Scholarly Profiles and Identifiers

When we talk about research impact, we should focus on visibility rather than impact. Visibility can boost impact, so long as the scholarship has the potential to make an impact*, but what boosts visibility? Three primary factors influence visibility: 

• Openness
  • Making sure others outside large research institutions can access, read, and cite your work
  • Through publishers and/or Open Access repositories
• Profiles & Identifiers
  • Making sure that you are properly identified and attributed for your work
  • Helps you control your own online identity and image, professionally and academically
• Communication & Promotion
  • Through the publisher, news media, social media, and/or science communication tools like Kudos

This video will give a brief introduction to researcher profiles and how to strategically utilize them. It refers to "Symplectic" which is used at Virginia Tech, except we call it Elements, the system that is used for eFARs and also connects to the public profile system, Virginia Tech Experts.

*Impact can take on many different meanings across disciplines and even within fields and subfields. For example, citations generally carry more meaning and weight in the science disciplines than in the humanities. In addition, certain fields have higher citation counts (such as the life sciences), while others might influence public policy more (such as urban planning). "Impact" is an ambiguous term, and overall, metrics should be used to support impact stories, or qualitative assessment, rather than supplant them.