ETDs, ORCID, and Vireo

Abstract

In early spring of 2015 the University of Texas at Austin added an option for graduate students to claim and add an ORCID to their ETD submission. UT Austin uses the Vireo submission system for processing ETDs and adding ORCID was done as part of a software upgrade. ORCID are persistent digital identifiers for researchers. They help researchers distinguish their research from everyone else. At the time we weren’t prepared to publicize the option, but we want to make it available for anyone to use. We intended to provide education and outreach at some point in the future.

In the summer of 2015, library staff noticed that many submissions were coming through Vireo with an ORCID included. An initial look at the data revealed approximately 29% of students had chosen to include an ORCID. This was quite a surprise given the lack of marketing, so in an effort to better understand how many students were choosing this option, we decided to investigate the use of ORCID for all 2015 submissions. A complete assessment of ORCID will be done once all the December 2015 submissions are finished being processed in late February. We intend to look at total numbers, numbers by department, and by degree level (masters vs doctoral). We will present our findings along with plans for marketing efforts to increase the use of ORCID.