An equally important area of reflection is the benefits coming from our approach and the project.
Having the Jisc project at Southampton did improve both knowledge and skills of ORCID within the organisation. One example is the Library was better able respond to enquiries and embed advice in academic practice – for example resulting out of the NIHR asking for ORCIDs for a grant application.
Also the Jisc project has increased the awareness of ORCID within key parts of the institution, such as the library, IT, Research and Innovation Services and the senior management within the university (e.g. the Pro Vice-Chancellor Research). Endorsement and support from key national and international bodies has demonstrated that ORCID is a significant development.
We are more able to raise awareness with researchers and explain the benefits than before. An effective way is to integrate this into wider conversations and activities relating to research support (e.g. this is now covered as part of our open access training and deskside training). We expect immediate personal benefits to academics to be further increased by the integration of our new CRIS.
Also it has helped us understand some of the requirements for procurement of our new CRIS. Given developments by the major suppliers (Elsevier and Thomson Reuters) we expect ORCID to reduce the burden on academics and administrators in maintaining publications on our repository. E.g. alerting of publications missing from the repository and more automated author disambiguation. Also since ORCID is included in RIOXX, there is the potential to help with interoperability with ResearchFish and HEFCE REF systems.
One significant area for integration will be the Equipment.Data service. After careful consideration the best way to do this will be to link outputs (publications and data) to the equipment they use. (There are also significant potential benefits of linking equipment to grant applications – something RCUK is considering.) After scoping options, we would like to develop something for widespread use and are modelling a plugin for the EPrints Bazaar Store, which could be promoted via the EPrints user community.
We have already added our repositories OAI PMH details to our Organisation Profile Document (ODP). We envision this as a route to discover repositories with appropriate data.
