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Library Research Guides

Research Impact Challenge

This guide contains 10 activities for researchers to better understand and manage their online scholarly presence, as well as the impact and reach of their research.

Day 1: Register your ORCID and associate it with your U-M identity

This is the first of 10 challenges to work through over the next two weeks. Each message contains one activity to help you take control of your online scholarly presence and better understand and communicate the impact of your research. Each activity should take between 5 and 30 minutes.

In week one (days 1-5) we will focus on managing your online scholarly identity: how others find you and your work on the web. Let's get started!

First up, the Day 1 challenge: Register your ORCID and connect it to your University of Michigan identity.

What is ORCID?

An ORCID is a unique 16-digit researcher ID number associated with you (such as: 0000-0001-5083-7835). The term ORCID also refers to the registry of all such numbers, which makes it possible to unambiguously associate publications, funding, and other information with the correct person.

Logo for the ORCID organization

  • ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-based effort to create and maintain a registry of unique research identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers
  • ORCID provides a standard unique author identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission systems, helps to ensure you get credit for your work by automatically linking between you and your professional activities
  • ORCID Registry aims to prevent authorship confusion

(Source: U-M Library Research Guide on ORCID)

 

Why register an ORCID? 

  • Graduate students at the University of Michigan must register an ORCID in order to submit their dissertation—getting it done now means you don’t have to worry about it later!
  • An ORCID is increasingly requested by publishers, funding agencies, and other application and submission systems that want to ensure they have identified you correctly.
  • Check out this video to hear U-M faculty and researchers talk about how ORCID is useful for them. 

Here's how to do it: 

Note: if you are doing this task from off-campus, you will need to connect to the Virtual Private Network (VPN). If you have not already done so, please follow the instructions from ITS to set up your VPN access. When you connect to the VPN, choose "UMVPN - Tunnel all traffic."  Now you should be able to follow the steps below to register your ORCID. 

1. Follow this link to the U-M Research Identifier Management System and click on the “Create or Connect your ORCID iD” button

2. This will take you to the ORCID website sign-in page. Select “Institutional Account.” Type in "University of Michigan" or select it from the dropdown menu.

 

3. If this is the first time you’re connecting to ORCID from your University of Michigan account, you’ll see a message from U-M, which summarizes the information U-M will be providing to ORCID on your behalf. Click "Confirm."

 

4. Next, you’ll see a page from ORCID acknowledging that you’re logged into the ORCID website with your U-M credentials and inviting to continue connecting. If you are registering an ORCID for the first time, click “Register for an ORCID iD.”

 

5. Now you will be directed to your newly registered ORCID profile page, pre-filled with some very basic information like your name and email address. You'll need to choose a default level of privacy for your profile, accept ORCID’s terms of use, and click "Register."

 

This is all that needs to happen right now: your ORCID is now registered and you can start using it! We hope you’ll set aside some time to add information to your profile—more about this below. You can come back to this whenever you are ready. 

6. This confirmation message from the Research Identifier Management System will let you know that your MCommunity profile is now aware of your ORCID.

7. Log in to MCommunity. Your ORCID should now appear at the bottom of your MCommunity profile under the heading “Professional Information”:

What next? 

  • Now that your ORCID exists, spend a little time filling out your profile. This short video, "A Quick Tour of the ORCID Record," will help you get started:

    A Quick Tour of the ORCID Record from ORCID on Vimeo.

     
  • Take a moment to add your ORCID to your email signature, your personal webpage—anywhere you typically post your name, affiliation, and contact information. It’s also a good idea to keep it on a sticky note near where you work so you can easily find it and enter it when asked!
  • Don’t forget to use your ORCID whenever the opportunity arises! The more it is used, the more useful it will become as a tool to connect your scholarship all across the web.

Learn more: 

Remember: 

  • ORCID is institution-neutral. Your ORCID stays the same and travels with you no matter where you go. So, if you’re a graduate student at UM, go ahead and register your ORCID with your U-M email address. Later, should your email address change, you can associate your new email address and identity with your existing ORCID. This way, ORCID’s record of your work and scholarly identity will remain stable, even if your affiliation, email address, or name change.
  • ORCID privileges the autonomy, authority, and privacy of each researcher. That means that only you can register an ORCID on your own behalf (University of Michigan cannot do this for you, and nor can any other institution). Only you can control what information is visible on your ORCID profile and to whom. And only you can authorize third-party applications to read from or write to your ORCID profile.
  • With your permission, ORCID is ready and waiting to pull in information about your work from other sources, which can save a lot of time and effort when filling out your profile.

Preparing for the next challenge: 

Congratulations! You’ve completed Day 1 of the Research Impact Challenge: registering your ORCID and associating it with your MCommunity Profile! On Day 2, you'll claiming your Google Scholar profile.