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Researcher Identifiers and your Online Research Profile

A guide to the various different researcher identifiers, and how to set up researcher identifiers, as well as managing your online research profile.

So what should you do?

As a minimum, all UniSC staff are recommended to complete the following steps:

Ball with the number 1       

Check to see if you have a Scopus Author Identifier

If you do, ensure that you do not have any duplicate Identifiers, and that all your publications are listed correctly.

Check for any missing articles from journals that would normally be indexed by Scopus, and if any problems are found, contact Scopus to get them rectified.

Set up your ORCID identifier

This is so easy to do, taking only 30 seconds.  This will ensure that your name is not confused with other similar sounding names, and is a great way to list all your publications.  Your ORCID profile can be linked to Scopus and ResearcherID, as well as many other services, and your Google Scholar Citation profile can be imported to help populate it to start with.  You can also add publication metadata manually.

ORCID will be used increasingly by publishers upon submission, and by grant funders on application.  It is also being used by many institutions worldwide, including UniSC, for internal reporting.

To set up your ORCID profile:

  1. Go to the registration page https://orcid.org/register
  2. Once registered, you can add further information to enhance your ORCID record, such as professional information and links to other identifiers.
  3. ORCID will display publications from the CrossRef database that have your name, giving you the option of linking any of your works to your record.      

Set up your ResearcherID

ResearcherID is a freely available resource tied in with Web of Knowledge.  By setting up your ResearcherID profile, you can then link all your publications in Web of Science to it.  If you link it with ORCID, it will also pull in your publications listed in ORCID.  Although not as important perhaps as Scopus and ORCID, it should nevertheless form part of your online research profile.

To set up your ResearcherID profile:

  1. Go to ResearcherID http://www.researcherid.com/
  2. Click on the ‘Join Now It’s Free’ button
  3. Follow the process for registering
  4. During the registration process, authors will be offered the options of creating an ORCID ID or if they have one they can authorise the linking of the two.
  5. Once registered, click on ‘Add Publications’, and add via Web of Science search, EndNote integration, import.

Set up your Google Scholar Citation profile

Google Scholar is the most widely used bibliographic tool for researchers today.  Having a Google Scholar Citation profile will ensure that your profile page will appear at the top of the results when your name is searched.  The profile page provides some basic metrics, such as citations and h-index, in addition to the publications listing.  Publication metadata can be added via claiming it from a search in Google Scholar, or adding manually. 

To set up your Google Scholar Citation profile:

  1. If you don’t already have one, first create a Google account.  TIP: you will need to use a “.edu” email address to verify your Google Scholar Citation profile, so you may need to create a ‘work’ Google account instead of using your ‘personal’ Google account.
  2. Go to Google Scholar and click on My Citations.
  3. Follow the instructions to create your profile and add your publications.

Have a look at some of the other researchers from UniSC that have Google Scholar Citation profiles. (https://scholar.google.com/citations?mauthors=usc.edu.au+OR+%22University+of+the+Sunshine+Coast%22&hl=en&view_op=search_authors

Ensure your UniSC Research Bank publication listing is correct.

All staff and students at UniSC that have published research outputs should have them listed in the UniSC Research Bank. 

To check if you have all your publications listed, visit the UniSC Research Bank author browse and search for your name. https://research.usc.edu.au

  • If you note any publications that are missing, or if there are several formats for your name, please notify the Repository Team at research-repository@usc.edu.au

If you wish, set up your academic social networking sites there are a number to choose from – ResearchGate and Academia.edu being the most popular. 

Both sites will allow you to link to publications, and in some cases upload the full text of publications for users to download and read.  Beware: if you do not have permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to do this you will be in breach of copyright.  It is far better to upload an open access copy in the UniSC Research Bank and allow the social networking site to link to it instead.  This will also ensure that all your download and usage statistics are directed to the UniSC Research Bank which will be the official UniSC reporting platform.

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