ORCID iDs for academic credibility, dataset citations, and persistent author identity.

ORCID is the canonical academic identifier.

• Every paper that cites a Fonteum dataset gains a persistent author identifier — citations survive institutional moves, name changes, and email-domain rotations.
• Every Dataset JSON-LD block we emit can carry the researcher’s ORCID as a schema.org/Person sameAs — Google Dataset Search and OpenAIRE both ingest the field.
• ORCID linkage signals academic credibility on the public dashboard — a researcher with a linked ORCID is verifiably the author claimed by the iD.

/authenticate only. We never write to your ORCID record.

Fonteum requests the ORCID /authenticate scope only — the smallest scope that returns your ORCID iD plus your public profile. We do not request /activities/update, /person/update, or any other write scope. The integration cannot add works, change affiliations, or modify any field on your ORCID record.

What we store on your api_keys row:

• orcid_id — the bare 16-digit identifier
• orcid_linked_at — timestamp of the OAuth callback
• orcid_verified_email — first email ORCID has confirmed and exposes publicly (informational; the email you signed up with stays in api_keys.email)

What we do not store: the ORCID access token, refresh token, scope grants, or any non-public data from your ORCID profile. The access token is used once to fetch your public name + ORCID-confirmed email + primary affiliation, then discarded.

Link during signup, or via your account email.

1. Sign up at /signup/researcher. You’ll be redirected to /signup/researcher/orcid-link/<token> after submitting the form.
2. Click Continue with ORCID — you’ll be sent to orcid.org/oauth/authorize where you log in with your ORCID account and grant the /authenticate scope.
3. ORCID redirects back to Fonteum, we update your row, and you land on the success page with your API key.
4. Skipping is supported — the API tier works fully without ORCID linkage.

Operator-mediated for now.

Self-service ORCID unlink ships in a follow-on wave. To unlink today, contact our team via /contactwith your ORCID iD and the email on your researcher API key. We’ll clear the linkage within 24 hours and confirm by email.

Dataset JSON-LD carries your ORCID as a Person sameAs.

When a Fonteum Dataset is operator-curated with a researcher author and that researcher has linked their ORCID, the schema.org/Dataset creator field becomes a 2-element array: a Person carrying the ORCID sameAs URL plus the Fonteum Organization. Example:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dataset",
  "name": "Researcher-attributed dataset",
  "creator": [
    {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Joan Doe",
      "sameAs": "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097",
      "identifier": {
        "@type": "PropertyValue",
        "propertyID": "ORCID",
        "value": "0000-0002-1825-0097",
        "url": "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097"
      },
      "affiliation": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "University of Chicago"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Fonteum",
      "url": "https://fonteum.com"
    }
  ]
}

Auto-discovered citations on /researchersalso surface ORCID iDs when the citing paper’s OpenAlex record carries them — the dashboard renders the canonical ORCID green “iD” chip linking to the public profile.

• ORCID integration guide →
• ORCID record overview →
• Fonteum canonical citation format
• Researcher API reference