Completion and Updating Behaviour in ORCID Profiles: Evidence from ERC-Funded Researchers in Spain

Abstract Purpose The Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) is becoming the de facto standard for researcher identification in scholarly communication, providing a persistent unique identifier and a registry that functions as a digital CV. The purpose of this study is to analyse the ORCID profiles of a selected group of leading researchers to analyse creation, completion, and updating of their records, with particular attention to the Works section. Design/methodology/approach We focus on the 357 grants awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) to researchers with a Spanish host institution between 2014 and 2020, for whom a high degree of ORCID adoption has been reported. Data included in their ORCID records were downloaded and the completion and dynamics of Personal Information and Activities sections are studied. Differences by domain and researcher career stage are explored. Findings All ERC researchers have an ORCID iD, and in most cases, their records are publicly available. ORCID profile completion is quite high in the Activities sections, particularly Works and Employment, and lower in the Personal Information sections. Most of the profiles were created by the users themselves and had been updated recently (75 % in the last three months). Sections that allow for automatic input tend to show higher completion rates and are more recently updated. Although ORCID accepts all kind of research outputs, journal articles form the majority (84 %) in our study. Works are added to profiles mainly by commercial entities (especially Elsevier and Clarivate), with non-profit organisations (e.g., Crossref) a distant second. Only 10 % of works are included by researchers themselves. Research limitations As the study examines a particular group of elite researchers, their practices regarding profile completion and updating cannot be generalized to other researcher populations. Practical implications ERC-funded researchers show quite high engagement with the ORCID system, but there is uneven completion of record sections and data quality issues that need to be addressed to improve the system and consolidate identifier use. Originality/value ORCID record completion, work collection and updating behaviour have been insufficiently explored to date. The study of a population of leading researchers helps reveal ORCID record completion practices, as well as data quality issues and controversial approaches to work collection.