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Scholarly Communication & Research Support: Maximising Your Impact

Strategies to Increase the Impact of Your Research

  • Publish in high-impact journals: Use Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to find high-impact journals in your research area and select an appropriate source title to publish your work. Find out how to define journal impact here. 
  • Choose your keywords carefully: To be spotted, articles must be structured with search engines in mind. Include your important keywords in title and abstract of your work and avoid unnecessarily flowery language if possible.
  • Always use the same name variant: Use a constant name syntax when publishing where possible. Avoid using shortened versions of first names so it will be easy to identify your works from those by authors with a similar name.
  • Increase the visibility of your research by publishing OA: Make your research more visible and accessible to others by publishing in Open Access journals. Find out more about OA here. 
  • Deposit your works in an OA repository or institutional repository: Deposit the OA version (e.g., accepted version) of your works in an OA repository or in your institution's IR so that they can reach more audience. Find out more about XJTLU Research Repository here.   
  • Create a researcher identifier:  Consider creating a unique ResearcherID or ORCID id so that your indexed publications can be uploaded to your ResearcherID (Publon) profile or your ORCID profile automatically. In this way, it can be easier for others to identify your works (see below for more details). 
  •  Claim your author profile in Web of Science and Scopus: Register a WoS account and a Scopus account and claim your author records in these databases. This enables you to easily track your indexed works and get citation alerts. 
  • Join researcher networks online: Join academic networking sites such as Academia.edu and ResearcherGate to share your research with other and stay connected to the academic community and the scientific world (see below for more details). 

Besides, you can blog, tweet and post about your research online and share your research data to further increase the visibility of your research.

 

Researcher Identifiers

A researcher identifier is a unique persistent ID number that connects all your publications together within a database such as Web of Science. It helps you to establish your researcher profile, connect your work from different databases to one place, reduce the number of name variations and increase the visibility of your research.

Popular researcher identifiers include:

    

 

ORCID's name was formed from the acronym "Open Researcher and Contributor IDentifier". An ORCID iD is a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes a researcher from other researchers with the same or a similar name and a record that supports automatic links among all professional activities of that researcher. 

What are the benefits of registering an ORCID iD? Your ORCID iD:

  • distinguishes you and ensures your research outputs and activities are correctly attributed to you
  • reliably and easily connects you with your contributions and affiliations
  • reduces form-filling (enter data once, re-use it often)
  • improves recognition and discoverability for you and your research outputs
  • is interoperable (works with many institutions, funders, and publishers)
  • is persistent (enduring)

Your iD is yours throughout your career, no matter where you work, who funds you, whether your name or field of research changes, or if your name appears in different forms in different places, e.g. Sofia Maria Hernandez Garcia, Sofia M. Hernandez, S. Maria Hernandez, Sofia M. Garcia. People can easily find your works using your ORCID id in databases such as Scopus, and you can easily import your records to your Scopus author profile using your ORCID id. 

 

         

 

Web of Science ResearcherID is an identifier used in Web of Science. It allows researchers to add publications even if they are not indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. Now ResearcherID is on Publons, an environment where researchers can add their publications, track citations, and manage their Web of Science record.

Publons automatically assigns a Web of Science ResearcherID to any profiles with one or more Web of Science Core Collection-indexed publications that do not yet have a ResearcherID.

Any publications you add to your Publons profile will then be linked to your Web of Science ResearcherID when anyone searches for you on Web of Science. If you do not have any Web of Science indexed publications but require a Web of Science ResearcherID, click HERE to generate one for your account.

Other Tips:

  • Author Record in Web of Science only compiles an author's publications which are indexed in Web of Science Core Collection. You will not be able to add publications that are not indexed in WoS in your WoS Author Record. However, it is possible to include those publications in ResearcherID via Publons.
  • You may connect ORCID with your ResearcherID in Publons, and grant Publons permission to update your ORCID works.

 

Some authors have similar names, or their names can appear differently in various publications. The Scopus Author Identifier distinguishes between these names by assigning each author in Scopus a unique number and grouping together all of the documents written by that author.

For example, an author may appear as Lewis, M.; Lewis, M. J.; and Lewis, Michael in different publications, or there may be two authors named John Smith.

A Scopus Author Identifier is automatically assigned to an author who has published at least one article in a journal that is indexed in Scopus.

 

Where do I find a Scopus Author Identifier?

  1. Run a search for an author or an article they published in Scopus.
  2. On the search results page, click on their name. The author’s profile will open.
  3. You will find their Author ID underneath their name and affiliation details.
  4. You can also do an Author Search. Refer to Measuring Author Impact page for more information.

 

You may have more than one Scopus Author IDs. How to merge them?

For some authors, you may find your publications spread over several author profiles in Scopus (see the following example), especially when your name has appeared in various ways in publications or you have changed affiliations. In those cases, you will be able to find several Scopus IDs for yourself. Making sure that all your publications are listed under one unique Scopus Author ID is important and it ensures that all your author metrics (e.g. citations, h-index) are correctly and accurately shown on your profile page, and helps you to maximise your impact.  

If you have found more than one Scopus Author Profiles/IDs for yourself, login Scopus (by creating your Scopus Account) and enter one of the profiles. Click "Potential author matches" and request to merge your separate profiles.  

If you have found other issues with your author profile, for example, if you want to set a preferred affiliation or a preferred name, or you want to add/remove documents associated with your profile, you may request Scopus to make the changes. See the FAQ How do I correct my author profile? from Elsevier to get these corrected.

 

Connecting Your ORCID Identity with Your Scopus Author Profile

Go to your Scopus Author Profile. Click "Connect to ORCID", and then follow the prompts to connect the author details to ORCID. 

 

When an ORCID is associated with a Scopus Author Profile, viewers can see the link to that ORCID on the Author details page. To associate your Scopus author profile with ORCID, you can import your Scopus Author Identifier and publications into ORCID or send your author details to ORCID. Both require the Scopus Author Feedback wizard. Refer to this page for details.

 

 

Author Profile & Researcher Networking Tools

Besides getting a researcher identifier, establishing online author profiles also make it easy for funders, collaborators and colleagues to find you. They ensure your work is properly attributed, removing author ambiguity. You can also join researcher networks so that you may fully showcase your scholarly outputs and find other colleagues to collaborate with.

Popular tools include Publons (profile), Google Scholar (profile), ResearchGate (networking), etc.

    

 

Publons is part of Web of Science Group, and now Web of Science ResearcherID is on Publons. It helps you to manage and track your publications, citation metrics, peer reviews, and journal editing work in a single, easy-to-maintain profile:

  • All your publications, instantly imported from Web of Science, ORCID, or your bibliographic reference manager (e.g. EndNote or Mendeley).

  • Trusted citation metrics, automatically imported from the Web of Science Core Collection.

  • Correct author attribution, with your unique ResearcherID automatically added to the publications you claim in Web of Science collections.

  • Your verified peer review and journal editing history, powered by partnerships with thousands of scholarly journals.

  • Publons CV summarising your scholarly impact as an author, editor and peer reviewer.

 

Google Scholar Profile displays and automatically updates your papers with citations and h-index. It helps you to quickly manage and locate your publications:

  • Create a public profile that appears in Google Scholar results when someone searches for your name.
  • Track citations to check who is citing your publications, especially gray literature materials which are not usually indexed by databases.

To set up a Google Scholar Profile, you must have a Google account. 

Step 1: Go to Google Scholar.

Step 2: Log in to your Google account.

Step 3: Click “My Profile” on the left top.

Step 4: Edit your profile information (name, affiliation, areas of interest, email for verification, homepage).

Step 5: Select group of articles from the list which is automatically generated by Google Scholar and then proceed to the next step. You can also add article manually later in your profile page. 

Step 6: Set up article updates and make your profile public. 

ResearchGate is the professional network for scientists and researchers. Over 17 million members from all over the world use it to share, discover, and discuss research. 

How it works:

  • Share your publications, access millions more, and publish your data.
  • Connect and collaborate with colleagues, peers, co-authors, and specialists.
  • Get stats and find out who's been reading and citing your work.
  • Ask questions, get answers, and solve research problems.
  • Find the right job using our research-focused job board.
  • Share updates about your current project, and keep up with the latest research.

You may access over 135 million publication pages and stay up to date with what's happening in your field by searching for publications or visiting topic pages. You may share your research, collaborate with your peers, and get the support you need to advance your career. It also helps you to measure your research impact.