Think of ORCiD as your online CV, helping you claim your online scholarly presence.

Your ORCID is a unique 16 digit number to disambiguate you from other authors. This is especially helpful for those of us with common names, or if you have a legal name change.

It is more common for journals to require it with article submission, and for many grant applications as well.

Some ORCiD fields match up with CV or residency applicaiton fields, such as honors/awards or association/society memberships.

You can control the visibility of each entry in your ORCiD profile. If storing information for just you, change the visibility easily by selecting “Only me” in the top left corner of the entry’s box.