ORCID Advocacy Toolkit/Understanding ORCID/ORCID advocacy 101

Effective ORCID advocacy requires understanding different audiences and their motivations:

Researchers may view ORCID as administrative burden unless benefits are clearly communicated Administrators typically respond well to institutional benefits and compliance requirements IT Staff need technical resources and implementation guidance Library Staff often serve as key advocates and trainers

Professional Identity: distinguish you and ensure your research outputs and activities are correctly attributed to you

Career Continuity: Your ORCID travels with you across institutions and career changes

Time Savings: "Enter once, reuse often." Sharing the information in your ORCID record saves you time and reduces the risk of errors

Compliance: Meet requirements from funders, publishers, and institutions

Research Tracking: Improved ability to monitor institutional research output and impact

Efficiency Gains: Clear and effective messages (as short and precise as possible), creating a well-defined brand for ORCID and the targeting of specific audiences and audience segments were identified as being especially important

Competitive Advantage: Better research visibility and collaboration opportunities

To get the most value from ORCID, support and encouragement from administrative stakeholders is key. Partnering with other campus units can also help to amplify the ORCID message.

Essential Steps:

1. Secure Leadership Support: Senior managers were found to be receptive to the institutional benefits of ORCID, which makes them an ideal starting point in setting up and delivering successful advocacy strategies
2. Identify Champions: Recruit champions from across the institution
3. Target Specific Audiences: Identify one or more populations to promote to first. Researchers in some disciplines may already know what ORCID is because their disciplinary journals require it, whereas others may be hearing about ORCID for the first time

Effective communication was seen as one of the most important elements of projects by every pilot institution.

Best Practices:

• Keep Messages Simple: Focus on 1-2 key benefits per communication
• Use Local Examples: Show how ORCID benefits researchers in their specific discipline
• Provide Context: Show researchers journals or publishers in their discipline that use ORCID
• Address Concerns: Be prepared to discuss common objections like time investment and privacy

Low Adoption Rates: Generally speaking, academics may see ORCID as 'another level of bureaucracy', resulting in a degree of resistance to using it

Solution: Focus on demonstrating clear, immediate value and reducing perceived burden

Generational Differences: Early career researchers tended to see the benefits of ORCID and embrace them more positively than established researchers and senior academics

Solution: Tailor messaging and outreach methods to different career stages

Duplication Concerns: Academics at some pilot institutions expressed concern about duplication of effort in entering their information into numerous different systems

Solution: Emphasize "enter once, reuse often" principle and system integrations

Start with the low hanging fruit. Develop special outreach to doctoral students and postdocs

Priority Audiences:

1. Graduate students and postdocs (typically more receptive)
2. Faculty in disciplines with existing ORCID adoption
3. Researchers applying for grants or publishing frequently

• Training Programs: Regular workshops and tutorials
• Documentation: Clear, accessible guides and FAQs
• Help Desk: Dedicated support for ORCID questions
• Integration Planning: Technical implementation roadmap

Track adoption rates, gather feedback, and adjust strategies based on what works in your institutional context. Allow sufficient time to prepare. Empower the project manager.

• ORCID Advocacy Toolkit: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ORCID_Advocacy_Toolkit
• ORCID US Community Outreach Guide: Comprehensive planning resource
• Local Case Studies: Examples from institutions similar to yours
• Disciplinary Resources: Subject-specific benefits and requirements