Description
Researcher Profiles for ORCID connects your WordPress site to the ORCID Public API v3.0 to automatically fetch and locally cache academic researcher profiles — including their publications, employment history and education — and expose them anywhere on your site via simple shortcodes.
No authentication token is required for publicly visible ORCID records.
How it works
- You register one or more researchers by ORCID iD in the admin panel.
- The plugin fetches their profile from the ORCID Public API and stores everything in custom database tables.
- WordPress Cron automatically refreshes the data on a configurable schedule.
- Shortcodes read from the local database — zero live API calls on page load.
Shortcodes
[rporcid_works orcid_id="0000-0002-1825-0097"]— list all works for a researcher[rporcid_works orcid_id="0000-0002-1825-0097" type="journal-article" limit="10"]— filtered works[rporcid_profile orcid_id="0000-0002-1825-0097"]— full profile card (bio + employment + education + works)[rporcid_researcher_list]— responsive grid of all registered researchers
Features
- Researcher management table in the WordPress admin
- Manual sync per researcher or bulk sync all
- Configurable auto-sync interval (hourly, twice daily, daily, weekly)
- Sync log with status and error details
- Works grouped by year with a client-side type filter (no page reload)
- Template override support — copy views to
yourtheme/researcher-profiles-for-orcid/ - BEM CSS classes for easy styling
- Developer action/filter hooks
- Full i18n support — ships with
es_ESandes_MXtranslations - Clean uninstall — drops all custom tables and options
External Services
This plugin makes HTTP requests to the ORCID Public API (https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0) to retrieve researcher profile data. Requests are made only when an admin triggers a manual sync or when WordPress Cron fires an automatic sync — never on front-end page load.
By using this plugin you agree to the ORCID Public Data File Terms of Use and the ORCID Terms of Service.
No data is sent to any server other than pub.orcid.org.
Privacy
This plugin does not collect, store or transmit any personal data about your website visitors. It only stores publicly available researcher profile data retrieved from ORCID (name, biography, works, employment, education) in your own database.
Installation
Automatic installation
- Log in to your WordPress admin panel.
- Go to Plugins Add New.
- Search for Researcher Profiles for ORCID.
- Click Install Now, then Activate.
Manual installation
- Download the plugin zip file.
- Upload the
researcher-profiles-for-orcidfolder towp-content/plugins/. - Go to Plugins in the WordPress admin and activate Researcher Profiles for ORCID.
After activation
- Go to WP Admin ORCID Sync Researchers.
- Enter a researcher’s ORCID iD (e.g.
0000-0002-1825-0097) and click Add & Sync. - Use one of the shortcodes above in any page, post or widget.
FAQ
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Do I need an ORCID API key or token?
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No. The plugin uses the ORCID Public API which does not require authentication for publicly visible records.
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What happens if a researcher’s ORCID profile is private?
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Only publicly visible data is fetched. Private records require an OAuth access token, which is not supported in v1.0.0 (planned for v2).
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How often does the data refresh?
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By default, once daily via WordPress Cron. You can change the interval (hourly, twice daily, daily, weekly) in WP Admin ORCID Sync Settings, or trigger a manual sync at any time.
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Can I customise the HTML output?
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Yes. Copy any template from
wp-content/plugins/researcher-profiles-for-orcid/public/views/towp-content/themes/your-theme/researcher-profiles-for-orcid/and edit freely. The plugin checks for a theme override first. -
Does this plugin slow down my site?
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No. All data is served from your local database. The ORCID API is only called during background sync jobs, never during page rendering.
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Is the plugin multisite compatible?
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Multisite compatibility is not tested in v1.0.0. Each subsite would maintain its own set of researchers and database tables.
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What data is stored in the database?
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Five custom tables are created:
wp_orcid_researchers,wp_orcid_works,wp_orcid_employments,wp_orcid_educations, andrporcid_log. All data consists of publicly available information fetched from ORCID. Everything is removed when you delete the plugin.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Researcher Profiles for ORCID” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Researcher Profiles for ORCID” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.1.0
- Add alias support: researchers can be assigned a short alias and referenced by it in shortcodes (e.g.
orcid_id="juan"). Falls back to ORCID iD if no alias matches. Existing installs are upgraded automatically on plugin activation. - Filter buttons now inherit the active WordPress theme colors via Global Styles (
.wp-element-button). No hardcoded colors — the plugin adapts to any block theme automatically. - CSS uses
currentColorfor accents so the palette always matches the active theme.
1.0.0
- Initial release.
- Fetch researcher profiles, works, employment and education from the ORCID Public API v3.0.
- Local caching in custom database tables.
- WP-Cron auto-sync with configurable interval.
- Shortcodes:
[rporcid_works],[rporcid_profile],[rporcid_researcher_list]. - Admin panel: researcher management, settings, sync log.
- Template override support.
- Translations:
es_ES,es_MX.