From: Subbiah Arunachalam <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2017 21:40:42 +0530

As a scientometricist, I often face the problem of attributing
research publications to the right authors. Author names are rendered
differently in different publications, e.g. John Maynard Smith or John
M Smith or J M Smith or Smith JM. Also, there could be more than one
John M Smith. [The same way, names of institutions are also rendered
in different ways. To take care of the multiple rendering of
institutional names, Clarivate's Web of Science has a field called
'Organization enhanced' or OG. Even that does not capture all name
variants.]

If all authors of research publications adopt ORCID iD, the name
ambiguity problem can be solved. More than a year ago, I and my
colleague Muthu Madhan wrote a detailed paper on this issue:

[http://www.nmji.in/temp/NatlMedJIndia294227-4257534_114935.pdf]

but unfortunately, it does not seem to have reached many people.

Academic and research librarians could campaign for the adoption of
ORCID iD by all their users.

Subbiah Arunachalam
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4398-4658
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-9925-2009