Biz of Digital — Librarians Promoting and Supporting ORCID@Rutgers By Yingting Zhang, MLS (Research Services Librarian, Robert Wood Johnson Library of the Health Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 1 RWJ Place, MEB 101, New Brunswick, NJ 08901; Phone: 732-235-7604) <yzhang@rutgers.edu> http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0757-1837 Column Editor: Michelle Flinchbaugh (Acquisitions and Digital Scholarship Services Librarian, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250; Phone: 410-455-6754; Fax: 410-455-1598) <flinchba@umbc.edu>
Introduction ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. It is an open, community driven non-profit organization that provides a unique and persistent digital identifier known as ORCID iD that can be used to distinguish an individual researcher from others.1 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey adopted a university-wide implementation of ORCID in October 2017. Founded in 1766, Rutgers University is a large public research university with $750.8 million of research grants and sponsored programs, and a history of over 250 years.2 The university is located in three cities which are New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden. As one of the most ethnically diverse universities in the nation, Rutgers has over 71,000 students from 50 states and over 125 countries. It has 8,700 faculty, nearly 15,000 staff, and over 1,200 international scholars from more than 80 countries.3 By implementing ORCID@Rutgers, the university helps build an integrated research environment and joins the ORCID research community. In the process of planning, implementing, and promoting ORCID, Rutgers librarians played an important role in collaboration with other stakeholders. This article showcases the librarians’ experience and role in this initiative.
Rationale for ORCID Implementation ORCID provides many benefits to registered researchers. Name confusion has been known as a big problem for researchers. ORCID helps solve the name ambiguity issue by providing each ORCID registrant with an ORCID iD which distinguishes him or her from other researchers with similar names. In collaboration with various stakeholders in the research community, ORCID provides not only a registry of unique identifiers for researchers but also an API that allows research communities to integrate the identifiers in research systems. With its capabilities of interoperability with various other research systems, ORCID iD connects researchers and their research activities throughout their careers. Because ORCID iDs can be integrated with various research systems via its API, ORCID helps to ensure that a researcher’s scholarly works are properly attributed and recognized. Furthermore, many federal and other funding agencies require grant applicants to use ORCID iDs when submitting proposals. For example, The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) require individuals supported by research training fellowship, research education, and career development awards have ORCID iDs effective FY 2020.4 Many publishers also require authors to use ORCID iDs when submitting manuscripts in their submission systems. For example, Wiley mandated the use of ORCID iD for authors for its biomedical journals in 2016.5 Our institutional repository SOAR (Scholarly Open Access at Rutgers) can be connected with ORCID through a university-wide implementation. The scholarly works
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deposited in SOAR can be pulled into the researchers’ ORCID profiles. Grant applicants and progress reporters can use the data transported from ORCID into SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae), a researcher profile system,6 to create NIH or National Science Foundation (NSF) biographical sketches, reducing much repetitive and tedious data entry work. By joining the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) ORCID Consortium, Rutgers is able to be an institutional member of ORCID at a discount rate.
Implementing ORCID@Rutgers Rutgers University Senate charged the Researcher, Graduate, and Professional Education Committee (RGPEC) to investigate ORCID, identify benefits, and make recommendations for implementation in terms of processes, timeline, personnel, and expenses. In February 2016, after reviewing the RGPEC report, the University Senate unanimously passed a resolution for a university-wide implementation of ORCID.7 The Senate Resolution was soon signed off on by then University President, Dr. Barch who was “persuaded of the value of issuing ORCID iDs both to individual researchers and the university.”8 Afterwards, the ORCID Implementation Working Group was established and Rutgers joined the BTAA ORCID Consortium. The ORCID Implementation Working Group was chaired by the then Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Dr. Krisellen Maloney. It was comprised of representatives from these key units: Office for Research, Office of Information Technology (OIT), Office of Institutional Research & Academic Planning (OIRAP), Office of Enterprise Risk Management, Ethics, and Compliance, Rutgers University Libraries (RUL), School of Graduate Studies, and University Human Resources. With collaboration and hard work, the Implementation Working Group had a soft launch of the project in April 2017. During that period of time, ORCID@Rutgers was tested and improved based on feedback. On October 18, 2017, it was officially launched. While the Working Group was planning and implementing ORCID iD, an Outreach Team was formed with three librarians who served on the University Libraries Research and Scholarly Environment Working Group (RaSE WG). These librarians were the Scholarly Open Access Repository Librarian (Jane Otto who is retired), the Open Access Specialist (Laura Bowering Mullen), and the Health Sciences Research Services Librarian (Yingting Zhang) who chaired RaSE WG at that time). The Outreach Team worked diligently to make plans for advocating, promoting, and supporting ORCID iDs implementation at Rutgers. The Team made comprehensive communication plans with the RUL central communications office. It created an ORCID website (Rutgers University Libraries 2021) posting information related to ORCID for RU researchers — https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/researchtools-and-services/research-impact/orcid.9 To promote ORCID@ Rutgers, the Team prepared brochures and handouts to introduce
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