Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A journal article asserted with title, year 2024, type 'journal-article', and DOI 10.1234/abc.
- Is an instance
A dataset asserted with a DataCite DOI and contributor role 'Data Curator'.
- Is an instance
A preprint self-claimed by the author before the journal version is later auto-fetched and grouped under the same DOI-family identifier.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A line on a CV PDF is not an ORCID work assertion until written into the record.
- Not an instance
A citation to the work in someone else's paper is not a work assertion in the cited author's ORCID record.
Editorial commentary
An ORCID work assertion is a record item on an ORCID iD claiming that a specific research output — a journal article, book chapter, dataset, preprint, software release, conference paper, or similar — is associated with the iD holder, together with metadata such as title, output type, publication year, external identifiers (DOI, ISBN, PMID) and, where available, the person’s contributor role.
Where a work assertion comes from: three sources, one field
Every work assertion carries a ‘source’ recording who made the claim. Works can be self-claimed by the iD holder typing metadata in directly; auto-fetched via ORCID’s search-and-link wizards, which query Crossref, DataCite, Scopus or Europe PMC by name and let the researcher pick matching records to import; or pushed automatically by a trusted-organisation member (a publisher, funder, or research-information system) through the Member API, commonly via ORCID’s auto-update service once a researcher has authorised it. The same underlying work can carry multiple source assertions from different actors — ORCID groups these by shared external identifier, usually the DOI, rather than treating them as separate works.
CRediT roles on a work assertion
Since ORCID API 3.0 (2021), a work assertion can carry one or more CRediT contributor role values natively, alongside ORCID’s own broader role vocabulary. In practice this depends on the depositing publisher tagging CRediT roles in its Crossref or DataCite metadata deposit — not every publisher does, so CRediT-role coverage on work assertions is real but partial across the literature.
How this differs from its closest ORCID siblings
A work assertion is not the same category of record as an employment or education item — those describe the person’s relationship to an organisation over a period; a work assertion describes a specific, individually identified output. It is also a distinct concept from ORCID record permissions: visibility (public/limited/private) is a separate axis applied to a work assertion after it exists, not part of the assertion itself, and a work can be publicly visible regardless of which source added it.
Frequently asked questions
If I add a work manually, does it look different from one an organisation pushed?
The record carries the source information in its history, but both display the same way once added — the practical difference is who can edit or remove it later, and how much confidence a downstream consumer typically places on an organisation-asserted entry.
Can two different sources both claim the same work without duplicating it?
Generally yes — ORCID’s grouping logic matches assertions sharing an external identifier, typically a DOI, so they display as one work with multiple sources rather than duplicate entries, though mismatched metadata between sources can occasionally produce an unwanted duplicate.
References
- ORCID Inc., ‘Adding works to your ORCID record’ (support.orcid.org).
- NISO, ‘ORCID Launches Its Support for CRediT’ (niso.org, 2021).
Also known as
ORCID work item · ORCID publication claim
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="ORCID work assertion"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/orcid-work-assertion" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/orcid-work-assertion",
"name": "ORCID work assertion",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/orcid-work-assertion",
"description": "A claim, recorded in an ORCID record, that a particular research output (journal article, book chapter, dataset, software, etc.) is associated with the iD holder, with metadata fields including title, type, publication year, external identifiers (DOI, ISBN, PMID), and contributor role.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/orcid-work-assertion",
"sameAs": [
"ORCID work item",
"ORCID publication claim"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:08:40",
"dateModified": "2026-08-22T15:52:30",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
