[Open-access] ORCiD and Libraries

[Reimer, Torsten F]

Hello,

> This implies constructing a
>  complicated, expensive, proprietary, and monopolistic
>  system. Ultimately it will help to further cement the stranglehold
>  of the publishing industry over scholarly communication. It's
>  puzzling to me why any open access advocate would promote it.

I'd like to contest that view:
- ORCID is owned by its members, so academia has a say in how ORCID works.
- The code is open source.
- It is publisher agnostic and works on content outside the publishing system.
- There may be different view on value, but we regard our membership fee as value for money.
- ORCID already integrates nicely into a lot of systems. 
- It has a role to play in helping authors with reporting and also open access compliance.

This is not to say that one could not imagine a better solution, but ORCID can already play a useful role and it has increasing uptake. Therefore I find the characterisation a little harsh.

Regards,
Torsten

Dr Torsten Reimer
Scholarly Communications Officer
Imperial College London
Research Office, Level 5, Sherfield Building
Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2AZ
Tel: 020 7594 3190  Fax: 020 7594 1265
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/researchsupport
https://twitter.com/torstenreimer



-----Original Message-----
From: open-access [mailto:open-access-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Krichel
Sent: 06 July 2015 15:09
To: Vignoli Michela
Cc: open-access at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [Open-access] ORCiD and Libraries


  Vignoli Michela writes

> Are there good alternatives to ORCID?

  The issue of author identification is very complicated. ORCID tries
  to attack all facets at the same time. This implies constructing a
  complicated, expensive, proprietary, and monopolistic
  system. Ultimately it will help to further cement the stranglehold
  of the publishing industry over scholarly communication. It's
  puzzling to me why any open access advocate would promote it.

  As I pointed in an earlier mail here, I worked on author
  claiming. This is one aspect of author identification, albeit an
  important one. An open system would allow for institutions to
  collaborate on author identification, having that problem taken care
  of.

  In the late 2000s I built an interdisciplinary version of the RePEc
  Author Service, called AuthorClaim. I started on this before
  ORCiD. The main problem in building AuthorClaim is open access to
  bibliographic data. There are some reusable datasets but overall
  coverage is sketchy. The massive occurrence of certain names is less
  af a problem than one may think because it is possible to throw
  machine learning algorithms at the problem even at the time
  registrants wade through a bunch of proposed documents.

  Needless to say I don't have the propaganda resources of the
  publishing industry. AuthorClaim is working, it is open access but
  largely unused. I have not done active development on it in the most
  recent years but I would welcome collaborators who could take it
  over.

  Don't hesitate to contact my off-list about this.

> And is there a paper or something highlighting the pros and cons for 
> using the one or the other?

  The best theoretical summary of the issue I have seen was
  a talk by Geoff Bilder at this meeting

https://conceptweblog.wordpress.com/conferences/

  I had the great fortune to be in the audience. The link to the
  podcast is broken. Maybe you can contact NYIT to ask where it went.

--

  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                  http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                                              skype:thomaskrichel

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