Author identifier catalogue
The following Author identifier and/or profile systems were identified and described by the ODIN project. They are derived from a commonly seen list of tools that researcher are using to manage their scholarly record. See https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1373669.v1 for more information
Scopus ID
Algorithm based author identifiers and profiles
Based on affiliation, subject area and other author characteristics Author search is inaccessible to non-subscribers
There is an extensive API
Some authors have multiple Scopus profiles, especially if the author works
in multiple disciplines or institutions
No direct editing or claiming but author feedback allows for amendments
to profiles
A tool is provided to pull the publications from a Scopus author profile into an ORCID profile
Service provided by Elsevier and integrated with their other products such as Mendeley
Notably used by the UK research excellence framework (REF)
ResearcherID
User or institution created author identifiers and profiles
User populated
Can create bi-directional links with ORCID profiles
Has a process in place to settle inaccurate claim disputes
An API is provided, but documentation currently unavailable for assessment
Service provided by Thompson Reuters and heavily integrated in their
other products
Around 270k identifiers.
ORCID ID
User driven identifier service
Users can create, manage and edit their publishing history and import from various other systems
Institutions can create blocks of identifiers and ask authors to ‘claim’ them
Extensive search and authentication API with various open source client implementations
Update rights via the API require membership
2.2 million identifiers
Open, sustainable and community governed
arXiv Author ID
Discipline specific (High Energy Physics) author identifier and profile
Author identifiers are intended to disambiguate papers within the arXiv
repository
User created and maintained, semi-automatically populated
API unknown
RePec Author Service
Discipline specific (Economics) identifier and profiles
Users claim from a list of research outputs provided by academic publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley Blackwell, CEPR and institutional archives
There is no API
Used by RePEc services
PubMed Author ID
Development announced in 2010 and abandoned in 2014 in favour of external identifiers provided by publishers
Update specifically mentions ORCIDs
Google Scholar Profiles
User driven, semi-automated author profiles
Initial import is algorithm based with the ability for users to add and remove works
Continuous algorithmic profile updates possible
Requires a verified institutional email to make public
There is no API, and rate limitations and T&C prevent scraping, no interoperability features
Manual user driven export possible
Not intended as an author identifier
Provided by Google and integrated with Google Scholar
Microsoft academic research ID
Provides human editable automatically generated author profiles with attached unique identifiers
Provides other tools such as co-author visualization, profile merging and citation counts
In contrast with Google Scholar, Microsoft do offer an API
It is limited by terms and conditions to non-commercial, academic-only use.
AuthorClaim
Non-discipline specific author disambiguation and profiles
Generates author output profiles
Based on RePEc Author service
Users claim from a list of research outputs provided by publishers and repositories including Crossref, ArXiv and PubMed
There is no API, but data is available as bulk download in CC0
Venerable, in operation since 1992
Funded by the Open Society Institute
JISC Names
Automatic author disambiguation system with manual intervention and
quality assurance
Generating identifiers and associated research outputs
Ran from 2007 until 2013
Collected data now submitted to ISNI
Codebase now open source
ISNI
Semi-automatically derived from library catalogues and other trusted sources using human intervention for quality control
Institutions that are members can submit data for matching and ISNI creation. Provides searchable interface and extensive query API
Not user editable, although users can suggest changes to existing profiles
Intended to be an authoritative source of authorship identifiers
Linkedin
Used to maintain professional resume and publication lists, and network with co-authors and funders
Frequently mentioned when discussing author identifiers with researchers
Positioning itself as an identity authority as well as profile management tool
Mature API for identity and profile.
Mendeley Profiles
User driven and populated author profiles with social networking/collaboration features Manual creation and import
Both desktop and mobile software and a service
Public API
Not intended as an author identifier
Provided by Mendeley/Elsevier
Around 3 million profiles
ResearchGate
Academic social network and collaboration platform for researchers, institutions and publications
Users can manage their publishing and work profiles and create connections
Provides sharing and citation metrics
Open Query API, no update API
Updated less than a minute ago