A summary by Lizz Jennings and Helen Cooper

1. ORCID and EPrints
Lizz Jennings
Technical Data Officer
University of Bath
Helen Cooper
Repository Manager & University Archivist
University of Central Lancashire

2. Introduction
• EPrints Repository Software widely used in UK and has a global community of
users
• No native support for ORCID, but several plugins exist for implementation
• At ORCID and EPrint meetings in 2016, it was clear that users wanted
solutions…
“ORCID integration should be a core feature of the repository. Unique and consistent identifiers for
authors is a per-requisite for meaningful metadata aggregation and linked data across repositories.”
• …and that developers had already done work but were looking to align and
apply their solutions.
• There was a need to work out what was needed and what was available
• Carried out information gathering exercise followed by a survey

3. Does your organisation have EPrints?
• 30 institutions responded
• Even split between hosted
and local implementations
• Hosting split evenly between
EPrints Services and ULCC

4. Have you already implemented ORCID in EPrints?
• Most institutions haven’t yet
implemented any ORCID
integration in Eprints
• Those responding “Other”
were often in the process of
adding ORCID functionality, or
had a partial implementation

5. Which types of integration are you interested in?
• The majority of respondents
wanted full integration with
ORCID
• 11 respondents wanted both
Tier 1 and Tier 2 functionality
• For those who responded
“Other”, the key issue was
linking authors to their ORCID
ID

6. Author disambiguation and display
One theme which emerged was proper author disambiguation in
EPrints:
• “…author disambiguation is key for subsequent use (e.g. publication lists…”
• “It is absolutely essential that there is full integration which includes pulling
name variants together in author index…”
• Consistent, attractive and useful display of the ID associated with authors and
outputs on abstract pages
• Ability to report using ORCID ids and featuring in all output formats

7. Linking ORCID and EPrints
Key themes are for simpler, more elegant, more comprehensive
integration
• Those who did not use another system wanted to enable researchers to be
able to create an ORCID ID from Eprints:
“…would like to integrate ORCID and EPrints so that people can create IDs from within
EPrints...”
• There was some preference for administrator functionality above depositor
and for documentation to enable reporting, and consistent use within and
across institutions:
“It is absolutely essential that there is full integration which includes pulling name variants
together in author index, auto-population of an ORCID ID where it has already been
inputted by a depositor and in due course, data integration with other systems.”

8. Development work already available
Several developers noted their existing work on integration and all are
keen to share and build on work already done:
“…There is no point re-inventing the wheel.”
“…intend to share my plugin with the community and develop it further…”
“… the community should be careful to ensure that whatever developments
we and EPrints Services / ULCC create should (be) consistent … across the
community and …(should not require)… further customisation.”

9. Key Features needed
• Record ORCID IDs as a creator subfield (Pittsburgh approach) (searchable and
open)
• ORCID ID look-up (prioritises local authors first) & validation
• Display ORCID ID as a link in EPrint abstract page & page metadata
• Include ORCID in all metadata export formats (JSON, CSV)
• Import / Export from ORCID for administrators
• Record permissions for ORCID connection

10. Recommendations
• Produce a single product that combines existing work into a single Bazaar
package to answer the needs of the community as detailed above.
• Fund comprehensive documentation to help us all make the best use of the
work done.
• Support for HEI administrators in implementing ORCID and encouraging take-
up with HEIs
• The JISC consortium website is the perfect place for this.

11. Any Questions?
The report: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/52526/
The data: http://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-00253
The people:
• Lizz Jennings, Technical Data Officer, University of Bath,
E.Jennings@bath.ac.uk
• Helen Cooper, Repository Manager, University of Central Lancashire
hcooper@uclan.ac.uk