Dr Altman's talk summarizes the lifecycle of research attribution, with special attention to person identifiers and contributor roles. The talk describes and discusses ORCID’s new “collect-and-connect” program, and the CASRAI CRediT contributor taxonomy as exemplars of emerging good practice. We close by describing how identifiers are being incorporated into a broader range of scholarly outputs, such as software.

1. Attribution from a
Research Library
Perspective
Micah Altman
Director of Research
MIT Libraries
Prepared for
How Librarians Use, Implement and Can
Support Research Identifiers.
NISO Webinar
August 2016

2. Disclaimer
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3. Credits
• Collaborators (in part):
– Amy Brand, Liz Allen, Karen Smith-Yoshimura, OCLC
Identifiers group
• Acknowledgements
– CASRAI CRediT Board
– ORCID Team, ORCID Board
• Research Support
– Supported in part by Wellcome Trust 3

4. Related Publications
• Brand A, Allen L, Altman M, Hlava M, Scott J. Beyond authorship: attribution,
contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learned Publishing [Internet]. 2015;28(2):151-155.
• Allen L, Scott J, Brand A, Hlava M, Altman M. Publishing: Credit where credit is due.
Nature [Internet]. 2014;508(7496):312-313
• Smith-Yoshimura K, Altman M, Cristán AL, Dawson L, Dunham J, Hickey T, Hook D,
Horstmann W, MacEwan A, Schreur P, et al. Registering Researchers in Authority Files.
Dublin, OH: OCLC; 2014
• Altman, Micah, and Gary King. "A proposed standard for the scholarly citation of
quantitative data." D-lib 13, no. 3 (2007):
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Reprints available from:
informatics.mit.edu

5. Today’s Perspectives
* Lifecycle View *
* Emerging Practice *
* On the Horizon *
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6. Lifecycle View
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7. Identifiers are Not Just for Published Articles
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● Identifiers may apply to
many types of works
● Identifiers may reference
different types of entities
● Identifiers may be assigned
at any lifecycle stage

8. Research Information Lifecycle
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Data
Software
Articles
Figures
Images
Lifecycle Management
Metadata
● Identifiers
● Fixity
● Provenance
● Rights

9. Identifier Types
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● Actors
○ Organizations
○ People
○ Works
● Relationships
○ Contribution
/ Authorship
○ Rights / Obligations
○ Reference / derivation (evidentiary)
○ Attribution
Works
Organizations People
Works

10. It’s Complicated
● Identifying all actors
● Identifying all works
● Capturing provenance
● Communicate
trustworthiness
● Enabling upstream
corrections and
annotations
● Integrating into research
tools
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11. Emerging Practice
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12. Beyond Watchful Waiting - Time to Engage
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● ORCID has emerged as the standard
researcher identification infrastructure
● All major scholarly publishers support
ORCIDs -- many require them
● ORCID now integrated into all major
manuscript management systems
● CrossRef integration complete, provides
ability to automatically add / update
author records on publication
● Most major funders either support or
require ORCIDs
● Many universities are integrating ORCIDs
into their processes and systems

13. The MIT Experience
Business Roles
- Business Owner, Communications
Lead: Institutional Research, Provost
Office
- Technical Support & Development:
IS&T
- Patron Service & Support: Libraries
Outline of registration process
1. Pre-registration check #1
2. 1st
contact email.
3. 2nd
Contact email.
4. Post-registration check
5. ORCID Confirmation Email
6. Integration of publication information
Target Systems
- First Phase
o MIT ORCID creation service
o MIT Data warehouse - ID table
o MIT Profile System
- Second phase
o DSPACE integration
- Third phase
o HR Systems (Atlas Integration)
o Symplectic
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14. MIT 2015 Rollout
- 6/15 – Pilot-Phase Rollout
o 587 People in Scope
o 61 created/linked themselves
(completed at stage 1-3)
o 6 opt-outs (completed at stage 2-3)
o 29 ORCID’s existed with a private
MIT address (completed at stage 4)
o 491 new ORCID’s registered
o 0 questions received/problems
reported
- 8/15 – Full Rollout
o 11042 people in scope
o 1501 created/linked themselves
(completed at stage 1-3)
o 23 opt-outs (completed at stage
2-3)
o 427 with a private MIT address
(completed at stage 4)
o 9091 new ORCID’s registered
o 9 questions received by
Institutional Research, & libraries
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16. ✓
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17. ✓
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18. ORCID COLLECT AND CONNECT
● Collecting validated ORCID iDs for your
employees, members, affiliates, and
students…
● Displaying iDs to signal to your employees
and affiliates that your information systems are
plumbed to support their use of ORCID
● Connecting information about affiliation – and,
if applicable, contributions – to an individual’s
ORCID record,...
● Synchronizing with your systems to improve
reporting accuracy and speed
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https://orcid.org/content/collect-connect

19. ORCID COLLECT AND CONNECT
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20. Future Proofing Systems
● Metadata Design
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21. On the Horizon
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24. Questions?
Web:
Informatics.mit.edu
Email:
escience@mit.edu
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