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Research Support: Managing Your Research Identity

Advice and support for scholarly communications.

Your Research Identity

It is important that researchers manage their identity to ensure that their publications and citations are properly recorded. Unique identifiers can help with this. In addition, many funders require researchers to have a unique ID.

This page provides information on the following:

ORCID

ORCID  (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) provides researchers with a unique persistent digital identifier, allowing disambiguation from other authors with the same or similar names. Individual researchers can register with ORCID for free, complete a profile and list or match their ORCID with their publications via the CrossRef system. It is also possible to link an ORCID identifier with other identifiers, including those generated by SCOPUS, ResearcherID and LinkedIn.

As different publishers and databases use a wide range of naming conventions, there may be ambiguities with authors' names. ORCIDs are commonly used when submitting grant applications.


Register with ORCID in three easy steps. You can view videos below for more information about ORCID and how to link your ORCID ID with your publications.

More details on how to register your ORCID are available on the ORCID website.

Google Scholar Profile

Create a Google Scholar Profile to keep track of your citations. You can also see who is citing your work, graph citations over time, and compile citation metrics. You can make your profile public to appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name.

It is simple to set-up and maintain your profile - even if you have written hundreds of articles, and if your name is shared by several different authors.

You can also use your Google Scholar profile to populate your ORCID - view videos below for instructions on how to set up your profile and populate your ORCID.

Setting up a Google Scholar Profile - Rachel Helbing, University of Houston Libraries on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uND8iWABGoc

Populating ORCID from Google Scholar - McMaster University, Health Sciences Library on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NbYEEl2jlAY

Web of Science ResearcherID and Publons

Web of Science ResearcherID is a unique identifier for researchers on Publons.

Register on Publons and import your publications from the Web of Science to become eligible for a Web of Science ResearcherID.

Any publications you add to your Publons profile will then be linked to your Web of Science ResearcherID when anyone searches for you on Web of Science.

You can link Publons with your ORCID ID to easily export your publication list and verified peer review records from Publons to  ORCID. You can also import your publications from ORCiD to Publons.

You can view instructions and videos on how to register with Publons and claim your publications below.

Introduction to Author Records - Web of Science Training on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pI5c3nPczto

Take control of your author profile - Web of Science Training on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Bd_RdUvkm9s

Curate Author Records - Web of Science Training on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-Ib_Q3fQy1M

More details about Web of Science, Publons and managing your publications is available on the Web of Science Training Portal.