Dear editor,
Many medical journals request authors, either the corresponding author or all authors, to register for an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) during manuscript submission and before their papers can be published. ORCID's slogan reads “Connecting Research and Researchers”, while the website claims “ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier [Y_Y] that distinguishes you from every other researcher”. A 2020 blog post indicates that ORCID's mission is to “enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers and their contributions”. Finally, ORCID currently (May 9, 2021) boasts 11,438,782 live ORCID IDs. At a first glance, the projected messages and slogans appear to be constructive to academia and researchers. As recognized by Tekles and Bornmann [1], ORCID is a useful researcher identifier. However, only if ORCID is able to accurately identify real researchers.
In a recent paper, several risks associated with ORCID were indicated and debated [2]. Those risks have the potential of reducing trust in the tool and the organization, even as more and more publishers mandate the use of ORCID by their authors. The greatest concerns that were argued are:
An erosion of authors’ rights occurs, especially of those academics without an ORCID, for example those academics who might not wish to have one, but for which ORCID is mandated (i.e., not optional), for example, during the submission of a paper to a journal. In essence, in such cases, ORCID is not serving to connect researchers, or to facilitate their intellectual expression. Rather, ORCID is suppressing academic work and serving as a barrier of entry, antithetic to the slogans on the ORCID website.
ORCID is used by some fraudulent authors, or by others who create fake researchers or accounts, including for unethical “sting” operations.
ORCID is used as disposable IDs, used once or a limited number of times, for example by unethical paper mills, then discarded, serving no academic purpose whatsoever.
The existence of “ghost” ORCID accounts in which information is absent, missing, incomplete or otherwise unreliable, thereby reducing the ability of verifying if the stated researcher is in fact that researcher, or not.
These issues ultimately reduce trust in ORCID, and if left unresolved, they may cause reputational damage, by association, to valid researchers who use this tool, believing with almost blind trust, that they are employing a valid tool of integrity, although this is not always the case, as indicated by the examples (non-exhaustive list) shown in this letter.
In Table 1 , 35 examples are shown of randomly selected ORCID accounts that were equally randomly detected in a free-association selection process. The search and analysis was conducted February 14, 2021. A thorough examination of the > 11.44A million accounts is needed to appreciate how many “nonsense” ORCID accounts exist. What is clear, humour aside, is that when one considers that ORCID is supposed to be providing a measure of trust, reliability, connectivity and of privileged gated entry to journals, that the existence of such flamboyant accounts minimizes trust, erodes integrity, and makes mockery of the very slogans used by this organization and reduces the purpose of this tool.
Table 1.
35 examples of incredulous ORCID “researcher” accountsa.
| ORCID nameb | ORCID ID/URL | Date last modified |
|---|---|---|
| Garbage enclosure | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2949-5890 | Jun 6, 2017 7:39:00 PM |
| Nonhuman Nonsense | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2125-0864 | Oct 30, 2020 4:08:20 PM |
| the shit | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6053-0770 | Nov 21, 2020 5:33:10 PM |
| fuck off | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0745-3101 | Feb 18, 2020 8:19:34 PM |
| Asian pussy | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2260-8784 | Apr 6, 2020 8:11:10 PM |
| Star Star | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2788-1509 | Dec 2, 2020 1:12:00 PM |
| Super BadAss | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1984-8581 | May 2, 2019 5:53:42 AM |
| Cactus Dummy | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3948-9715 | Jun 23, 2020 3:30:14 AM |
| Albert Einstein | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2125-060X | Jun 14, 2016 10:45:48 PM |
| Donald Trump | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6394-002X | May 7, 2018 5:32:56 PM |
| Michael Jackson | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0708-8223 | Sep 16, 2016 12:05:01 PM |
| Queen Elizabethc | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3423-8300 | Jul 2, 2020 3:39:23 PM |
| Col. Mustard | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4956-5294 | Aug 2, 2017 2:22:22 PM |
| swimming pools | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4698-2460 | Jan 27, 2020 10:09:08 AM |
| ROCK Rock | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2493-7346 | Nov 19, 2020 4:51:22 PM |
| fat ass | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6004-0483 | May 17, 2018 12:28:41 PM |
| V Tight Gel | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0356-2378 | Sep 10, 2018 12:22:29 PM |
| Toilet Able | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6715-8721 | Feb 15, 2020 9:16:05 PM |
| THE GAME | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5419-6190 | Nov 11, 2020 8:58:04 AM |
| elon musk | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8013-3548 | Feb 10, 2021 5:15:52 AM |
| Bill Gatesd | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1689-0557 | Jan 29, 2021 5:21:19 AM |
| Moonshine Still | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1418-9225 | Feb 28, 2019 5:47:45 AM |
| Who AmI | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1553-653X | Oct 21, 2016 8:07:04 AM |
| Cassidy Brothers | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0962-5766 | Jun 14, 2016 9:49:40 PM |
| Shark | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2051-3949 | Nov 21, 2016 7:31:47 PM |
| Confused Khyal | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4648-3621 | Oct 6, 2019 8:26:10 AM |
| Clock Nine | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6534-2541 | May 28, 2017 12:43:57 PM |
| killing machine | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6322-8465 | Apr 11, 2017 5:04:49 PM |
| Chicken Pieces | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8364-8651 | Apr 29, 2020 9:23:59 AM |
| a fish | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9173-2519 | Aug 26, 2020 4:48:41 AM |
| Big Yes | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7414-9567 | Mar 13, 2018 12:13:14 PM |
| Researcher Academic | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1535-3899 | Jun 8, 2020 9:05:25 PM |
| Skull M | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6306-1017 | Nov 4, 2020 4:12:31 PM |
| John Travolta | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4607-1416 | Jun 14, 2016 9:37:54 PM |
| STRESS BUSTERS | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2519-6746 | Jun 6, 2019 2:11:47 AM |
In all cases, except for footnoted, a Google search did not reveal any academic paper associated with these ORCIDs. All ORCID URLs last accessed: February 14, 2021. Some “researchers” may have names similar to known or famous individuals.
ORCID names are not in any particular order, and are represented precisely as archived on the ORCID website (uppercase or lowercase letters, repetitions, etc.). Apologies to sensitive readers for pointing out some of the less respectable examples, including lewd, potentially racist, disgusting, disgraceful, shocking, crude, or otherwise unscholarly – including possible impersonations – accounts (the responsibility for the existence of such accounts lies entirely with ORCID).
Claimed to be affiliated with Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India
In this case, the actual author is Chengxiang Liu (https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/11/12/250)
ORCID, the organization, needs to urgently publicly address these issues, guarantee that its entire database will be carefully screened, and that such nonsense accounts of fake “researchers” will be deleted, but with an open, public and transparent explanation of deleted accounts. Moreover, as equally as there are increasing calls to criminalize fraudulent academics [3] and those who create fake accounts and personalities to deceive journals [4], it might also be important to seek criminal justice for any individual or group that abuses ORCID because they negatively affect the integrity and reputation, not only of ORCID (the organization), but also its users.
For several academics, including the author, it is impossible to submit papers to journals that forcefully mandate an ORCID for the corresponding author. This non-academic restrictive barrier to entry is a violation of the right to the free selection of a journal for submission. The reproducibility and integrity of biomedical science is being heavily scrutinized [5], including the authenticity of authors and authorship, even more so now in the COVID-19 literature [6]. Within that push towards fortifying the integrity of the biomedical literature lies the ability to distinguish valid from invalid authors. Given that authorship is central to the integrity of scholarly literature, the editors of many ethics and biomedical journals may be relying on ORCID to screen valid from invalid authors. However, perhaps, after seeing the examples in this letter, they need to reflect more carefully on placing blind trust in this tool.
Disclosure of interest
The author declares that he has no competing interest.
References
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