Author Credit: PLOS & ORCID Update | The Official PLOS Blog

"PLOS, in collaboration with eLife, the Royal Society and other major publishers, signed an Open Letter that commits publishers to following best practices when collecting, processing, and displaying ORCID iDs. An ORCID iD distinguishes authors from others with similar names by providing a unique identifier that permanently links all research published by that author to his or her ORCID iD —even if their name has changed over time or has been spelled differently in various contexts."