# ORCID

Key: `identity.academic.orcid`

Open Researcher and Contributor ID — persistent digital identifier for researchers. Format: four groups of 4 digits separated by hyphens. Last character may be X (check digit representing 10).

Page: <https://meridian.online/docs/projects/finetype/types/identity/academic/orcid>

Samples: `0000-0002-1825-0097`, `0000-0002-9079-593X`, `0000-0001-5000-0007`, `0000-0003-1234-5674`

## Background

### Origin

ORCID was first announced in 2009 as a collaborative effort by publishers of scholarly research.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID) ORCID, Inc. was incorporated as an independent nonprofit organisation in August 2010 in Delaware, United States.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID) Geoffrey Bilder wrote the document proposing what was eventually to become the ORCID identifier.[[2]](https://rogue-scholar.org/records/ac83h-v9443) He wrote it in 2010, when Crossref seconded him to be ORCID's first director of technology.[[2]](https://rogue-scholar.org/records/ac83h-v9443) ORCID launched its registry services on 16 October 2012.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID)

The ORCID iD is built on a 16-digit number that is compatible with ISO 27729, the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI).[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) No information about a person is encoded in the ORCID iD.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) Because the iD is meant to last a whole career, nothing that can change over a career, such as country, institution or field of study, is embedded in it.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json)

### Use

The last character of an ORCID iD is a checksum calculated in accordance with ISO/IEC 7064:2003, MOD 11-2.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) The checksum is a digit from 0 to 9 or a capital letter X, which represents the value 10.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) A hyphen is inserted every 4 digits of the identifier to aid readability.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) ORCID iDs always require all 16 digits and cannot be shortened to remove leading zeros.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) Only the ORCID Registry can assign ORCID iDs.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) ORCID says its iDs are typically assigned between 0000-0001-5000-0007 and 0000-0003-5000-0001, or between 0009-0000-0000-0000 and 0009-0010-0000-0000.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json)

ORCID recommends storing the iD as a full https URI, such as https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097, with the hyphens kept in.[[3]](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json)

### Where you'll meet it

OpenAlex author records give the author's primary ORCID iD as a URL, or null.[[4]](https://help.openalex.org/data/authors/) OpenAlex says null is the common case, with only about one profile in ten having an ORCID iD.[[4]](https://help.openalex.org/data/authors/) In the Crossref REST API, author entries on works carry an ORCID field written as a full https://orcid.org/ URI.[[5]](https://api.crossref.org/works?filter=has-orcid:true&rows=1&select=DOI,author)

## Sources

1. [ORCID](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID) — secondary source
2. [Structure of the ORCID Identifier](https://rogue-scholar.org/records/ac83h-v9443) — secondary source
3. [Structure of the ORCID Identifier](https://support.orcid.org/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/360006897674.json) — documentation
4. [Authors Overview \| OpenAlex Help Center](https://help.openalex.org/data/authors/) — organisation
5. [Crossref REST API works](https://api.crossref.org/works?filter=has-orcid:true&rows=1&select=DOI,author) — dataset