Is ORCID a reliable source for CV analysis? Exploring the data availability of ORCID academic profiles

With the rapid adoption of ORCID in academia, the number of ORCID users has been growing significantly and more informetricians are recognizing the research value of ORCID profiles. However, the reliability of the conclusions in studies based on ORCID profiles is undermined by data quality issues, such as missing items, insufficient coverage of publications, unnormalized institution names, and duplicated registration. To facilitate efficient application of ORCID profiles in informetric research and possibly inspire new improvements to ORCID profile use strategies, this study investigates ORCID data availability on a large scale. The statistical results demonstrate that, due to very limited data verification functions and weak awareness at the users’ end to update their profiles regularly, most ORCID profiles have missing, inaccurate, or outdated information about education or work experience. It is suggested that a well-designed data collection strategy is necessary for informetrics studies to obtain samples with relatively complete and regularly updated profiles. Moreover, introducing more external data resources as essential supplements, especially those from publication databases, would help to improve the data quality of ORCID profiles, so as to draw better portraits of academic researchers around the world.