When you publish, several profiles are created for you on various platforms. Most of these allow you to take some kind of ownership of the profile, i.e. removing articles that doesn't belong to you. The amount of control you have differs from each platform.
Below is an overview of the largest and most used platforms for researchers.
This is a universal identifier where researchers can add all their works, education and work experience into one place - almost like a CV! Having an ORCID is a requirement from the University of Essex as this identifier will be used in the next REF (Research Excellence Framework). It is also used in many funder applications. Have a look at this video for more information about using your ORCID profile.
A Scopus ID is created for you once your work is indexed in Scopus. You will have limited interaction with the profile (e.g. you can request changes to your profile but they have to be reviewed by the Scopus team) though you are required to check your profile occasionally to make sure details and documents are correct. Scopus can provide you with information about your citations in addition to information about how many times your research has been mentioned in the news or on Twitter and more
ResearcherID is linked to Web of Science, a database of peer reviewed literature, similar to Scopus. Unlike Scopus, a ResearcherID profile is not created for you; this is something you have to create yourself.
Scholar is the largest database of scholarly literature. Creating a Google Scholar profile and linking it to the University of Essex is for all academics at the university. Some caution in interpreting citations from Google Scholar is needed, as Google Scholar is known for adding more citations to works than there actually is. This is because it sometimes cannot tell the difference between an actual citation and e.g. a library index.
Research GateThis is a social networking platform for researchers. It is often used to share publications and connect with others. However, if you want to use ResearchGate to share publications you need to make sure you do not infringe any copyright restrictions (e.g. uploading an article that is behind a paywall is illegal).
Academia.eduAcademia.edu is also a social network platform for researchers. Though this platform is less interactive than ResearchGate it has many of the same functions and you can also upload your own work to this platform (though you need to consider copyright restrictions on this site as well).
XX is not created for academics but it can be a very useful platform for sharing research and increasing visibility. It can also be great for networking and finding new conferences or events, as long as you follow the right accounts!
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.
