What is ORCiD

Benefits of Linking ORCiD to Data Contributions

Professional Identity and Recognition

• Persistent Professional Identity: ORCiD provides a unique, permanent digital identifier that stays with you throughout your career, regardless of name changes, institutional moves, or career transitions.
• Proper Attribution: Ensures you receive credit for all your research contributions, including datasets, not just traditional publications. This is increasingly important as funding agencies and institutions recognize data sharing as a valuable scholarly activity.

Career and Impact Benefits

• Enhanced CV and Profiles: Your data contributions automatically appear in your ORCiD profile, creating a comprehensive record of your scholarly output that goes beyond just papers.
• Increased Visibility: Makes your work more discoverable to potential collaborators, employers, and peers who are searching for expertise in your field.
• Funding and Promotion Support: Many funding agencies and promotion committees now consider data sharing activities. Having these contributions linked to your ORCiD provides clear documentation of your commitment to open science.

Technical and Administrative Advantages

• Automated Updates: Once linked, your data contributions can automatically update your ORCiD profile, reducing manual maintenance of your publication lists.
• Disambiguation: Prevents confusion with other researchers who may have similar names, ensuring your work is properly attributed to you.
• Integration with Other Systems: ORCiD integrates with many institutional systems, grant databases, and publisher platforms, streamlining various administrative processes. Use your ORCiD to directly sign into many SPARC resources, including the Portal itself and the Pennsieve Platform for data organization prior to open-access publication.

Long-term Value

• Career Continuity: Unlike institutional email addresses or affiliations that change, your ORCiD follows you throughout your career, maintaining a permanent record of all your contributions.
• Future-Proofing: As the scientific community increasingly values diverse forms of scholarly output, having a comprehensive ORCiD record positions you well for evolving career evaluation criteria.

Getting Started with ORCID

If you don't already have an ORCiD ID, you can create one for free at orcid.org. When submitting data to SPARC, simply provide your ORCiD ID to ensure proper attribution and to gain all these benefits.