Case Study

ACS Supports Open Science and Operational

Efficiency through Persistent Identifiers

SUMMARY

ACS Publications followed an evolutionary path to a digital-first workflow and to advance the use of open methods in scientific publishing with a key improvement to directly link researcher identities and research funding to published output through use of persistent identifiers (PIDs) through three collaborative industry solutions:   

  • ORCID (aka Open Researcher and Contributor ID):  Author name disambiguation and ensuring accurate authorship credit had been a long-standing challenge for researchers, funders and journal publishers prior to the adoption of ORCID.  As a unique identifier for individuals engaged in research and publishing activities, ACS accepts, publishes and distributes validated ORCIDs for corresponding authors as part of the publishing process.  
  • Open Funder Registry (aka “FundRef”): By associating relevant funder ids with research articles during the publication process, ACS enables CHORUS and other parties to track published output from publicly funded research.   ACS also leverages this funder information to streamline read and publish operations and enable enhanced operations analysis dashboards.  
  • License metadata (aka “LicenseRef”): ACS publishes content in a variety of models:  open access, subscription, promotional, etc.  ACS associates machine-readable license identifiers for its recently published articles, enabling third party organizations to determine basic content rights and permissions.

 

WHAT ACTIONS WERE TAKEN?

ORCID: ACS implemented multiple integrations with ORCID and is a top contributor of trusted data to ORCID records. 

ORCIDs are collected during submission; they are required for corresponding authors.  Each ORCID is validated by author authentication into their ORCID account.  At publication, ORCIDs are added to the article’s Crossref metadata record and authorship and peer review activity is added to the ORCID registry.  ORCIDs are included in article displays and content feeds.  

Implementation provides multiple positive benefits  

  • promotes research integrity through presence in article displays and CHORUS dashboards; 
  • improves publication data analytic processes by disambiguating author names. 

Open Funder.  ACS implemented a multi-step process to acquire and verify funder PIDs.   During the submission and review process, the corresponding author is prompted to select applicable funder(s) from a list, or to explicitly affirm that no funders apply.   Later, the vendor ensures the funder data aligns with any funding statements within the manuscript’s acknowledgments section.  During proof stage, the author can request funder data corrections.  Upon publication, funder data is added to the Crossref article metadata record.  

Open Funder implementation supports open research by enabling traceability of research findings, e.g. through CHORUS and improves operational efficiency by enabling automated identification of applicable author funder deposit requirements and publishing agreements. 

License metadata.  ACS leverages PIDs to convey whether a specific use license applies to an article.  A license PID is expressed as a canonical URI; e.g.: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

PIDs of any applicable use license are added to the article’s Crossref metadata record.  This enables other organizations such as CHORUS to use automated methods determine whether an article is open access. 

Case study contributor & organisation

Dan O’Brien
Director of Publishing Technology, ACS 

Dan has led the development of innovative and strategic solutions at the intersection of technology and academic publishing for the American Chemical Society for more than two decades.   His work focuses on leveraging emerging and proven technologies to enable new capabilities, modernize content workflows, optimize operational efficiency and enable scalable, researcher centric solutions that support ACS’s mission and the broader scholarly communications community. 

Learn more

Key Takeaways

PIDs make it easier for funders and the scientific community to more clearly identify and link funders, funded research, key outputs such as publications and associated rights and permissions. The use of these open methods such as ORCID, the Open Funder Registry and License metadata/LicenseRef help enable a more equitable environment for Open Science to progress. 

Including accurate PIDs during publishing may come at a cost, but inaccurate metadata can also be costly.  Unvalidated ORCIDs can be a vector for misuse or fraudulent activity and content with incorrect license or rights metadata can lead to other problems.  

While human verification of critical PIDs like ORCIDs and funder IDs can be a non-trivial effort, the rise of agentic AI frameworks is poised to achieve lower-cost and automated PID accuracy and validation.   

A publisher that includes curated and validated PIDs in their publications can reap additional value through streamlined operations (such as funder IDs that facilitate open access licensing).

PIDs may have greater value when conveyed by more than one method for different consumers. Possibilities include: 

  • Within XMP metadata of the article’s PDF file. 
  • In the HTTP header and/or HTML heading of the article delivery request (especially for applicable licensing and rights reservations metadata). 
  • Within metadata registries, such as Crossref. 

It is crucial that publishers define clear policies regarding post-publication change requests for PIDs.  Issues to address include: Where should post-publication PID change requests be directed and are they handled as editorial text corrections or as data updates?   Who can request a corrected ORCID in a published article, or that an article’s metadata be updated to include a different funder ID and grant number?