifications when a record of interest to you is updated. As the round-trip functionality is put into place, this means your local repository can auto-synch with information being posted to an ORCID record. Premium membership provides 5 tokens, which supports integration of ORCID services into multiple systems, in particular those with distinct security or privacy requirements. Premium membership comes with monthly usage reporting so you can track traffic using your integration. And, premium membership provides more hands-on technical support

Suggestions for the Jisc ARMA ORCID pilot project

  • Some institutions had concerns that it would be legally complex for universities to create ORCID records on behalf of their researchers. Can we examine this in more detail as part of the pilot also to see if, and in which scenario, the above mentioned ‘click-and-connect’ workflow is the preferable route to take.
  • We need to consider the range of institutional scenarios, and recognise that best practice in ORCID adoption will vary according to institutional size and culture
  • We need to get advocates from within the local community. Could the voluntary ORCID ambassadors recruited by ORCID be encouraged to attend the next pilot meeting so that we can learn from their experience?
  • The benefits of ORCID are easily articulated and in general widely accepted, but they will be in the future rather than immediate. We need to establish concrete benefits of ORCID for researchers and HEIs. We should also look at the results of the Sloan funded adoption and integration program in the US for evidence of benefits.

Laure Haak: The ability to validate information in Scopus is an immediate benefit, as is the ability to push ORCID iD information into Scopus, WoS, and EuropePMC. With these tools, discoverability is already improving. Also, with the launch of several third-party metrics tools, the ability to render personal usage statistics is easier and more accurate.

Workshop at OR14 in Helsinki

By Verena Weigert June 25, 2014
Events

How to take advantage of ORCID in IRs
The aim of this workshop at the Open Repositories Conference on 9th June in Helsinki was to share information about the UK’s developing agreement on the use of ORCID for research systems based on three examples of the Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot project.

Programme:
Welcome & Introduction to Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot
Rachel Bruce and Verena Weigert, Jisc – Slides (pdf)
ORCID Adoption in Finland
Jyrki Ilva, National Library of Finland – Slides (pdf)
Supporting ORCID identifiers in IRs: Three examples from the Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot: goals, use cases, challenges, next steps
–Neil Jeffries – University of Oxford
–Wendy White – University of Southampton
-Torsten Reimer – Imperial College, London
Project summaries and links to project blogs
Discussion in three break-out groups & feedback

Summary of Discussion

The topics and questions for the break-out sessions included benefits of using ORCID identifiers in IRs and research systems at universities, different policy approaches and barriers to integration and take-up. A summary of the discussion is below (not so much focusing on the ‘benefits’ we noted and also including a variety of other questions and topics that came up).
Many thanks to Laure Haak (Executive Director, ORCID) for her comments on some of the questions and topics.

What does your group see as the main issues in terms of policy approaches?

Batch creation of ORCID identifiers for university staff vs. facilitating ORCID record creation and providing mechanisms for researchers to link them to local systems

  • We wondered what experiences HEIs had gained with batch creation and whether it was effective.
  • Imperial College was planning to automatically issue all research staff and students with an ORCID iD but is now leaning towards facilitating the creation of ORCID records for their staff via their CRIS system Symplectic Elements.
  • The ‘ORCID in the Wild Session’ the following day included a discussion about Texas A&M University’s experience with bulk creation of ORCID iDs. I wasn’t able to attend the session but a recording is available on the OR14 website. The university minted 10K ORCID iDs for their graduate students. An email was sent to students in advance explaining why they should consider claiming the iD. The university also offered workshops, manuals and videos to raise awareness among students. 1/5 of the ORCID iDs were claimed in the first 9 days. Some students may not have claimed their ORCID iDs as they don’t check their university email account or because they were skeptical as the email message asking them to claim their ORCID iD didn’t come from their institution. It is now possible for HEIs to customise this message.
  • We thought that encouraging researchers ‘to opt in’ is preferable in many cases as this again emphasises that the control over the data is in the hands of the individual researcher.
  • It is easy to explain why a researcher should have an ORCID iD but why should they tell their institution about it, i.e. link their ORCID account with a local system?
    U of Oxford thinks that researchers will appreciate it if the affiliation to Oxford is validated by the university in their ORCID record.
    When a university creates a record they can include the affiliation name and organisation identifier, and then the source of that information is shown as that organisation. It will soon be possible for ORCID member universities to validate affiliation data added into the record by a researcher.
  • Any institutional ORCID policy needs to show legal due diligence and reassure researchers that their privacy is respected.

What are the barriers to integration and take-up & do you have ideas to overcome these or are there any issues that you think need to be considered?

  • Time; Researchers just don’t have much time and are being asked to do too many things, and ORCID doesn’t give them many immediate benefits at the moment. Every time researchers are asked for information, University staff should point out how having an ORCID iD could save them time.

Laure Haak:  Note that ORCID is working on defining a workflow, whereby the metadata for a paper that has an ORCID associated during the manuscript submission system, can be pushed into the author’s ORCID record upon publication.

  • There may be a perception that ORCID is mainly supporting universities in their need for more efficient research, monitoring of research and reporting. Therefore the benefits for researchers and research may need to be better articulated and defined.(benefits are e.g. improved discoverability and accuracy of search results).
  • Misunderstandings, for example confusions between ORCID & ResearchGate or Academia.edu

Laure Haak: ORCID is not a profile system, rather, ORCID identifiers are embedded in research activities and objects and become an essential piece of the research data infrastructure that can improve the functioning of profile systems such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu. Instead of having to ask researchers over and over “is this yours”, such systems can ask a researcher for their ORCID and in that way associate information with their profile.

  • There may be a perception that at the moment ORCID seems to be predicated on publications – with DOIs so that they can automatically be imported into an ORCID record – being the hook. Expressions of scholarship are diverse also depending on the discipline (e.g. book chapters and monographs in the Humanities). Can ISBNs  also be linked to an ORCID iD?

Laure Haak: ISBNs are currently linked to ORCID via the ISNI2ORCID search and link tool. In addition, we are in discussions with a large book cataloguer about  implementing a search and link wizard.  Note that ORCID identifiers can be linked to research objects and activities of many types, including book chapters, other person identifiers, grants, datasets, and organisations. We’re now on review activities, software, and data management plans.

Other points made

  • ORCID is focussing on active researchers. It doesn’t create records for non-active researchers (authors that are unable to actively claim an identifier). ISNI is assigning ISNI identifiers retrospectively. As mentioned above, there is now an ISNI2ORCID search and link tool. After the ORCID workshop at OR14 we came across a US project called the Social Networks and Archival Context Project (SNAC). The project is trying to link distributed historical records creating a social network for historical figures.
  • Ringgold institutional identifiers are used in the ORCID system. There was acknowledgement that Ringgold’s business model was one that restricted access to its data set, and we are not clear exactly how it is governed – however the use of Ringgold iDs in ORCID does in fact make that data openly available.

Laure Haak: We are using Ringgold because they are an ISNI registration agency. That said, Ringgold does make their IDs available, as well as metadata surrounding their organisation records, for no fee (these data are also available through the ORCID registry and APIs for no fee). In addition, the ORCID Registry is using FundRef organisational identifiers in our funding module, and our database is structured in such a way as to allow multiple organisation identifiers for a single object.

  • Could there be an issue with ‘the right to be forgotten’? ORCID could mean that your name and ORCID iD is linked to many things across the web and in digital systems. De-activating your ORCID account may not deal with this issue.

Laure Haak: ORCID records can (and some have been) de-activated. The de-activated record is hidden. The ID is not deleted (nor re-used) and we keep track of the email(s) associated with the record (in hashed form) so that a new record for the same person is not re-created. More detail on this is in the privacy policy.

  • It was noted that to ensure further uptake of ORCID there does need to continue to be a wide and multi-stakeholder governance including researchers, universities, publishers, funders and service providers.

Laure Haak: ORCID bylaws specifically state that governance is to be carried out by a board that is majority non-profit, and that is balanced by stakeholder. We also include up to two researchers on the board (who do not need to be affiliated with a member organisation).

  • We wondered if in some places, for example, Australia where Scopus is used in research assessment whether the Scopus identifier would be the identifier of choice? The national funder in Portugal (FCT) required ORCID in their research assessment which included a bibliometric analysis (based on data from Scopus). All FCT funded researchers had to register with ORCID and used the Scopus to ORCID wizard to populate their ORCID records. This also enabled them to make any needed adjustments to their Scopus author record.

Laure Haak: The fact that ORCID links to other person identifiers (and other identifiers for research objects, activities, and organizations) augments evaluation efforts. Because of this we see countries such as Australia (or Portugal for that matter) thinking about national adoption of ORCID.

  • UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) policy requires that authors’ manuscripts that are accepted by publishers are deposited into a repository at the time of acceptance. Imperial College is interested in exploring if –via ORCID– a publisher could inform them if one of their academics just had a paper accepted with them to help academics to meet the policy requirement. See also ‘Author accepted manuscripts from publishers?‘

Further links
Sally Rumsey, U of Oxford: Slides from ORCID outreach meeting, May 2014
Neil Jacobs, Jisc:  OA mandates, Jisc services and university systems – also explaining the role of RIOXX
Recordings of ORCID related sessions at OR14
ORCIDs in the Wilde – recording
Promoting interoperability and services through shared identifiers – recording

About the Project

By Verena Weigert May 6, 2014
About the Project

Aims and objectives

The aim of the pilot project is to streamline the ORCID implementation process at universities and to develop the best value approach for a potential UK wide adoption of ORCID in higher education. The project will produce case studies, guidance and recommendations to be shared with the sector. It will also develop a business case to clarify the cost and benefits of ORCID adoption and the different models which might prove most effective.

In particular, the objectives are:

  • to explore the embedding of ORCID iDs in institutional systems and workflows
  • to assess costs, benefits and risks of ORCID implementation
  • to gather evidence and recommend how to proceed – if appropriate – with national ORCID membership

The project outputs will include

  • example ORCID implementations and workflows at a number of HEIs
  • a case study report synthesizing findings and drawing together conclusions and recommendations for future practice
  • a resource comprised of the experiences with ORCID implementation including good practice, lessons learned and guidance for HEIs intending to implement ORCID iDs.
  • a business case report
  • an options appraisal on national ORCID membership
  • workshops generating insights to feed into case study report, advice & guidance and recommendations and providing a forum to share knowledge and to collaborate

As part of Jisc’s commitment to advancing UK research through digital technology on a global scale, Jisc and ARMA invited UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to participate in the ORCID pilot. We supported eight HEIs to partcipate in the pilot and to help us to prepare the project outputs.
The HEI based pilot projects ran from May 2014-January 2015.

List of project outputs:
HEI based pilot projects final summary reports
Institutional Implementation and Cost Benefit Analysis Report
Checklist summarising the lessons learned from the Jisc-ARMA ORCID pilot project
UK ORCID consortium membership consultation

As part of the project we’ve also engaged with
-a wide network of universtities and organisations that are implementing or are planning to implement ORCID identifiers.
-systems suppliers

HOW TO GET INVOLVED