ORCID and Research Output Reporting Without the Spreadsheet

The annual scramble for publication lists

Research reporting depends on knowing what staff have published. In most universities that knowledge sits in a spreadsheet the research office rebuilds every year by emailing departments. Researchers resent typing the same list again. Some never reply. The figure that reaches the regulator or the Vice-Chancellor is a best guess.

Most researchers already keep an ORCID record, the persistent identifier that publishers and funders use. Linking that record to the university's own systems removes most of the typing and most of the guessing.

Oxonia Research, in Oxonia Discover, and Oxonia Nexus both use ORCID, each for its own job.

Connecting ORCID once

In Oxonia Research, each researcher connects their ORCID record once, signing in at ORCID to give permission. The connection uses the university's own ORCID member API client, so the university stays in control of the relationship.

Tokens are never shown in messages or logs. If anything fails, the researcher sees a message written for them, not an error code. A researcher can disconnect at any time; Research removes the connection and revokes the permission at ORCID, and says so if ORCID could not confirm it.

Connecting and disconnecting are both written to the audit log.

The connection is switched off until the university has entered its own ORCID member API client, so nothing is sent to ORCID by accident. Universities can test against ORCID's sandbox before going live.

For researchers the experience is simple: one button, a sign-in at ORCID, and a confirmation. They can disconnect at any time.

Importing works, after review

Once connected, a researcher can import their works from ORCID into their Research outputs. Imports are reviewed before they become outputs, so a mis-attributed paper or a conference abstract the researcher does not want listed can be left out.

Each output records its year, department, type and open-access status, such as gold, green, hybrid or bronze. Those details are what make the research report useful.

Review is where the research office adds value. A mis-attributed paper is removed once rather than reappearing in every report. The open-access status of each output is recorded, so the report can show what share of the university's work is openly available, an increasingly common question from funders.

Outputs can still be added by hand for work that is not on ORCID, such as reports for government or industry.

Sending outputs back to ORCID

The sync goes both ways. A researcher can add an output recorded in Research to their ORCID record, or update one that is already there.

When ORCID accepts a work, it returns a reference that Research keeps on the output. If the output is edited later, the same work on ORCID is updated rather than a second copy being added. That small detail saves researchers from untidy ORCID records full of duplicates.

For researchers this means one place to keep their record tidy. A paper added in Research can be sent to their ORCID record without retyping it on the ORCID site.

Staff publications in Nexus

Oxonia Nexus, which prepares regulator returns, also reads publications from ORCID, using ORCID's public API. It checks that each ORCID iD is valid, including its check digit, before using it.

Imported works arrive in Nexus as suggestions. The staff member confirms each one or excludes it. Only confirmed publications count, and they feed the research section of the annual return directly. See preparing accreditation visits and regulator returns.

Using two connections for two jobs is deliberate. The researcher-controlled connection in Research is for the research office's own records. The public read in Nexus is for the regulator return, and needs nothing from the researcher except their ORCID iD and a decision on each suggested work.

Reports the research office can stand behind

The research report in Oxonia Research shows ten headline figures for a chosen period: open funding calls, bids submitted, success rate, award income, ethics turnaround, ethics applications waiting, research outputs and how many are open access, postgraduate completions, research students at risk and projects at red.

Each figure carries a sentence explaining exactly how it was counted, for example that the success rate is bids awarded divided by bids awarded or declined in the period, with the numbers. Award income is reported by department, and outputs by faculty, with open-access and journal article counts.

When the Vice-Chancellor or a funder asks where a number came from, the answer is already on the page.

Reports can be filtered to the departments a person is responsible for, so a dean of research sees their own faculty while the research office sees the whole university. Postgraduate completions and students at risk come from the research student records, so the report covers doctoral training as well as grants and outputs.

Where to start

Ask the university's ORCID administrator to set up the member API client, then invite one faculty's researchers to connect. Review the first imports with them and agree what counts as an output. After one reporting cycle, the spreadsheet is no longer needed.

For the rest of the research journey, from funding calls to ethics and doctoral milestones, read research office software for grants, ethics and PhDs. For digitised theses and a cited librarian, read digitise theses and past papers.

Agree the house rules early. Which output types count for which report, how open-access status is recorded, and who in each department reviews imports. Write them down once, and every later report follows the same definitions, which is exactly what makes one year comparable with the next. A short guide for researchers, explaining why the connection helps them, makes the first invitation far more successful.

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