How authorship is made and named: a meta-aggregator / ORCID
ORCID
infrastructureAttribution, credit and identity infrastructureactive
The archive's reading. As the third-party article describes it, ORCID binds contributions to 'a persistent identity for humans', which resolves the person behind several names; whether that resolution keeps a chosen name as the author's own or reduces it to the civil person is the open question #940 asks of identity infrastructure, and the source that would answer it, ORCID's own page on names, was refused. The article's identity model is disambiguation of persons, and it records nothing of a distinct authorial function.
| Relation to this census | infrastructure |
|---|---|
| Record type | registry |
| The question it answers | Which registered contributor does a scholarly work belong to, across name variants (identity resolution; name preservation unread)? |
| Kind | a nonproprietary persistent identifier, in the form of an alphanumeric code, to uniquely identify authors and contributors of scholarly communication, with a website and services to look up authors and their bibliographic output (Wikipedia, third party) |
| Operator | ORCID, Inc., incorporated as an independent nonprofit organization in August 2010 in Delaware, with an international board of directors (Wikipedia, third party; ORCID's own support page was refused) |
| Evidence | identity registry |
| Unit of record | an ORCID iD, a 16-character identifier specified as a URL, attached to a registered user's record (a 'digital curriculum vitae' hosted by ORCID and edited by the user) |
| What it records | authors and contributors of scholarly communication in the sciences and humanities, with their contributions and other user-supplied information; peer review activity is credited to it by some publishers (Springer Nature, 2021) |
| Whose authorship it keeps | the scholarly contributions of the registered person, as the user maintains them and as publishers, DataCite and Crossref add them |
| Under what name | not recorded in the saved sources: the article says ORCID answers the problem that personal names are not unique, change (as with marriage), differ in order across cultures and are abbreviated inconsistently, and gives the identifier as 'a persistent identity for humans'; how an ORCID record holds a published name, a pseudonym or other names is the subject of the support page, which was refused (http 403) and is unread |
| Who holds it | ORCID, Inc., which hosts the record; the user edits it; member organizations (research institutions, publishers, funders) integrate it, and some publishers and funders require it |
| Authorial function and responsibility | not recorded as authorship: the iD resolves a contributor's identity across publications; the article records the contribution as the contributor's through the person's identifier and says nothing of how the authorial function or responsibility is constituted |
| Method | registration by the person; the user maintains the record; publishers and DOI registries (DataCite, Crossref) update records when an ORCID iD is found in newly registered DOI names; member organizations integrate the iD in their workflows |
| Coverage | geography: international; national implementations named in Italy and Australia, and the French repository HAL invites ORCID iDs (Wikipedia); period: announced 2009; registry launched 16 October 2012 |
| Count | value: 14,727,479 live accounts; 1258 member organizations; as_of: 2 August 2022 (Wikipedia, third party; no later figure in the saved source) |
| Holdings | 14,727,479 live accounts as of 2 August 2022; 1258 member organizations as of 2 August 2022; identifiers drawn from a block of ISNI reserved for ORCID; some data retrievable as RDF/XML, RDF Turtle, XML or JSON |
| Stated limits | the only stated scope is scholarly communication: 'authors and contributors of scholarly communication' (Wikipedia, third party); the saved source states no limit on names or pseudonyms; the support page that would state it is unread |
| Data access | the ORCID website and services to look up authors and their bibliographic output; some data retrievable as RDF/XML, RDF Turtle, XML or JSON; code on GitHub (Wikipedia, third party) |
| Licence | not stated in the saved sources; Wikipedia describes ORCID as freely usable and interoperable with other ID systems |
| Lifecycle | state: active; detail: announced 2009; ORCID, Inc. incorporated August 2010; registry launched and identifiers issued from 16 October 2012; board chaired from 2026 by Heath Marks (Wikipedia, last edited 19 October 2026) |
| Version and time | announced: 2009; incorporated: 2010-08; registry_launch: 2012-10-16; count: 2022-08-02; wikipedia_last_edited: 2026-10-19; read: 2026-11-01 |
| Founded | 2010 (ORCID, Inc. incorporated); registry launched 16 October 2012 |
What its record can settle
- whether two scholarly works are credited to the same registered contributor, through one identifier
- that the identifier answers the name-ambiguity problem of non-unique, changing and variously ordered personal names (as the article states it)
- how many accounts and members ORCID reported in 2022
What it cannot settle
- how an ORCID record holds a pseudonym, a heteronym or several published names (the support page is unread)
- whether an identifier corresponds to one civil person or to an authorial function
- who wrote a work, or what each contributor did
- anything outside scholarly communication
Kept apart
- NOT ORCID's own account: the row rests on the Wikipedia article, a third party, because ORCID's support page returned http 403
- NOT a record of how pseudonyms or heteronyms are held: the source that would show it is unread
- NOT a record of authorial function or contribution roles: it resolves contributor identity
- NOT a register of literary authorship generally: its stated scope is scholarly communication
Relations
- used_by: wikidata-pseudonym (Wikipedia's ORCID article states that Wikidata includes pages with ORCID identifiers; the row wikidata-pseudonym records one Wikidata property, and the saved sources do not show the two used together on one item)
Evidence
- self_description (a third-party account):
The ORCID ( / ˈ ɔːr k ɪ d / ⓘ ; Open Researcher and Contributor ID ) is a nonproprietary persistent identifier , in the form of an alphanumeric code, to uniquely identify authors and contributors of scholarly communication .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - name_problem (a third-party account):
This addresses the problem that a particular author's contributions to the scientific literature or humanities publications can be hard to recognize, as most personal names are not unique, they can change ( such as with marriage ), have cultural differences in name order, contain inconsistent use of first-name abbreviations and employ different writing systems .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - persistent_identity (a third-party account):
It provides a persistent identity for humans, similar to tax ID numbers, that are created for content-related entities on digital networks by digital object identifiers (DOIs).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - lookup (a third-party account):
The ORCID system includes a website and services to look up authors and their bibliographic output (and other user-supplied pieces of information).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - code_for_people (a third-party account):
ORCID aims to provide a persistent code for people,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - cv (a third-party account):
a constantly updated 'digital curriculum vitae' providing a picture of their contributions to science going far beyond the simple publication list", [ 8 ] hosted by ORCID, edited by the user.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - announced (a third-party account):
ORCID was first announced in 2009 as a collaborative effort by publishers of scholarly research "to resolve the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - operator (a third-party account):
ORCID, Inc. was incorporated as an independent nonprofit organization in August 2010 in Delaware, United States of America, with an international board of directors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - board (a third-party account):
From 2026, the board is chaired by Heath Marks of the Australian Access Federation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - freely_usable (a third-party account):
ORCID is freely usable and interoperable with other ID systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - launch (a third-party account):
On 16 October 2012, ORCID launched its registry services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - count (a third-party account):
As of 2 August 2022 [ update ] , ORCID reported 1258 member organizations and 14,727,479 live accounts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - unit (a third-party account):
Formally, ORCID IDs are specified as URLs,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - fictitious_example (a third-party account):
the ORCID ID for Josiah S. Carberry (a fictitious professor used in examples and testing) is https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - isni (a third-party account):
ORCID IDs are a subset of the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - two_isnis (a third-party account):
It is therefore possible for a person to legitimately have both an ISNI and an ORCID ID [ 35 ] [ 36 ] – effectively, two ISNIs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - publishers_require (a third-party account):
publishers that signed this open letter committed to requiring ORCID iDs following specific implementation standards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - funders (a third-party account):
Grant-making bodies such as the Wellcome Trust (a charitable foundation) also mandate that applicants for funding provide an ORCID identifier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - peer_review (a third-party account):
support verifying and crediting your [peer] review activity directly from our manuscript submission systems to ORCID
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - doi_update (a third-party account):
In October 2015, DataCite , Crossref and ORCID announced that the former organisations would update ORCID records, "when an ORCID identifier is found in newly registered DOI names".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - data_access (a third-party account):
Some ORCID data may also be retrieved as RDF/XML , RDF Turtle , XML or JSON .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - wikidata (a third-party account):
Both Wikipedia and Wikidata include pages with ORCID identifiers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347… - wp_last_edited (a third-party account):
This page was last edited on 19 October 2026, at 03:57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID · read 2026-11-01 · http 200 · sha256 08dcd844e5310347…
Unchecked
orcid-names--support (https://support.orcid.org/hc/articles/360006973853): http 403, a bot check ('Just a moment...', 16 characters); ORCID's own account of names on a record (published name, other names, pseudonyms) is unread and unquoted, and the row's name field stays 'not recorded' for that reason; ORCID's own pages generally (orcid.org): not saved; operator, counts and dates come from Wikipedia, a third party; any count later than 2 August 2022; the licence of ORCID's public data
Cite: Lee Sharks, ed. "ORCID." How authorship is made and named: a meta-aggregator, leesharks.com, compiled 2026-11-01. https://www.leesharks.com/apparatus/aggregators/orcid-names