Skip to Main Content Skip to main content
University of Washington

Home

KL2 Scholars Library Guide

ORCID's Value for Researchers, Faculty, and Students

ORCID is a non-profit organization that provides an open registry of unique persistent identifiers for researchers. 

Why register?

  • Correctly link you to your publications.
  • Distinguish your work from the work of other people with similar names.
  • Your ORCID ID is connected to you wherever you go.
  • Visibility settings allow you to control what information is seen and added to your profile.
  • Journal editors may ask for your ORCID when you submit a manuscript. 
  • Funders such as the NIH use ORCID iDs to to relate publications to grants.  You can include your ORCID in your SciENcv account and your eRA Commons account.
  • PubMed lets you search for authors by their ORCID (if the author published using an ORCID).  Ex. Orcid 0000-0002-6710-8708[auid]
  • Research networking sites like ResearchGate let you add your ORCID.
  • An Auto-Update feature can update your ORCID profile automatically with new articles you've published.  ("How to" information explains how to set this up using CrossRef.)

How to register, create, and update your profile?

  1. Go to ORCID to register and receive an iD.         
  2. Add your position title and affiliation to your ORCID record.
  3. Import your references from a source such as Europe PMC, Dimensions, and/or CrossRef Metadata Search using "Link Works."  References can also be added manually.   
  4. Consider authorizing CrossRef to automatically update your profile on an ongoing basis.  This only works if you submitted your ORCID iD when you submitted your manuscript.              
  5. Use "Account Settings" to manage your privacy preferences.