This page is about the use of ORCID (the Open Researcher and Contributor ID) in Wikipedia.

ORCID is a form of authority control – that's nothing to do with authoritarianism, it's a term borrowed from library cataloguing.

An ORCID identifier allows us to determine that the Jim Smith who wrote paper A is the same Jim Smith who wrote paper B, and James T. Smith who wrote paper C, but not the Jim Smith who wrote paper D. It also allows us to determine that Jim Smith-Singh is the same author, after a name change, say on marriage or divorce.

There are three ways we can use ORCID identifiers in Wikipedia:

• In articles about people
• On user pages
• In citations

We use a number of types of authority control identifiers in Wikipedia including VIAF and ORCID. For more about such identifiers, see Wikipedia:Authority control. To see examples of articles with ORCID identifiers see Category:Wikipedia articles with ORCID identifiers.

There are two ways to add ORCID identifiers to articles.

Simple method

A person you are writing about may have an ORCID identifier. You might find it in their profile on their employer's website, for instance, or included in a work they've authored; it may look like http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5882-6823 or just ORCID: 0000-0001-5882-6823). The simplest way to add it to an article is to use the {{ Authority control}} template, like this:

{{Authority control|ORCID=0000-0001-5882-6823}}

If there is already another value on the page:

{{Authority control|VIAF=70042340}}

you can add the ORCID parameter, like this:

{{Authority control|VIAF=70042340|ORCID=0000-0001-5882-6823}}

For other-language Wikipedias, see #Template in other languages; for sister projects, see # Template in sister projects.

Better method: Wikidata

A better method is to add the ORCID identifier to the Wikidata entry about the person, using P496. See screenshot. (You can do the same with VIAF and other values.)

Then, put {{ Authority control}} on the page, with no parameters. The value will magically be included in the article, from Wikidata.

An article about you

If there is a Wikipedia article about you, you can mention that in the text part of the biography on your ORCID profile. Eventually, ORCID may add a parameter specially for this or for the Wikidata equivalent.

You can also leave a note on the talk page, so that someone else can add your ORCID iD to the article. Or add it to Wikidata yourself, as described above.

Please do not create a Wikipedia article about yourself – here's why.

Individual Wikipedia editors can register for an ORCID identifier, free, on the ORCID website. The process only takes a few seconds.

This applies to all editors, but will be especially useful for those who also publish in scientific journals or other academic works, and/ or those who edit articles about matters related to their academic work or research.

Because there are no Wikidata entries for (most) Wikipedia editors, you can't use the Wikidata method shown above to put your ORCID on your user page. Instead, use Template:User ORCID:

{{User ORCID|0000-0001-5882-6823}}

The same method can be used for your user pages on sister projects (see #Template on sister projects). A similar method is used on several Wikipedias in other languages (though the template name varies; see #Template in other languages).

Global user pages

Global user pages, introduced in February 2015, allow you to put your ORCID ID on one page, using meta:Template:User ORCID, and then have that appear on every Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia project wiki, on which you don't have a local user page.

Your ORCID profile

Once you have an ORCID identifier, and a Wikipedia account, you can use your ORCID profile to tell the world about your work on Wikipedia. Eventually ORCID will have a parameter where you can enter your cross-project user name. Until then, you can add your Special:Contributions URL as a "work", and/ or list your userpage's URL as one of your websites. You can, of course, also do the same of any sister projects on which you are active. An example is http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5882-6823

Note that "encyclopedia-entry" is a valid "work" type in ORCID profiles, should you wish to include the permalink or diff of a particular Wikipedia article or edit.

We don't yet include ORCID identifiers for people whose work we cite, but we could do that.

If we do that, we could create pages like this mockup, showing all the pages on which an author is cited.

Previous discussion is archived at: Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 5#ORCID, redux.

An ORCID parameter is available in the equivalent of the "{{ Authority control}}" template in sixteen sister projects:

It's also available as a Userbox in six other sister projects ^[1]:

and on en.Wikiversity's Article info template.

The ORCID parameter is also available in the equivalent of the "{{ Authority control}}" template in 50 languages (including English and Simple English):

Notable omissions in the bigger Wikipedias are nl, which does not yet have the template, and de, whose template does not yet include ORCID.

(~) = Works in articles only (not user pages)

If you have questions, use this page's talk page, or contact Andy Mabbett, the Wikipedian-in-Residence at ORCID, who will be happy to help.

• A May 2014 poster about ORCID and Wikipedia presented at the ORCID outreach meeting in Chicago
• Announcing ORCID's Wikipedian-in-Residence
• Feature requests at orcid.org, relating to Wikipedia (and Wikidata):
  • Allow authors to enter URL of their Wikipedia biography
  • Allow people to include a link to their Wikipedia user profile
• Finding ORCID identifiers used in Wikidata & Wikipedia
• Matching ORCID and other authority control identifiers in Wikidata BEACON

• How individuals can add their ORCID iD to Wikipedia
• How Institutions can help add ORCID iDs for their staff/students etc.
• Category:Wikipedia articles with faulty ORCID identifiers - error-tracking category - should be empty!
• Meta page on possible future developments
• Wikidata queries

WMF pages using ORCID

• mediawikiwiki:Wikimedia Research/Collaborators
• meta:Template:Investigator