Launch marks the first statewide adoption of ORCID
Columbus, Ohio – March 11, 2015 – Starting today, OhioLINK is offering researchers the ability to add a unique researcher identifier when submitting their works to the Electronic Theses and Dissertation (ETD) Center.
The Open Researcher and Contributor ID, called an ORCID identifier, provides researchers with a way to manage their intellectual records while also distinguishing their works from others with a similar name. Launched in 2012, ORCID is a community driven undertaking to provide a central registry for researchers, and includes input from universities, publishers, research funders, and professional societies. OhioLINK’s inclusion of the identifier marks the first statewide adoption of ORCID.
“This measure was one of the first issues taken up by the newly formed OhioLINK ETD Council, based on input from member institutions of the OhioLINK ETD Center,” said Tim Watson, chair, OhioLINK ETD Council, and director of Graduate School Graduation Services, The Ohio State University. “Now when students upload their ETD to OhioLINK they will have the option to either record an existing ORCID identifier or create a new account. I think ETD authors will appreciate the benefits that an ORCID identifier will provide as they continue research endeavors long after graduation.”
The OhioLINK ETD Center contains more than 50,000 theses and dissertations from students at Ohio’s academic institutions and provides students with immediate access to the most current research occurring on Ohio campuses; the ETD Center showcases the graduate research of all 28 Ohio higher education institutions that use it.
“By incorporating the ORCID ID seamlessly into the submission workflows of graduate students, OhioLINK will help promote the use of ORCID identifiers across the state, as well as allow the work represented in the ETD Center to be linked to the research output of Ohio’s graduates over time,” said Gwen Evans, executive director, OhioLINK. “This ability to differentiate authors and link all types of research output helps find and trace research and dissemination activities such as articles, books, preprints, grants, data, social media interaction — no matter where they are deposited or available. This will help longitudinal assessment activities in our institutions, as well as making the entire oeuvre of a scholar more transparent and accessible.“
For more information on the ETD Center, go to: https://etd.ohiolink.edu. For more information on ORCID, go to: http://www.orcid.org.
OhioLINK is a member of the Ohio Technology Consortium (OH-TECH), a division of the Ohio Board of Regents. Other members of OH-TECH include the Ohio Supercomputer Center, the Ohio Academic Resources Network and eStudent Services.
