She is a scientist at the University of Würzburg.

She would like to promote her research activities and attach them uniquely to her identity.

Especially with a last name like Schmidt it is difficult to distinguish her work from those of others with similar names.

Therefore Alma is going to register for an ORCID identifier.

She improves her visibility and improves the visibility of data between the information systems that researchers use, ...

... for example during the manuscript submission.

At orcid.org Alma starts her registration.

ORCID is an open non-profit organisation.

The ORCID registry is free of charge.

Alma now has obtained a unique researcher identifier: her ORCID iD.

She can edit her profile if she wants to: information about her biography, her education, her employment or recent projects.

By clicking the pencil icon she can edit how the name appears on the ORCID record.

She can also add other versions of her name.

The next time she signs in, she gets an eMail with a confirmatory link to ORCID.

This helps ORCID to check whether the registration has been correct.

Let's now have a look on how Alma can import her publications into her ORCID record from outside databases.

She beginns with the Search and link tool under Add works.

First the linking process requires her to grant access to the outside database.

Alma gives permission for Europe PMC to access her ORCID record.

In the result list Alma has found her article.

Two clicks and the article is linked to her ORCID iD and appears in her profile.

If she had found more than one article, she could have linked them in one step.

Alma would like to submit a new manuscript to Nature Chemistry.

First she has to register.

She can link her ORCID iD to her Nature account.

Here again Nature asks permission to access her ORCID record and places the ORCID iD into the account.

Today more and more publishers require the ORCID iD if you want to submit a manuscript.

Alma uses the Search and link tool again and adds CrossRef and DataCite to the list of her trusted organisations.

Her article will automatically appear in her record as soon as it is published.

Alma uses her ORCID iD whenever she wants to present her research activities.