ORCID será o CPF dos cientistas?

Sei que você já teve dificuldade de distinguir autores numa busca do Pubmed. Há vários sobrenomes iguais e o uso das iniciais do(s) primeiro(s) nome(s) nem sempre ajuda muito. Além de coincidências, há muita variação no uso, o mesmo autor pode aparecer com uma ou mais iniciais. 

A chegada dos chineses tornou as coisas mais difíceis. Uma busca no Pubmed pelo sobrenome Xu mostra que entre os cinco primeiros aparece Y. Xu, A. Xu, B. Xu e L. Xu. Achei Xu com praticamente todas as letras como iniciais. (EXu parece publicar pouco, não achei publicação dele até a posição 200).

A idéia de usar um “CPF” para os cientistas, de tal maneira que se tenha segurança que a publicação pertence à pessoa procurada tem sido discutida há algum tempo. A proposta encontra dificuldades naturais devidas à grande divergência de sistemas de identificação mundo afora e de integração das informações nos bancos de dados já existentes.

Uma proposta recente de instituir uma identificação única para cientistas é o ORCID (veja mais aqui).

Eles se definem como:

“What is ORCID?

As researchers and scholars, you face the ongoing challenge of distinguishing your research activities from those of others with similar names. You need to be able to easily and uniquely attach your identity to research objects such as datasets, equipment, articles, media stories, citations, experiments, patents, and notebooks. As you collaborate across disciplines, institutions, and borders, you must interact with an increasing number and diversity of research information systems.  Entering data over and over again can be time-consuming, and often frustrating.

ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-based effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers.  ORCID is unique in its ability to reach across disciplines, research sectors, and national boundaries and in its cooperation with other identifier systems.  ORCID works with the research community to identify opportunities for integrating ORCID identifiers in key workflows, such as research profile maintenance, manuscript submissions, grant applications, and patent applications.  

ORCID provides two core functions:  (1) a registry to obtain a unique identifier and manage a record of activities, and (2) APIs that support system-to-system communication and authentication.  ORCID makes its code available under an open source license, and will post an annual public data file under a CCO waiver for free download.  

The ORCID Registry is available free of charge to individuals, who may obtain an ORCID, manage their record of activities, and search for others in the Registry.  Organizations may become members to link their records to ORCID identifiers, to update ORCID records, to receive updates from ORCID, and to register their employees and students for ORCID identifiers. 

ORCID records hold non-sensitive information such as name, email, organization name, and research activities. ORCID understands the fundamental need for individuals to control how their data are shared, and provides tools to manage data privacy.  We take steps to protect your information, consistent with the principles set forth in our Privacy Policy, which are intended to comply with the Safe Harbor Principles issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce.”