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ORCID: Why ORCID?

This guide provides information about ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) and its utility for researchers at WSU.

Why Use ORCID? Resolves Name Ambiguity Problems

It is currently very difficult to:

  • Track different forms of an individual researcher’s name across systems;
  • Distinguish between different researchers with the same name;
  • Identify all scholarly works associated with a particular researcher.

Researcher names can be ambiguous for a number of reasons. People who have published under common names, maiden names, abbreviations, or names including non-Roman characters may encounter difficulties in being discovered online. ORCIDs clarify this ambiguity by providing unique identifiers for each researcher.

The following example illustrates the number of ways that a single person's name could be rendered in publications and research outputs.(Slide by Mogens Sandfær of DEFF).

Chart showing the many ways that the name Jens Age Smarup Sorensen can be rendered (an illustration of name ambiguity)

Why Use ORCID? Save Time

ORCIDs have already been integrated into workflows used by a variety of publishers, funders, and research organizations. The result is that citations can be automatically pushed to and from your ORCID profile with minimal effort on your part.

Chart illustrating how ORCID can facilitate automatic updates

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