IOP Publishing, which produces Physics World, and the American Physical Society (APS) have signed an “open letter” committing them to collecting ORCID IDs for all authors submitting papers to their journals.
ORCID – Open Researcher and Contributor ID – is a not-for-profit organization that provides a unique identifier (iD) for every researcher, which means they can clearly distinguish researchers with the same name.
Avoiding confusion
“It is extremely important that researchers are correctly recognized for their work, whether as an author, reviewer or editor, and that the community is able to cite work without confusion,” says Jamie Hutchins, publishing director at IOP Publishing. “ORCID identifiers make this easier, by removing the confusion that can be caused by similarities between researchers’ names, name changes, inconsistencies in abbreviations and cultural differences in how names are presented.”
Matthew Salter, publisher at APS, adds: “With several major funders now requiring ORCID iDs as part of their grant application process, we hope that this will reduce the administrative burden on researchers as well as providing scholarly benefits.”
Easily discoverable
Laurel Haak, executive director of ORCID, says of the announcement: “As two of the main publishers in the physical sciences, use of ORCID iDs by IOP and APS means that authors will be clearly attributed and their body of work more easily discoverable.”
