Research visibility

The enormous increase in the number of publications in any field means that it is more difficult for a researcher to keep track of recent publications. For an author it means that it is more important to make you, as an author, stand out from the rest, and give your publications more visibility so they won’t be overlooked. Here are some tips on how to do it.

  • Archive your articles to TDTU INSPiRE Library so that they are available in the TDTU Library's Institutional Repository. 
  • Always use the same name version consistently throughout your career
  • In addition, register for an ORCID and/or ResearcherID (persistent identifier) in order to be more easily indentified
  • Use the persistant identifier link (DOI, URN) to your articles in social media, as it will improve your impact
  • Use a standardised institutional affiliation and address
  • Create a Google Scholar author-profile
  • Join social networks for researchers, e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu, LinkedIn. Link your profiles to each other!
  • When you self-archive your articles, be sure to tag your paper with keywords and subject classifications, so they can be found better. Mere title is not enough!
  • Utilize social bookmarking with Mendeley, Zotero or CiteULike
  • Collaborate with researchers in other institutions
  • Consider communicating information about your research via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks
  • Create a blog where you can showcase your research
  • Respond to any feedback you may get!

Pros and cons of Social Networks for Researchers (Academia.edu, Research Gate)

PROS

  • More visibility when you have several profiles in different services and archive your articles in several places. However, remember that TDTU Library's Institutional Repository comes first!
  • Interactive features, such as following one’s colleagues getting followed by them, discussion opportunities, possibility for feedback etc. 
  • Possibility to comment on article drafts

CONS

  • The academic social networks are not open access repositories - one has to register in order to download the articles unlike in non-commercial open repositories.
  • The Social network services are commercial enterprises which may change without warning, especially if they are bought by some big company. Ads are featured and you will be sent spam all the time
  • When you upload your article to these services, you are not given the possibility to determine the subsequent use of your articles with licenses and they are not given persistent identifiers. The statistical information may be misleading

A tip to increase visibility of your research

  • Upload your article to a non-commercial open repository, such as TDTU Library's Institutional Repository. These are genuinely open repositories which do not require registering to the service.
  • Note that one cannot in most cases self-archive the final publisher's version either to the commercial social networks or the non-commercial repositories.

 

Reference Source: https://libraryguides.helsinki.fi/researchvisibility/visibility