In ropensci/rorcid: Interface to the 'Orcid.org' API

Authentication

There are three ways to authenticate with rorcid:

• Interactively login with OAuth. This doesn't require any input on your part. We use a client id and client secret key to ping ORCID.org; at which point you log in with your username/password; then we get back a token (same as the above option). We don't know your username or password, only the token that we get back. We cache that token locally in a hidden file in whatever working directory you're in. If you delete that file, or run the code from a new working directory, then we re-authorize.
• Use a client_id and client_secret to do 2-legged OAuth. ORCID docs at https://members.orcid.org/api/oauth/2legged-oauth and https://members.orcid.org/api/post-oauthtoken-reading-public-data This requires you to register a "client application". See https://orcid.org/content/register-client-application-2 for instructions
• Use a token as a result of either of the two above approaches. The token is a alphanumeric UUID, e.g. dc0a6b6b-b4d4-4276-bc89-78c1e9ede56e. You can get this token by running orcid_auth(), then storing that key (the uuid alone, not the "Bearer " part) either as en environment variable in your .Renviron file in your home directory (with the name ORCID_TOKEN), or as an R option in your .Rprofile file (with the name orcid_token). See [Startup] for more information. Either an environment variable or R option work. If we don't find either we do the next option.

We recommend the 3rd option if possible, specifically, storing the token as an environment variable permanently.

If authentication fails, you can still use rorcid. ORCID does not require authentication at this point, but may in the future - this prepares you for when that happens.

See https://info.orcid.org/documentation/integration-guide/getting-started-with-your-orcid-integration/#easy-faq-2569 for more about ORCID OAuth Scopes.

Computing environments without browsers

One pitfall is when you are using rorcid on a server, and you're ssh'ed in, so that there's no way to open a browser to do the OAuth browser flow. Similarly for any other situation in which a browser can not be opened. In this case, run orcid_auth() on another machine in which you do have the ability to open a browser, then collect the info that's ouptput from orcid_auth() and store it as an environment variable (see above).

ropensci/rorcid documentation built on Sept. 12, 2022, 2:09 p.m.