A Researcher’s Visibility Begins with Discoverability
Up-to-date researcher information supports visibility both within the academic community and beyond. When a researcher’s information and profiles are accurate and easily discoverable, it becomes easier to showcase their expertise comprehensively. The visibility of research publications and data is built on accessibility and identifiability. The visibility of the researcher and their research outputs, in turn, strengthens their societal impact.
As a researcher, you can influence how your work and expertise are perceived both within the academic community and in society at large. In the following, we outline practical ways to ensure your publications, research data, and other scholarly outputs are easy to find and accessible.
Keep Your Researcher Information Up to Date:
Use consistent and comprehensive affiliation information in your publications so that they are correctly linked to the right person and organisation in citation databases, publication data collection, and research evaluation.
Create an ORCID researcher identifier and keep its contents updated. The identifier identifies the researcher and links research outputs to the correct person. The researcher owns their ORCID identifier — not the organisation. ORCID is an independent service from publishers, database providers, and research organisations, and it also functions as a public CV.
Discoverability of Publications and Data:
The discoverability of your publications is also enhanced if they have a Persistent Identifier (PID). This identifier uniquely identifies the publication and ensures it can be found even if its web address changes. Examples of persistent identifiers include URN and DOI.
When you publish your research outputs open access, they are freely accessible online. The potential readership of open access publications is much larger than that of subscription-restricted articles, making it more likely that your articles will be downloaded, shared, and cited. Public dataset metadata can also increase the usage and discoverability of your research data.
You can improve the visibility of a dataset by citing the data you used. Citation gives credit to the creator and helps identify and locate the dataset. It also helps track its usage.
A researcher’s visibility begins with discoverability. Consistent affiliation information, an ORCID identifier, persistent identifiers for publications, and open publishing are concrete ways for researchers to increase the visibility and impact of their work.
Researcher’s Guide to Responsible and Open Science: Visibility and Impact
https://libguides.tuni.fi/researchers-guide/impact-and-visibility
Text by information specialists Johanna Löhönen and Taina Peltonen
Translation: Piatta Hellevaara
