This page introduces some of the key aspects of research visibility and metrics and gives you enough to get started, with our other guides going into more depth on a specific aspect.
On this page:
If you are already familiar with research visibility and just want a refresher on key information and what's news, check out our Research Visibility Refresher page.
Research visibility is a catch-all term referring to how well known you and your research outputs are. Metrics are ways of measuring your visibility.
There are many elements that could be considered when thinking about your research visibility, some more relevant to you than others. Our guides try focus on the key information that can help you, but please don't feel like you have to do everything all at once.
There are some core elements that all researchers should be aware of and active in managing, but the ultimate extent to what you do to maintain and improve your visibility is down to what you are looking to achieve with the time you have - some people may want to spend hours each week improving their visibility, whilst others may only need to do check in every now and then.
The more visible you and your research are, the more:
You dedicate so much time and effort to your research, ensuring it is visible means that effort doesn't go to waste.
Rather than thinking of managing your visibility as a luxury that "I'll do it when I have time", it's important to factor into the core of your research process. This doesn't mean you have to become a social media influencer dedicating your life to being visible, but there are a few simple habits that can have a big impact.
Our increasing research visibility page has some quick tips for getting started.
Being able to measure your research visibility and the effectiveness of what you're doing to increase it is important to help you use your time effectively.
There are many metrics out there, citations being a commonly used one. However, it's important to remember that one metric will only show a fraction of the bigger picture. Focusing on just one or two metrics can give a distorted representation of what's happening and lead to discrimination and systemic biases against researchers. As such, we recommend that you use a variety of metrics to assess how things are going, and encourage others to do the same.
The three that our guides look at are:
There are many more out there, each ranging in utility and purpose. For example, most social media platforms can provide data on your activity. The main thing is to find the ones that work for what you're looking to achieve - there's no point measuring citations if you're trying to get social media engagement!
Online research profiles act as your identity online and provide ways for you to engage with others in and outside of academia.
There are many to choose from, some being specialised for researchers, and some being open to everyone. Depending on what you want to achieve, your target audience, and your field, some will work better for you than others.
Due to their effectiveness at increasing research visibility, the University requires all researchers to create ORCID and Google Scholar profiles. Additionally, we recommend choosing one or two more that you can update regularly to help boost your visibility online. Tools like Altmetric can help you to make the most of your online research profiles and ensure your time is used effectively.
Our guides looks at some common profiles researchers may find useful, provides guidance on setting up your ORCID, Google Scholar, and RIS profiles, and gives some advice on using social media as a researcher.
This page gives a quick introduction to research visibility and responsible metrics. If you want to take things further, take a look at our deeper dives:
Additionally, remember that there will very rarely be a single silver bullet to increasing your research visibility (unless you're very lucky and go viral somewhere!) More often than not, it's the cumulative effect of making small but consistent changes to increase your visibility so keep going even if it takes a while to see the benefits.
If you have any questions, would like to arrange a training session for your team or students, or would like some support that isn't on our webpages, feel free to contact the Research Services Team.
Except where otherwise noted, this work by University of Essex Library and Cultural Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
