Consider letting Harvard Dataverse users create accounts through their ORCID credentials

[jggautier]

In November 2022, we stopped letting Harvard Dataverse users create accounts through their ORCID credentials, as a way to decrease the number of spam datasets being published in the repository.

In order to increase the number of ORCIDs used to describe authors and eventually others who contribute to datasets published in Harvard Dataverse (IQSS/dataverse-pm #473), we might consider again letting users create accounts through their ORCID credentials.

Since November 2022 we've prevented spam publishing in a few different ways, like automated spam filters and requiring depositors who publish in "Root" to submit their datasets for review, so that repository staff can reject spam deposits.

Some questions I think could help us determine if we can continue letting users create accounts through their ORCID credentials:

• If we let users create accounts through their ORCID credentials, do we think the automated spam filters and submit for review workflow will be enough to prevent spam publishing?
• If we let users create accounts through their ORCID credentials, can we determine how often people who've created these types of accounts create spam datasets in the repository?

[jggautier]

@sbarbosadataverse and I spoke about how we might determine how often people who've created accounts using their ORCID credentials create spam datasets in the repository. Since the Harvard Dataverse database has been retaining information about the accounts used to create spam, because those accounts are deactivated and not deleted, if we continued letting users of the JSF version of Harvard Dataverse create ORCID accounts, we should be able to track how often those people go on to create spam. This would help us determine if we should again remove the option to create ORCID accounts.

During a meeting on June 29, 2026, @ekraffmiller mentioned that it should be possible to let users of the Modern version of Harvard Dataverse create accounts using their ORCID credentials once the challenges described in IQSS/dataverse-frontend#837 are resolved.

[qqmyers]

Is there a way to report those accounts to ORCID? Presumably they don't want spam accounts in their system, but I'm not sure if they're ready to get take-down requests. (They do appear to be flagging accounts for organizations as noted in a community email[near the end in this thread.

[jggautier]

There might be more info in https://info.orcid.org/dispute-procedures

[pdurbin]

https://support.orcid.org/hc/en-us/articles/1500003042021-How-does-ORCID-handle-spam-records says we should be "reporting any problematic records you find to our Support Team."

It looks like we would choose "something else" from the dropdown...

... and then "other question":

[qqmyers]

That's probably a place to start, but they are clearly focused on records in their system that have incorrect content rather than accounts that are being used elsewhere to create spam: "Fortunately for our researchers and our members, the impact of such records on the use of ORCID is limited. In the authenticated workflows that we encourage, these records are not surfaced." - using ORCID to login to Dataverse is authenticated workflow...