Research Impact & Metrics

Researcher Identifiers are designed to distinguish your research activities and outputs from those with similar names. Users will be better able to discover your work. Examples are:

• ORCID
• Scopus Author ID
• ResearcherID (Web of Science)

NOTE: As stated in the August 25, 2022 Memorandum "Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research" (PDF – Links to an external source and may not be accessible), persistent identifiers will be needed for all research outputs (eg, DOIs) and for individual researchers (eg, ORCiD) -- these are also part of the recently released NSPM-33 (PDF – Links to an external source and may not be accessible)(National Security Presidential Memo 33) Requirements.

ORCID has become the most valuable researcher identifier, often required by funders and publishers.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) is “an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers.”

• Use our ORCID Guide to learn about registering, completing your profile, and integrating your ORCID with Digital Measures, publisher submissions, grant applications, and other systems.

• Sample ORCID:  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3599-1417

Benefits of an online profile:

• Collect your work in one place
• Track citations of your work automatically
• Allow users to "Follow" you and receive notifications of your new publications

Below are some of the options available, each with different features and benefits. You can use all of them if you wish.

• GoogleScholar
• ImpactStory
• LinkedIn
• ResearchGate, Academia.edu

We recommend getting and maintaining a Google Scholar Profile because Google Scholar provides citation information from many disciplines and many types of publications:  journal articles, conference papers, books, chapters, and gray literature. 

Sample Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZSDo0x8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Benefits of a Google Scholar Profile:

• Keep track of citations to your publications - set up an alert (below) to be notified when anyone cites your work
• When users search your name, a link to your profile will appear at the top of the results -- and your name in any reference will be linked
• Graph citations over time and view citation metrics that are automatically calculated: h-index and alternatives
• It's easy to set up a profile and add groups of publications at one time
• You will receive emails from Google Scholar for you to approve new citations that come in
  • NOTE: In the Update Settings, it's best to choose "Don't automatically update my profile. Send me email to review and confirm updates." If you let Google Scholar automatically update, you may get many articles by authors with your same name.

Curate Your Profile:  It's always a good idea to review your profile and edit as needed. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - INSTRUCTIONS (PDF – Links to an external source and may not be accessible)- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Choose the right journal (avoid predatory publishers): Use our Where (and Where Not) to Publish Your Work guide  

• Publish in fully OA journals or choose OA options 

Post appropriate version of your work in ODU Digital Commons or other repositories

• Use our Institutional Repository guide

Post research data, presentations and other content in open platforms:  Figshare, SlideShare, Github

Keep your Author Rights:  Use our Copyright/Author Rights guide

• Use an author addendum to protect your rights
• Assign a Creative Commons license to your work for re-use

Update your works in Digital Measures/FAS using your ORCID account (instructions: https://guides.lib.odu.edu/orcid/digitalmeasures)

Keep track of your work, your colleagues' work, new research in your field -- by setting up database alerts:

• Citation Alert: To receive notification when a specific article is cited in another work.
• Search Alert: To automatically look for your search terms on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Journal Alert (or, Table of Contents Alert): To have the newest table of contents of a specific journal delivered to you as it becomes available.

CITATION ALERTS

For notification whenever an article is cited, or whenever an article is available that meets your search criteria, you need to have an account/profile in the database.

Web of Science Citation Alerts: to get references citing an individual article

1. Find the article and click "Create Citation Alert" - you will be notified whenever that article is cited
2. Add additional citation alerts as needed. Your alert will be listed under "My Tools" / "Saved Searches & Alerts"
3. Be sure to renew citation alerts -- they only last for 1 year from date of set up

Web of Science Saved Search Alerts:  to get references citing a particular author

1. Perform a cited reference search
2. Click the "Search History" tab. Then, "Save History / Create Alert" - you will be notified whenever that author's works are cited
3. Be sure to renew saved search alerts -- they only last for 6 months from date of set up

Google Scholar Citation Alerts

1. Find the article and click "Cited by ##"
2. On left column, click "Create Alert"
3. Google Scholar Email Alert Tips

JOURNAL ALERTS

You can be notified when a new issue of a particular magazine or journal publication comes out.  An e-mail message will be sent or new entries will appear in your RSS feed. 

• EbscoHost: Creating a Journal Alert -- How to create, edit, delete and view Journal Alerts.

  EbscoHost: One-Step RSS Search Alerts -- How to set up One-Step Alerts as a quick and easy way to obtain the alert syndication feed, which can then be copied into an RSS reader.

If you have a tablet, be sure to use BrowZine 

​​​​​​​BrowZine™ is a browsable newsstand of the library’s top journals. Easily discover, read, and monitor the key journals in your field.

• Download (on your tablet)
• Watch a Video

Use social media to promote your research:  Blogs, Facebook, Twitter

Twitter

• used for many purposes beyond academia
• popular place of conversation for research and academic topics in many fields
• can be a great place to engage with colleagues—both those you know in real life and those interested in similar subjects—on issues in your field of interest, leading to new connections
• follow departmental friends and colleagues, current and potential collaborators, organizations and institutions of interest, prominent people in your field, topical news outlets, and professional organizations
• professional conferences use a designated hashtag, which you can use to comment on programming and engage with other attendees

More to come...