Scholarly Profiles

Why do you need a scholar ID?

Scholarly profiles are becoming increasingly common in higher education and are even required in some cases by institutions or publishers. While there are quite a few options to choose from, it is a good idea to have at least one profile in place to bring your work together in a single location. Your profile will allow researchers to locate you and your work, but will also distinguish you and your work and identity from other researchers and help other scholars get in touch with you, promoting collaboration. Publishers often require authors to include an author identification profile like ORCID ID when publishing new work, but a scholarly ID is also a great way to demonstrate the impact of your research for tenure and review at your institution.

Creating a scholarly ID can take just a few minutes and has many benefits:

• Eliminate ambiguity among scholars with similar names
• Bring all your scholarship together in one place in a digital curriculum vitae
• Assure that credit for your work s accurately attributed to you
• Help researchers to easily locate your work
• Showcase your work and track research impact
• Fulfill the requirements of publishers or funders
• Easily connect with other researchers working in your field

This guide will introduce a few of the most common scholarly identity platforms and cover the basics of building a profile and linking your research. If you have any questions, you can request assistance by contacting a librarian through library@usa.edu.

What is an ORCID ID? 

Creating a scholarly profile with ORCID, as with any scholarly profile, allows you to attach your identity to your scholarly research output. ORCID assigns you a unique, persistent, digital identifier which you can use to unambiguously associate your scholarship with you as a researcher by:

• distinguishing your name from others with the similar or same name
• bringing together publications appearing under variations of your hame
• unifying name differences due to marriage or other status changes

An ORCID ID also allows others to connect more easily with you and your research by linking all your work together in a digital CV. This can not only increase the use (and citation) of your work, but also promotes collaboration and scholarly conversation.

It is easy to register your identity with ORCID. It's completely free and only takes a few minutes. 

1. Register your ORCID ID by completing this simple form at orcid.org/register.

2. Login to your profile and add your educational and institutional affiliation information to your profile to distinguish yourself and help others identify you.

3. In the Works section, click "Add Works" to include your research publications, conference presentations, and projects, or use ORCID to import items (see instructions below).

4. In the future, include your ORCID ID in publications, posters, grant applications, etc.

You can also link other online IDs such as Scopus, ResearcherID, LinkedIn or Google Scholar Profile, and social media, bringing your entire scholarly output together under a single identifier.

ORCID makes it easy to import research directly into ORCID through databases like CrossRef, Scopus, and more. By searching your name in one of several ORCID-linked databases, you can simply select all of your publications from a list by checking a box. Then all the data for those works will be imported quickly into your ORCID profile.

To import work into your profile, just follow the instructions below: 

1. Create your ORCID account as above, and login to your personal ORCID account.
2. In the Works section, click "Add Works" and choose "Search & Link".
3. Select the resource you would like to import from (e.g., Scopus)
4. Follow the prompts to select your name and publications from a list of matches, then send them to ORCID.

Google Scholar uses the Google search engine platform to compile scholarly research publication data. By taking control of your author profile in Google Scholar, you can choose which publications attached to your name should truly be associated with you. Google Scholar also offers additional features like citation metrics, allowing you to assess the impact of your work, and even to view which publications have cited your work.

Benefits of a Google Scholar Profile  

• Large scale data collection through Google
• Automatic tracking of citation metrics for your work (including annual breakdowns)
• Links to publications citing your work
• Well organized profile display (including a photo if you choose)
• Users can follow your work and receive notices of your new publications

To create a Google Scholar Profile, you will need to have a Google account. You can create your account using any email address here.

Then just follow the instructions below to claim and edit your Scholar Profile:

1. Go to  scholar.google.com and click "My Profile" at the top left.
2. If you are not already signed in, you will need to sign in with your Google account.
3. Enter your name and institutional affiliation and click next.
4. Search for your name as it appears in your publications, and click "Next". (You can search again with a different name later if necessary.)
5. In the list of results just check the box next to publications that are yours, and uncheck any that are not by you.
6. Click the blue checkmark at the top of the window to submit and link these to your profile.

Raising Your Scholarly Profile - Webinar Slides

Choosing Journal to Publish Your Research - Webinar Slides