LibGuides: Research Visibility and Impact: Broadening your impact

Researcher profiles

There are several ways one can increase research visibility and impact:

These academic profile platforms have the added advantage of openness and enhance research visibility and impact.
Scopus and Web of Science are global bibliometrics data sources, search platforms, and abstract and citation analysis tools widely used in the THES and QS rankings. The NWU community has access to both through a library subscription.
Registering for an author identifier such as ORCiD to collect your research outputs under a consistent access point will make it easier for others to identify your work and use your research.
Register for an ORCID account and import publications from Scopus
Set up and create a Google Scholar Profile
Register and create a Researcher ID on Publons and Scopus Author Identifier.
Create a researcher profile using the NWU Research Data Repository (Dayta Ya Rona). You can find notes on how to create a research profile on Figshare and share data openly.
Use social research networks, e.g., LinkedIn, Research Gate, Mendeley, Academia.edu, Blog, and X. Learn more about metrics in this video.
Use Kudos, a free platform for researchers, to describe your research. Watch this video for an introduction, and follow a few steps to connect and add publications using ORCID.

How do you create a researcher profile account?

Just follow the easy steps in each of these listed researcher profile tools or navigate using the tabs or pages from the top menu:

Open Researcher and Contributor ID

A tool that offers a solution to the author's name and misidentification by providing persistent unique IDs for researchers.

Benefits of having an ORCID iD

Avoid misidentification
Facilitate the interoperable exchange of information—integrates with numerous bibliographic databases, platforms, profiling tools, manuscript submission systems, funder grant workflows, and research repositories.
ID is linked to all research activities
Scholarly work is discovered
Identification by potential collaborators
Sharing of ID with others
Another added benefit is the ORCID advancement has been integrated with numerous systems.
More benefits for researchers
Short video on ORCID

How to create an ORCID account?

Step 1: ORCID account

Create an ORCID account
Add additional names under "also known as"
Add and link websites and social links – this allows the researcher to add and link to social media pages like personal websites, Google Scholar, Figshare, ResearchGate, Linkedin, Academia.edu and more.
Add emails and make them visible to the public
Short videos on how to Register for your ORCID, Edit your name on ORCID
Register for an ORCID account

Step 2: Add personal information

Add biography
Add affiliation (i.e. employer)
Add academic credentials like education, qualifications, achievements
Add funding information
Add membership or service association
A short video on how to add personal information

Step 3: Add works or publications to your ORCID

Add works or publications from Scopus to ORCID

Use search and link wizard
Publications can be pulled from Crossref, DataCite, and Scopus/Elsevier databases.
Connect the ORCID account with the Scopus account and import publications from Scopus to ORCID.
Here is How to add publications from Scopus into ORCID
Notes from the guide provide illustrative examples of how to add publications from Scopus

Add works or publications from Google Scholar to ORCID

Follow the steps in this guide
Please note that the file downloaded from Google Scholar will be listed under your downloads.

How do you add works or publications manually?

Follow the easy steps in this guide.

Step 4: Reset ORCID password, update ORCID records and delete duplicate ORCID iD

Few steps to reset your password
Watch this short video on how to update your ORCID record
Link and authorize CrossRef to update your ORCID account automatically
Steps to remove or delete duplicate ORCID iD's.

Step 5: Add ORCID iD icon and link to your email signature

Sign in to ORCID, scroll to Display formats and copy the full green ORCID circle icon. Example:
Right-click and copy the ORCID icon and paste it into your email signature
Copy the ORCID URL and paste it next to the icon
Click save changes

How to Create a Google Scholar Profile

It is widely used by scientists as it tracks and provides citations and metrics. Researchers affiliated with North-West University have created Google Scholar Profiles. Google Scholar profile helps preserve and enhance the global visibility of the research output of postgraduate students, early career researchers, and eminent and even deceased scholars. Below are the steps to create a Google Scholar Profile account

Step 1: Create an account

If you have a Gmail account, this becomes pretty easy
Log on to scholar.google.com, click on my profile in the top menu, and set up the account
Add personal details like name, affiliation, email, subject keywords relevant to your field of research, add university web link,
Select automatic update for the latest articles to be added to your profile
Make your profile public

Step 2: Add publications

Articles get listed immediately after completing Step 1
To add more publications to your profile, click the + sign and select "add articles."
Search and add publications using different options like names, publication titles, and keywords.
In the search result list, use the check box on the left and in the top menu to select and add publications to your profile.

Step 3: Watch the video on how to create a Google Scholar Profile

Step 4: Congratulations!

Now that you have created an account, you should be able to see:
- Number of citations from your papers
- h-index
- Co-authors, if not listed, edit and add co-authors

Step 5: Clean up your Google Scholar Profile account

Edit publication details like journal titles, article titles, book and chapter titles, authors, date, volume, issues, and pagination.
Delete or merge duplicates so that you don't lose citations

Browse through existing Google Scholar Profiles

Scopus Author Identifier

This 11th-digit Author identifier is assigned automatically to authors who publish with Elsevier.
Through Scopus Author Identifier, authors can view their research areas, track peer-reviewed work, publish and cite information (learn more about Scopus citations and other types of metrics), name variations, affiliation and more.
You can view your citations and h-index using the author feedback wizard and learn more about Scopus citations, how the h-index is calculated, and more.
Scopus ID distinguishes authors with similar names and makes it easy to identify multiple profiles.
Authors can merge multiple profiles
Connect your ORCID through the Scopus Author Identifier

How to create and connect Scopus Author Identifier?

Perform author search on Scopus.
Enter the last surname only to retrieve as many name variants and multiple profiles as possible. Alternatively, search by last name and affiliation.
Send Scopus publications to ORCID.
This author's video tutorial provides clear guidance on what and how to update Scopus Author ID.
More about Scopus Author Identifier browse Scopus: Profile and content corrections Support Center
See also notes on Scopus,h-index, Citations, Metrics, and Author Profiles.

Publons, previously Web of Science ResearcherID

Web of Science ResearcherID is now on Publons.
Publons track publications, citation information, peer reviews and journal editing work into a profile
Publications are immediately imported from Web of Science through ORCID or a bibliographic reference manager like EndNote or Mendeley

How do you create a Publons Profile? Watch this video:

Get started and register for a free Publons profile
Duplicate profiles can be deleted with a few steps.

Browse through existing profiles.

North-West University Publon profiles
North-West University Researchers with Publon ResearcherID profiles