Graduate Student and Undergraduate Medical Student Adoption of ORCID: Establishing Benchmarks

Abstract

Objective A key use case for ORCID at the university is to support early career researchers, including graduate students and medical students. Librarians at a university with a large medical school have promoted the adoption of ORCID. However, apart from occasional anecdotes, little is known about the outcomes of these efforts. In this study we establish an adoption rate for this population. This study aims to establish ORCID adoption rates among graduate students, providing a benchmark for future efforts. Methods We acquired a complete list of currently enrolled graduate students (2023-2024) from the registrar (n=8180). We randomized these records to create a sample of 375 students. We then coded this sample for the status of the student's ORCID account (unfound, found, likely found, and unable to verify). Results Across the sample we found that 8.5% of graduate students (n=32) had registered an ORCID with identifying information. Another 13% (n=50) of students in the sample appear to have created an ORCID record but have not shared enough data to fully affiliate them. However, this adoption rate varied widely between campus schools. Notably, the School of Medicine demonstrated a higher adoption rate, with 32% (22 out of 69) of sampled students having identifiable ORCIDs. Conclusions The School of Medicine, supported by the Medical Library, has achieved better adoption rates than other schools at the university. With these rates established, the libraries can identify approaches that have been successful and more widely implement them.