ORCID stands for Open Researcher & Contributor ID.  It is an international, interdisciplinary non-profit organization allowing researchers to attain a unique and persistent digital identifier.  A key benefit of ORCID is that it helps solve name ambiguity in research and scholarly communications by creating a central registry of unique identifiers for individual researchers.

Scopus is linked to ORCID, allowing researchers to export their existing author information without the manual effort of adding it into the ORCID site itself. This is done by using their existing Scopus Author ID.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar allows you to set up a profile which contains your publications. The profile also provides you with various author metrics, such as h-index. In order to set up your profile, you need to have a Google account.

Academia.edu is used by academics to share their research, monitor the impact of their work and track the publications produced by academics they follow.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR PROFILE:

1. Go to http://scholar.google.comand click the “My Citations” link at the top of the page.
2. Log in with an existing Google account, or create a new one.
3. Complete the form with your details, and click the “Next step” button.
4. Review the list of publications, and use the “Add” button to add them to your profile. When you’ve added them all, click the “Next step” button.
5. Choose how you would like to deal with changes to publication and citation data, and click the “Go to my profile” button to view your profile.
6. If there are articles you’ve written which don’t appear in your list of publications on your profile, you can add them manually by selecting “Add” from the “Actions” drop-down menu.
7. To make your profile public, click on either the “Make my profile public” link in the yellow box at the top of the page, or the “edit” link next to “My profile is private”.

ResearchGate
To access scientific knowledge and make your research visible, create a profile on ResearchGate. It allows you to connect with peers and collaborate with specialists in your field. LinkedIn is a professional career service where you can manage your network, find jobs and market your profile.

What is the Scopus Author Identifier?
Many authors have similar names. The Scopus Author Identifier distinguishes between these names by assigning each author in Scopus a unique number and grouping together all of the documents written by that author.

This is especially useful for distinguishing between authors who share very common names like Smith or Wang or Lee.

Additionally, author names in Scopus can be formatted differently. For example, the same author could appear in one document as Lewis, M; in another as Lewis, M.J; and in another as Lewis, Michael. Scopus Author Identifier matches the documents of this author and groups these name variants together so that authors, even if cited differently, are identified with their specific papers. This helps you find and recognize an author, despite variations in name spelling.

View Searching for Authors in Scopus tutorial

How do I request corrections to Author Details in Scopus?

To request corrections to author details:

1. Run an Author searchfor the author.
2. On the search results page, click on the author name.
3. On the Author detailspage, click Request author detail corrections.
4. Complete the Scopus Author Feedback form to provide feedback or report errors.

What is Journal Impact Factor?

Journal Impact Factor is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a given period of time.

Scopus Journal Analyser

The Scopus Journal Analyzer provides a measure of journal performance. Scopus includes over 21 000 peer-reviewed publications from 5,000 publishers; the Analyzer enables you to compare up to 10 journals simultaneously, back to 1996.

The Scopus Journal Analyzer includes 2 journal metrics:

1. SJR(SCImago Journal Rank) is a prestige measure based on the idea that all citations are not created equal. With SJR, the subject field, quality and reputation have a direct effect on the value of a citation. (About SJR)
2. SNIP(Source Normalized Impact per Paper) measures citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a specific subject field. The impact of a single citation is given higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa. (About SNIP)

To use Journal Analyzer:

• Login to Scopus, then select Analyze Journal  from the bar at the top. Search using journal title, ISSN or publisher. Limits can be applied by using Scopus Subject Categories. View Scopus Journal Analyser Tutorial.

What is an h-index?

The h-index is an index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. The index attempts to measure both the scientific productivity and the apparent scientific impact of a scientist. It is based on the set of the researcher’s most cited papers and the number of citations that was received through other people’s publications.

Citation Analysis: Scopus

Citation analysis involves counting the number of times an article is cited by other works to measure the impact of a publicaton or author.  There is no single citation analysis tool, however, that collects all publications and their cited references.  For a thorough analysis of the impact of an author or a publication, one needs to look in multiple databases to find all possible cited references.  Scopus and Google Scholar can be used to identify cited works as illustrated below.

Find your h-index using Scopus

Login to Scopus, then:

• Click on the Author search tab. Enter the Author’s namein the search box.  If you are using initials for the first and/or second name, enter periods after the initials (e.g. Smith J.T.).
• To ensure accuracy, enter University of the Western Cape in the affiliation field.
• Click Search and then on the relevant profile.  Under the Research section, you will see the h-index listed. If you have worked at more than one institution, your name may appear twice with 2 separate H-Index ratings.  Select the check box next to each relevant profile, and click Show documents.