Increase the visibility of you and your research

Penny Presta and Anne YoungMonash University Library 29 August 2019

With contributions from: Cassandra Freeman and Megan Deacon

Build a strong online presence:

Session overview Your online presence and image Manage your online presence to ensure you and your research outputs are

discoverable• Unique identifiers• Researcher profiles• Professional networking

Connect with others through social media Monitor attention with altmetrics

What is your online presence?

Digital footprintYour active contribution to the online world (e.g. content you add to the web, profiles you set up, comments you make, etc.)

Digital shadowContent about you posted and uploaded by others, or automatically generated and collated content.

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191803093.001.0001/acref-9780191803093

Benefits of a strong online presence

Shape the perception an audience has of you• avoid misidentification

Foster recognition of your expertise in your field Disseminate of your work to a wider audience Grow the audience/network for your work

• Improve chances for citation growth• Provide an opportunity to make new contacts for

research collaborations

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Manage your online presence to ensure you

and your research outputs are

discoverable

Maximise your online presence

Use unique identifiers for you and your research

Develop researcher profiles Join online academic and

professional networking sites

Image by

pakornat FreeD

igitalPhots.net

ENSURE YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH OUTPUTS ARE DISCOVERABLE

The need to distinguish yourselfOVERCOMING AUTHOR AMBIGUITY

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/rujphs/researcher-profile-2018-86162277

Use author identifiers for disambiguation Tracking the scholarly outputs of individual researchers

worldwide presents many challenges, for example: • More than one researcher may have the same name• Researchers may change their name• Different journals may list the same author in different

ways• Researchers move from one institution to another

An internationally recognised unique identifier will tie all research outputs to a person regardless of institutional affiliation, stage of career or name variants used.

The most commonly used or required unique identifier is ORCID

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

What can ORCID do for me? Making your ORCID profile ‘public’ will make you

and your research more discoverable in Google Helps you keep your publication record complete

and up-to-date by tying all your work to you Correct attribution will have a positive effects on

your citation count / h-index metrics ORCID easily links to university profile pages, CVs,

email signatures, key citation databases like Scopus or Web of Science etc.

Other key author identifiers

Scopus Author Identifier

Web of Science ResearcherID

Use unique identifiers for your work Just as you need to be identifiable as a researcher, your research outputs also

need to be uniquely identifiable. A range of identifiers may be assigned to research outputs at the point of

publication, one of the most common is a DOI

Tagging and describing your work First, consider:

• What is novel about your research? • What language will help other

researchers find the most relevant or innovative dimensions of your research?

Think carefully about the terms you choose to describe your work

• Use synonyms and field-relevant terms discovered in your literature review as keywords

• Use subject/index terms such as MESH

Assign relevant metadata when uploading your articles, pre-prints, presentations

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

Creating a researcher profile A researcher profile is typically a page for your essential contact

details and career information, including your role and a description of your research and experience

Institutions often host such pages to showcase research strengths within their organisation, and institutional profile pages rank highly in Google search results

Your profile is an opportunity to bring together information that lets people who don’t work with you every day know about the span of your research interests and expertise

Tips for creating more effective online profiles Be clear on the goal for your profile – who are your audiences?

Decide on your priorities and the time you can invest to keep profiles up-to-date

One or two well maintained profiles are better than a broad but neglected online presence

Make yourself memorable with a good headline/tagline/bio

Include a profile photo - and use the same photo everywhere

Provide links to your other profiles or author identifiers (e.g. ORCID)

Create a narrative that highlights your best works, skills, achievements or awards

Example profiles in search results

Digital identity health check for academics:https://www.jobs.ac.uk/media/pdf/careers/resources/digital-identity-health-check-for-academics.pdf

Google Scholar profiles Create a profile and make it public to promote yourself to the wider world at no cost! Easy to create using the "My Citations" link in Google Scholar Public profiles are included in Google search results Authorize Google to update article lists automatically, or choose to update manually Monitor your publications and see who is citing them use the "Follow" feature and "Create alert" so you'll get an email whenever you receive a

citation

Important!• Use a personal email for setup (so you will retain access even if you change

institution) and then verify using your current institutional email address• Google Scholar is a free resource and there is no dedicated support service

provided by Google to resolve issues with your profile

Personal websites and blogs Personal websites or blogs can be useful tools for building a online presence Great for people who enjoy writing and sharing their enthusiasm for their research area by

engaging in meaningful conversation with others who share their professional values or interests Guest blogging – contributing posts to existing popular and established blogs is a great way to get

started Setting up a website or blog is incredibly easy with services such as Google Sites, Weebly,

Zohosites, WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr By designing it yourself you get to choose exactly what you want to highlight about yourself (or

your research group or lab) and how There are lots of online articles full of tips for starting a personal academic website or start a blog

Academic and professional networking sitesThere are many academic and professional networking sites which can augment traditional means of scholarly communication and provide a platform to: Create a profile to increase the visibility and accessibility of your research outputs Share papers and follow colleagues or peers to view their research, identify potential

collaborators and grow your network Site-specific metrics may help us understand how our scholarship is used and shared

Understand the shortcomings of networking sites

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Papers uploaded may not be able to be easily removed if you change your mind later – make sure you have a complete, migratable list of your research outputs stored elsewhere

It is up to you to ensure you comply with Copyright when sharing your work

If you are getting something for free then it is likely they are collecting your data and sharing it with other entities

You (and those in your contact lists) may be subjected to unsolicited emails or spam

Connect with others through social media

‘…connected educators are in a more powerful position than those who are isolated. They have a greater ability to check their facts, call on support and find out new things…’

Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth)

Twitter – get the most out of it Find your tribe - Identify hashtags for areas of interest,

follow relevant organisations and follow competent and knowledgeable people in your field

When presenting, include your Twitter handle on your slides so that audience members can tweet about your work

Use hashtags to compile information or access discussions around a special event or conference

Link to your work – use unique identifiers such as DOIs in your tweets (preferably to an Open Access version of your work so people can access it)

Acknowledge others by including their Twitter handle or name when tweeting

A Twitter case study

The Impact of Social Media on the Dissemination of Research: Results of an Experiment Melissa Terras

Tips for highlighting your online presence▪ Provide links to your ORCID, social networks and/or social media profiles on your

email signature / your business cards / academic profile pages• This helps people link through to your work and can combine to create a

more holistic persona for youhttp://orcid.org/0000-0001-2345-6789

Personalise your web address on public profiles • You can customise your public profile URL onsite such as LinkedIn and Facebook

• There may be requirements such as having a photo on your profile before you can personalise the URL

Example: www.linkedin.com/in/yourname

Monitoring attention with altmetrics

What are altmetrics? Altmetrics are alternative metrics that may complement traditional metrics by tracking engagement with your research beyond citation counts.

Images source: Altmetric.com

Major altmetric aggregatorsThere are three main tools that track and aggregate altmetric data: Altmetric.com Our Research (formerly ImpactStory) Plum Analytics

Altmetrics tracking and gathering is reliant on scholarly outputs having a permanent identifier (DOI, ISBN etc.)

The outputs must then me mentioned in a source tracked by one of the aggregators. For example, see the sources Altmetric.com tracks

Altmetric.com donutThe colours of the Altmetric.com donut each represent a different source of attention. The score is a weighted approximation of all the attention picked up for a research output (not a raw total of the number of mentions).

IT’S FREE TO EMBED ALTMETRIC.COM BADGES IN YOUR INDIVIDUAL PROFILE PAGEShowcase the attention your work is receiving online

Go to https://api.altmetric.com/embeds.html

Summary Always come back to the goals you set for your online profile. Think about what you want it to

achieve. Be strategic and consistent in how you describe yourself and your research to ensure people

can discover you Choose 1 or 2 online platforms and keep them up-to-date Use an author identifier (e.g. ORCID) to ensure your research is connected to you wherever

you study or work Find your research community online - it can be an effective way of connecting with others in

your field of study and promoting your research Use altmetrics to help you demonstrate the attention your work is receiving within or outside

academia

Any questions?