What is Research Organization Registry (ROR) ?

Confused about ROR in OJS, In the rapidly evolving landscape of scholarly communication, accurate identification and attribution of research organizations has become increasingly critical. The Research Organization Registry (ROR) emerges as a transformative solution, addressing long-standing challenges in institutional identification across academic publishing platforms, including Open Journal Systems (OJS).

What is the Research Organization Registry (ROR)?

The Research Organization Registry (ROR) is a community-driven, open registry that provides persistent identifiers for research organizations worldwide (Research Organization Registry, 2023). Launched in 2019, ROR assigns unique, stable identifiers to universities, research institutions, funding bodies, government agencies, and other organizations involved in research activities.

Unlike traditional text-based institutional affiliations that can vary significantly in format and spelling, ROR identifiers are standardized, machine-readable codes that ensure consistent identification across different platforms and databases. Each ROR ID is expressed as a URL (e.g., https://ror.org/02jbv0t02 for Stanford University), making it both human-readable and technically interoperable.

Background and Initiative History of Research Organization Registry (ROR) 

The Problem Research Organization Registry (ROR) Solves

Before Research Organization Registry (ROR) , the scholarly publishing ecosystem faced significant challenges with institutional identification:

• Inconsistent Naming: The same institution might be referenced as “MIT,” “Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” “M.I.T.,” or other variations across different publications
• Ambiguous Affiliations: Multiple institutions sharing similar names created confusion in attribution
• Manual Processing: Publishers and indexers spent considerable time standardizing institutional names
• Poor Discoverability: Researchers struggled to find all publications associated with specific institutions
• Metadata Quality Issues: Inconsistent institutional data affected the quality of bibliographic databases

ROR was developed through a collaborative effort between several key organizations in the scholarly communication ecosystem (California Digital Library, 2019):

• California Digital Library (CDL)
• Crossref
• DataCite

The initiative emerged from the recognition that a sustainable, community-driven solution was needed to address institutional identification challenges (Crossref, 2019). The founding organizations brought together their expertise in persistent identifiers, metadata standards, and scholarly infrastructure to create ROR.

Timeline and Milestones

• 2018: Initial planning and community consultation began
• 2019: Research Organization Registry (ROR) officially launched with an initial dataset
• 2020: Major publishing platforms began integrating Research Organization Registry (ROR) 
• 2021: Research Organization Registry (ROR)  reached over 100,000 organization records
• 2022-Present: Continued expansion and adoption across the scholarly ecosystem including as OJS plugin

The Research Organization Registry (ROR) Initiative: Goals and Vision

Core Objectives

Open and Community-Driven: Research Organization Registry (ROR) operates as a free, open resource maintained by and for the research community, ensuring broad accessibility and collaborative governance (Bilder et al., 2015).

Comprehensive Coverage: The registry aims to include all types of research organizations globally, from major universities to small research institutes, funding agencies, and government bodies (Research Organization Registry, 2023).

Sustainability: Built on sustainable infrastructure and governance models that ensure long-term availability and reliability (Lammey, 2020).

Interoperability: Designed to work seamlessly with existing scholarly infrastructure, including manuscript submission systems, databases, and analytics platforms (Meadows & Haak, 2018).

ROR is built on several key technical principles :

• REST API: Provides programmatic access to organization data
• Linked Data: Incorporates relationships between organizations (parent/child, predecessor/successor)
• Multiple Data Sources: Aggregates information from various authoritative sources
• Regular Updates: Maintains current and accurate organizational information

Why ROR identifier is Important for Academic Publishing

1. Enhanced Research Discoverability

Research Organization Registry (ROR) significantly improves the discoverability of research outputs by creating clear connections between authors, institutions, and publications. Researchers and institutions can easily track all publications associated with specific organizations, enabling better research impact assessment and collaboration identification.

2. Improved Metadata Quality

By standardizing institutional identifiers, ROR dramatically improves the quality of bibliographic metadata (Wilkinson et al., 2016). This enhancement benefits:

• Publishers: Reduced manual curation and standardization efforts
• Indexing Services: More accurate and consistent institutional data
• Libraries: Better collection development and institutional repository management
• Researchers: Easier discovery of relevant research and potential collaborators

3. Compliance with International Standards

Major indexing services and databases increasingly require standardized institutional identifiers (Hendricks et al., 2020). ROR adoption helps journals and publishers meet these requirements, ensuring broader visibility and inclusion in prestigious databases like:

• PubMed/MEDLINE
• Web of Science
• Scopus
• Google Scholar

4. Support for Research Analytics

ROR enables sophisticated research analytics and reporting capabilities:

• Institutional Research Assessment: Universities can track their research output more accurately
• Funding Agency Reporting: Agencies can monitor research outputs from their grants
• Collaboration Analysis: Identification of research partnerships and networks
• Geographic Research Mapping: Understanding research distribution across regions

5. Streamlined Publishing Workflows

For journal management systems like OJS, ROR integration offers (Public Knowledge Project, 2023):

• Automated Author Affiliation: Authors can search and select from standardized institutional names
• Reduced Editorial Overhead: Less time spent standardizing institutional affiliations
• Improved Submission Experience: Faster, more accurate manuscript submission process

How to check your Institution ROR ID :

To be able to get the URL identifier for your institution you can visit ROR Website. In the search box you can input the institution name :

after searching the keyword of “harvard” for example, the page will redirect to the search result :

ROR Integration in Open Journal Systems (OJS)

Implementation Benefits

When integrated into OJS, ROR provides several specific advantages:

Author Experience Enhancement: The ROR plugin allows authors to search for their institutional affiliations using a user-friendly interface, ensuring accuracy and consistency while reducing submission time.

Editorial Efficiency: Editors spend less time correcting and standardizing institutional names, allowing them to focus on content quality and peer review management.

Metadata Excellence: ROR integration ensures that published articles contain high-quality, standardized institutional metadata that meets international publishing standards.

Indexing Advantages: Journals using ROR are better positioned for inclusion in major academic databases and indexing services.

Technical Implementation

OJS ROR integration typically involves (Public Knowledge Project, 2022):

• Installing the ROR plugin
• Configuring API access to the ROR database
• Customizing the author submission interface
• Training editorial staff on ROR usage
• Establishing workflows for ROR ID validation

Global Impact and Adoption OJS ROR

Growing Ecosystem

ROR adoption continues to expand across the scholarly communication ecosystem (DataCite, 2020):

• Publishers: Major academic publishers integrate ROR into their submission systems
• Repositories: Institutional repositories use ROR for standardized affiliation tracking
• Funders: Research funding agencies adopt ROR for grant management and reporting
• Institutions: Universities implement ROR in their research information systems

International Reach

ROR’s global scope includes organizations from every continent, supporting research identification in multiple languages and covering diverse types of research institutions, from traditional universities to specialized research centers and government laboratories (Research Organization Registry, 2023).

Future Developments and Opportunities of Research Organization Registry (ROR) 

Expanding Coverage

ROR continues to grow its database, adding new organizations and improving existing records based on community feedback and automated data collection processes (Research Organization Registry, 2023).

Enhanced Relationships

Future developments include more sophisticated modeling of organizational relationships, including detailed merger and acquisition histories, consortium memberships, and collaborative networks.

API Improvements

Ongoing technical enhancements focus on API performance, search capabilities, and integration tools that make ROR adoption easier for various platforms and systems.

Community Governance

ROR’s governance model continues to evolve, ensuring that the registry remains responsive to community needs while maintaining its open, collaborative character.

Getting Started with Research Organization Registry (ROR) 

For Journal Publishers

1. Assess Current Systems: Evaluate how institutional affiliations are currently handled
2. Plan Integration: Determine the best approach for incorporating ROR into existing workflows
3. Install Tools: Implement ROR plugins or custom integrations
4. Train Staff: Educate editorial teams on ROR usage and benefits
5. Monitor Impact: Track improvements in metadata quality and submission efficiency

For Authors and Researchers

1. Learn About ROR: Understand how ROR IDs work and their benefits
2. Find Your Institution: Use the ROR search tool to locate your organization’s identifier
3. Use ROR in Submissions: Include ROR IDs when submitting manuscripts to journals
4. Advocate for Adoption: Encourage your institution and preferred journals to adopt ROR

Conclusion

The Research Organization Registry represents a significant advancement in scholarly communication infrastructure. By providing standardized, persistent identifiers for research organizations, ROR addresses fundamental challenges in institutional identification while enabling new opportunities for research discovery, analytics, and collaboration.

For journal publishers using platforms like Open Journal Systems, ROR integration offers immediate benefits in terms of workflow efficiency, metadata quality, and compliance with international standards. As the scholarly communication ecosystem continues to evolve toward greater openness and interoperability, ROR stands as a crucial component of modern academic publishing infrastructure.

The success of ROR demonstrates the power of community-driven solutions in addressing complex challenges in scholarly communication (Dappert et al., 2017). As adoption continues to grow and new features are developed, ROR will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in connecting researchers, institutions, and research outputs in the global academic ecosystem.

By embracing ROR, the scholarly community takes another significant step toward more efficient, transparent, and interconnected research communication that serves the needs of researchers, institutions, and society as a whole.

References

1. Lammey, R. (2020). Solutions for identification problems: A look at the Research Organization Registry. Science Editing, 7(1), 65-69. https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.192
2. Research Organization Registry. (2023). About ROR. Retrieved from https://ror.org/about/
3. Crossref. (2019). Research Organization Registry (ROR) now live. Crossref Blog. Retrieved from https://www.crossref.org/blog/research-organization-registry-ror-now-live/
4. California Digital Library. (2019). Introducing the Research Organization Registry (ROR). CDL Blog. Retrieved from https://cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2019/01/22/introducing-the-research-organization-registry-ror/
5. DataCite. (2020). ROR Integration with DataCite. DataCite Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.datacite.org/ror-integration/
6. Public Knowledge Project. (2023). Open Journal Systems Documentation. Retrieved from https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/learning-ojs/
7. Hendricks, G., Tkaczyk, D., Lin, J., & Feeney, P. (2020). Crossref: The sustainable source of community-owned scholarly metadata. Quantitative Science Studies, 1(1), 414-427. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00022
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10. Research Organization Registry. (2023). ROR API Documentation. Retrieved from https://ror.readme.io/docs
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Muhammad Hendra

Project Manager

Hendra here, I love writing about OJS and share knowledge about OJS. My passion is about OJS, OMP platform and doing some research on creating innovated products for that platform to help publisher to improve their publication.