Author Profiles
Paula Callan; Tanya Harden; and Brendan Sinnamon
For researchers it is important to develop and maintain a public profile. This will assist people in discovering them and their work. This increased visibility can lead to finding collaborators and job offers, as well as increasing the reach of their research. In this chapter you will learn about the different author profile services available to researchers.
Getting started
There are several sites where researchers can create a profile and some sites are more discipline or region specific than others. Some tools that are embedded in the research and scholarly publishing workflows automatically create profiles for the researchers using them, such as ORCID, Scopus, Web of Science, Publons and the current generation of university research management systems. In some disciplines, it is advantageous to also maintain a profile on social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Generally, having a few well-maintained profiles is better than having lots of profiles which contain out of date information.
ORCID
The primary purpose of ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identification) is to address the problem of name ambiguity by providing researchers, and others working in the research space, with a unique persistent identifier (ORCID iD). In many respects, an ORCID iD is the equivalent of a DOI for a person. However, for researchers, their ORCID record also acts as a profile. It is quite likely to be the profile that gets the most attention so it is important to keep it up to date and as information-rich as possible.
Anyone can register for an ORCID iD here. The more detail the researcher adds to their profile, the more chances they create for themselves to be asked to collaborate on future projects. Their ORCID profile gives space to add a short biography, education, qualifications, funding, education and more.
Most universities now have a research management system that is integrated with ORCID and researchers will be encouraged to register for an ORCID iD via that system. If a researcher already has an ORCID iD, they will be encouraged to ‘connect’ it to the university’s research management system and authorize the export of content to their ORCID profile. This benefits the researcher as it allows the institution to add an authoritative ‘assertion’ about their current affiliation with the institution. Their ORCID profile will also be kept up to date by the regular export of data about their new publications and grants.
If the researcher’s institution does not have a research management system that is integrated with ORCID, then they should authorize at least one authoritative source (Trusted organization) such as Crossref or Scopus to add publications. Researchers may revoke these permission at any time and may also change the privacy settings for the information that is posted on their ORCID profile. Publications can also be added to an ORCID profile manually or push