LibGuides: Support for research staff and students: Setting up your researcher ID

Digital Researcher Identity

It is important for your research career to make sure that all your outputs are correctly attributed to you and not to a researcher with a similar name.

You can help with the aggregation of your works in bibliographic databases by always using the same version of your last name and initials when you publish. Signing up for an ORCID identifier will also help with this process. Several funders and publishers insist that authors have an ORCID iD.

You should also check that your outputs are correctly attributed to you in bibliographic databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar.

To get help in setting up and maintaining your digital researcher identity, contact the Research Publications Adviser.

Research Publications Adviser (Library)
Expert advice on research publications and bibliometrics.

Who needs an ORCID Identifier?

If you are involved in research and are publishing the outputs research of your research, you should register for an ORCID iD. You might also think about registering if you are a postgraduate student who may be publishing as part of your PhD research.

ORCID iDs are increasingly being used by publishers, funders and other organisations to confirm identity and improve their workflows.

Their use has been compulsory since 2016 for some funders and publishers.

ORCIDs can be particularly useful if you have changed your name through marriage/divorce or gender reassignment.

ORCID LibGuide from University of Reading
A comprehensive guide to ORCID identifiers, including how to link your ORCID iD to other systems.

Sign up for ORCID handout
This guide will take you through the process of creating an ORCID iD
Growing your ORCID
This handout takes you through adding more information to your ORCID record such as linking to Scopus

ORCID and CentAUR integration
A guide describing how to link your ORCID iD with CentAUR

Check your Scopus Author Profile

If you’ve published a research output in a book, in a conference proceedings or journal, you may have an online identity that you are not aware of and it might not be accurate.

Why do I need to check my profile?

If your details in Scopus are incorrect, your publication record will be incomplete and possibly confusing to those interested in reading or citing your research. It will also mean that the bibliometric information that you can access via your Scopus Author Profile will be inaccurate.

Data from Scopus are also used in some of the University rankings (for example, the QS University Rankings) - If your publications are attributed to the wrong institution, your publication record and citation metrics will not be included in your actual institution's score.

For Reading research staff: It is also worth checking out your Scopus Author ID to make sure that the articles attributed to you are correct because the bibliometric data used in the University of Reading’s Research Outputs Support System (ROSS) dashboards are taken from the Scopus database via SciVal If your details are wrong, unreliable data will be pulled through into the University’s reporting process.

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Gives references to journal articles, books, conference proceedings and patents in all subjects. Also offers extensive tools to analyse results, and measure impact for articles, journals and authors.
Scopus gives references to peer-reviewed literature in all subject areas. It includes journal articles (including 'in press' items), books, conference proceedings and patents.

It is possible to search for topics, authors (including by ORCID ID), author affiliation and funders.

Extensive analytical tools also allow you to:

-analyse your search results by year, source, author, affiliation, country or territory, document type and subject area
-compare journal impact to help you decide where to publish
-see the citation impact and scholarly community engagement for an article
-analyse the citation trend for any given article, set of results or for a list of author documents
-view an author profile to analyse and track an individual's citation history

Help and guidance
Scopus Quick Reference Guide (PDF)
Tutorial of creating alerts
Scopus learn & support site
SciVal This link opens in a new window
SciVal is an advanced bibliometric database that uses data from Scopus to assess the research performance of 7,500 research institutions and 220 nations worldwide.

Before using this resource you must register for an Elsevier account and create your own username and password.
Produced by Elsevier it uses bibliometric information from the Scopus database from 1996 onwards. By looking at citation data, it is possible to visualise the overall research performance of groups or institutions, perform benchmarking across groups and institutions and investigate possible collaborative partnerships. SciVal offers a broad range of metrics such as productivity, citation impact, collaboration, disciplinarity, snowball metrics and power metrics.

Use SciVal to:

create data sets for groups of researchers that can represent actual research teams, departments, schools or international collaboration groups;
create publication sets based on a particular affiliation or a grant award;
create groups of publication sets to represent those that might be submitted to national evaluations, e.g. the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF);
use a range of metrics to evaluate different aspects of research performance across different disciplines.

Help and guidance
How to use the Overview module
How to use the Benchmarking module
SciVal metrics guidebook
SciVal usage guidebook
Snowball metrics recipe book

For individual help and advice on using SciVal, contact Karen Rowlett, Research Publications Adviser.

QS University Rankings

Google Scholar record

You can set up a Google Scholar profile to capture your outputs and record citations to them. This service is free and easy to set up.

Create a Google Scholar profile
Full instructions on how to set up a Google Scholar profile

Creating a Google Scholar Account
This handout takes you through the steps needed to create a Google Scholar account

Researcher ID

ResearcherID

This is a feature on Web of Science. It allows an author to set up a unique personal identifier which can be linked with their publications within Web of Science, regardless of any variations in the use of their name and regardless of their affiliation when a particular paper was published.

Create a Researcher ID
ResearcherID is fully integrated with Web of Science, you can use your profile to make sure you are getting properly credited for your work in Web of Science and use ResearcherID to find an author’s body of work
Web of Science
Use to search across a number of databases covering a range of subject areas. Provides references to journal articles, books, conference papers, patents, research data and other materials.