Research Guides: Researcher Profiles and Identifiers: Home

Profiles & Why They Matter

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.

*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.

Contact - Consultations & Instruction

Need help with researcher profiles, author rights and/or Open Access? I'm here to help!

Rachel Miles

Research Impact Librarian

Rachel is currently away on parental leave and will return on January 31. For immediate assistance, please contact researchservices@vt.edu.

Resources & Workshop Slides

Guide to Online Researcher Visibility
This guide covers how to make yourself most visible and discoverable online as a researcher, such as through Open Access, researcher profiles, and promotion online of scholarly works.
[Blog post] Comparing Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Mendeley, and ResearcherID
Scientometric researchers discuss the advantages and disadvantages of major profile platforms and look at the role of ego in how these services are built and used.
Professional Online Presence & Identity
Workshop slides to help you explore your online identity and curate it professionally.
Introduction to Online Scholarly Presence
Workshop slides cover: how to take advantage of the growing Open Access landscape, author rights when publishing, researcher profiles, online scholarly communication, and promotion of scholarly works.
Communicating your Research/Work
Workshop slides and activities for planning effective research communication, in-person and online.
Communication your Research Worksheet
Worksheet that coincides with the slides for Communicating your Research/Work.

Open Access Resources

Open Access Resources at Virginia Tech Libraries

Virginia Tech Open Access Guide
Covers the basics, the types of OA, OA journals, copyright, OA policies, OA at Virginia Tech, and OA Week.
VT Open Access Subvention Fund
Information on the Virginia Tech Libraries' Open Access (OA) fund to subsidize article processing charges (APCs) for scholarly, peer-reviewed OA journals. This guide includes the request form, fund guidelines, and links to finding OA journals and publishers' OA policies.
Open Education: Open Textbook Authoring and Editing
A "getting started" guide overviewing open, editable, and lower-cost textbooks and open teaching & learning resources for faculty, students, and librarians.

Open Access Week 2020 Events

Connecting the Opens

The Open Access Week kickoff event discusses the three central types of Open: Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data; a history and in-depth explanation of the scholarly publishing landscape is also reviewed, followed by a panel discussion with Virginia Tech faculty members and their experiences with publishing and OA.

Open Access Week Keynote: “Counting what counts in recruitment, promotion and tenure”

What we reward through recruitment, promotion and tenure processes is not always what we actually value about research activity. This talk explores how we can pursue value-led evaluations - and how we can persuade senior leaders of their benefits.