The recent ORCID-CASRAI conference in Barcelona brought together over 150 researchers, research administrators, funders, publishers, vendors, and others working in scholarly communications to discuss research evaluation, with a particular focus on social science and humanities – resulting in some interesting conversations and observations
The majority of time spent in editing and formatting citations in the publication process is time wasted. We now have in place nearly all the components to use persistent identifiers, linked metadata, and style sheets to improve how citations can be structured and processed. Using these tools can significantly improve the accuracy of references and reduce the time editors spend on this production function. Even when automated, we bounce between linked metadata, then to text, then to metadata again.
As ORCID comes close to reaching it’s goals for registrations, the organization is not yet financially stable. Laurel Haak, executive director of ORCID, answers questions about where they are at and what is coming for users and members.
We’ve got DOIs (digital object identifiers) to help identify research articles, images, and other digital objects, and ORCIDs (Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) to help disambiguate the authors of those objects. Now there’s a new initiative to create a contributor taxonomy that identifies who’s done what in the creation of published research – find out more in our interview with Amy Brand, one of the brains behind the concept.
Attempts to use new measurements to more finely predict or represent journal quality are bound to falter because of some qualities inherent to journals themselves.
A ruse to self-review and self-recommend papers for publication leads to 60 retractions. Can we find a way to prevent this kind of identity fraud and its consequences?
The infrastructure layers that are emerging specifically for scholarly publishers, authors, and readers are yielding new services and even more layers. What’s next? And what’s missing?
As online systems for discovering and distributing content have grown, so too has the need for unambiguous identification of people and the parties exchanging that content. Several systems have been in development in the past couple of years, notably the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) system. How these two systems relate, engage each other, and serve community needs isn’t always clear. In hopes of alleviating some of the confusion, I sat down with Laura Dawson from Bowker to discuss the International Standard Name Identifier, how it relates to ORCID, and other issues surrounding identity management systems.
Howard Ratner, Director of Development at CHORUS, brings us up to date on that project and on the ORCID system, which turns one year old today.
In a story of the modern age of fraud, spoofers find their way into peer-review rosters, reviewing their own papers or those of their friends/competitors.
Putting metrics and altmetrics into perspective can help us separate secondary signals from primary signals, and may lead to a greater appreciation of alternatives to metrics, or alt2metrics.
In addition to what publishers do directly for authors and readers, they foster many collaborative and philanthropic efforts around the world.
While elaborate systems might help us disambiguate authors of scholarly articles, is there a simpler approach?
Information tailored to the user requires identity services that are useful and trusted. Will Google+ create a new baseline standard? Whither ORCID? Why can one succeed while one might be doomed? And what might the world look like for scientists when these opportunities are captured?