Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Fernando Torres Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

As previously discussed, the rapid growth of scientific publications has led to an overload of information in specialized search engines. The problem with this rapid growth is the vast number of documents available for a particular topic and the authors' names.

It is not strange that many authors can have the same name as an everyday occurrence, and there is also the problem of identity theft on platforms such as ResearchGate or Google Scholar. Thus, platforms such as ResearcherID have emerged to provide a unique identification number for researchers regardless of their current affiliation or name.

2 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

ResearcherID is a freely available resource for the global, multi-disciplinary scholarly research community. After registering, authors are assigned an individual ID number that stays with them throughout their careers, regardless of name changes or changes in institution affiliations. This system is used on Web of and other platforms with compatible IDs. ResearcherID differentiates authors with similar names and provides author profiles that further distinguish the authors and their professional and academic careers.

3 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

The platform allows creating an online profile to showcase the author's publication history and scholarly work, thus assuring an accurate record of output and attribution. It also provides a gateway for colleagues to quickly locate published work and identify a potential collaborator. To make the ResearcherID more inclusive globally, it includes ORCID in its system. ORCID provides a profile that helps solve author name ambiguity like ResearcherID and retrieves research products from university repositories, allowing integration with other profiles such as Scopus. In the present handout, we introduce the ResearcherID network and discuss the main features of this platform.

4 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

To create an account for ResearcherID, first, go to https://www.researcherid.com or type "ResearcherID" in Google. This pulls up the platform's home page (Figure 1).

Figure 1. ResearcherID home page. 5 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Here, you can click "Login to ResearcherID on " using your academic credentials if you already have an account. Otherwise, select "Join Publons Now", located just below the "I want to register" section. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. Creating a new ResearcherID account (red highlight). 6 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

The platform directs you to a new page to create the account where you provide your personal information. For all scientific platforms, we strongly recommended providing an institutional email in this step and using your name that appears in most of your publications (see Figure 3). After entering your personal information, click "Register."

Figure 3. Providing author's information for profile creation. 7 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Immediately, the platform will send a confirmation email to the email address you provided. Check Spam if you do not see it in your Inbox. Open the confirmation email and click on the link provided to activate your account (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Procedure for activating the ResearcherID account: a) an email sent by the platform and b) a link to activate the account. 8 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

After the account is activated, the platform will ask you to sign in with your credentials. As Figure 5 illustrates, ResearcherID permits using other networks such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and ORCID for the login.

Figure 5. Logging into the new ResearcherID account. 9 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Once signed in, the Private dashboard – Summary appears (see Figure 6). This page shows all the main features that ResearcherID tracks (see red highlighted box). First, your public profile can be accessed, followed by a section showing your academic records, then notifications of new activity on your account. Below that is Community, where colleagues network; it shows research updates, followers, and endorsements. Finally, the access to your account settings displays at the bottom.

Figure 6. Your ResearcherID private dashboard. 10 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Let us discuss in detail the information of each section. First, the "Public Profile" option in the "Dashboard summary" shows how others see your profile. This is where all the information regarding your research experience is displayed. You can add new information in this section by clicking on "View Full Bio & Institutions" (see red box, Figure 7).

Figure 7. a) Public profile of your account and b) information sections of your public profile. 11 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Clicking on "You can add fields here/You can add a bio here" directs you to a new page with a set of options to add more personal information. As Figure 8 shows, this part requires personal details such as a profile picture, a short biography, and your research fields. When providing a profile picture, submit a professional, high-resolution photo.

ResearcherID also lets you add other publishing names you might have used to your profile. Include a short introduction to your academic career and your current research lines and professional objectives in the biography section.

12 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Figure 8. Public profile settings. 13 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

The settings for the Institutions and Affiliations are managed on the same page (see Figure 9). First, this section includes a segment where you add your editorial board memberships on journals or conferences. You can use the "Current" option to highlight your current editorial boards, which then displays in your profile.

Figure 9. Where to enter current editorial board affiliations. 14 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Below that, manage your academic affiliations by adding the institutions where you have worked or currently work. Provide other professional accounts that you want to be displayed in your public profile, such as ResearchGate and LinkedIn, in "Other Affiliations." Once you have registered all your affiliations, click on "Save changes" (Figure 10).

Figure 10. Management of academic affiliations on ResearcherID. 15 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

After completing the personal information for your public profile, you can add your research experience. This option is located below the "My Records" segment shown in Figure 6. The "Publications" page controls the publications on your public profile, downloadable records, and the graphs and metrics on your dashboard. To start importing your publications, click on "Import publications" (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Importing publications to your profile. 16 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

There are several ways to populate the publication history in ResearcherID (see Figure 12). The default option for importing publications is "Import from ." In this option, the platform uses your name, publishing aliases, and email addresses to query Web of Science so you can identify and claim your publications. If using this method does not provide any or some of your publications, try using other email addresses or names under which you have published.

ORCID is another option for importing documents. To use this feature, you must authorize ResearcherID to pull records from your ORCID account. The platform will pull all journal articles in your ORCID record, retrieve any metadata found for them, and add them to your profile on ResearcherID.

17 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

You can also manually add publications one by one using an identifier (DOI, arXiv, or PubMed ID) or the published titles. The system will retrieve items related to that information and present them to you for confirmation or editing. After reviewing and editing where necessary, click "Save publication" to add the paper to your publication history.

Finally, if you have already collected your publications elsewhere in RIS, CSV, or BibTex formats, then you can upload those files directly to your publication history using this option. Select the file from your file system and click "Upload." The platform will import as many publications to your publication history as possible and then retrieve additional metadata. If any errors are encountered during this process, ResearcherID sends an email to your primary email address with details about the error.

18 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Figure 12. Different options for importing publications to ResearcherID: a) via Web of Science, b) syncing with ORCID, c) via an identifier, and d) file upload. 19 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Your reviews performed for journals or conferences can be added to your public profile in the important "Peer Reviews" section. The platform then verifies your reviews, which can be used for promotion and funding applications. On ResearcherID, two types of peer reviews exist: pre or post-publication. Pre-publication reviews are commissioned by a journal or conference as part of a manuscript's path to publication (or not). Post-publication reviews are those to which you wish to add comments. These are not considered for a journal. You can start adding your reviews by clicking on "Add a Review" (Figure 13).

20 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Figure 13. Adding reviews to populate your ResearcherID profile. 21 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

When selecting a pre-publication review, the platform will ask the name of the journal or conference you reviewed and the date. Next to it, provide the DOI or name of the article you reviewed if it has been published. After these sections are completed, the platform lets you select preferences for displaying your review publicly. ResearcherID also considers the journal, publisher, and other authors' preferences before displaying a review but will never display more information than your set preferences. You must not publish a review if the journal's policy prohibits it. After this section, you can add the content of your review (Figure 14b). Once completed your reviews, click on "Create review."

Another interesting feature is the "Editor Records" option (Figure 14). This ReseacherID section displays the manuscripts that you have managed during a process, including finding and managing reviewers and contributing to the journal's decision about a manuscript's publication. Only people recognized by the journal as responsible for managing the peer editorial and peer review processes for manuscripts should add editor records to the platform. 22 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Figure 14. Options for adding a peer review to your ResearcherID profile. 23 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

If you have added at least one Web of Science indexed publication, ResearcherID provides the option to invite collaborators to the platform. Two ways can do this: the platform can retrieve the co-authors from Web of Science, or you can provide a list of co-author details, as shown in figure 15.

Figure 15. Referring collaborators to ResearcherID. 24 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

After your profile is populated with all your academic and professional information, ResearcherID will update your information and display it to you for review, editing, and confirmation. Figure 16 illustrates a complete profile.

Figure 16. Example of a completed ResearcherID profile. 25 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Once your publications are verified, the metrics associated with your profile will appear in the "Metrics" section. This segment includes metrics for your publications and your reviews. The first image presented by the platform is a time bar graph of your citations impact and the number of publications you have produced. To the right, a bar graph shows the number of reviews over time (see Figure 17).

Figure 17. Bar graph metrics provided by ResearcherID for publications and reviews. 26 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

The "Publication Metrics" appears next. These are various metrics statistically depicting your publication history (Figure 18).

● The "H-index" repeats from your profile card. The h-index on ResearcherID is calculated using citation data from the Web of Science Core Collection, based on the publications you have imported to the platform. A researcher has an h-index if they have at least "h" publications for which they have received at least "h" citations.

● "Sum of Times Cited" is also repeated from your profile card.

● "Average citations per item" is calculated using your "Sum of times cited" and the number of your publications indexed in Web of Science.

● "Average citations per year" is calculated using your "Sum of times cited" and the number of years between your first Web of Science indexed publication and your last. 27 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Figure 18. Publication history metrics on ResearcherID.

28 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

At the bottom of the page, the "Review metrics" shows various metrics related to your peer review activity. These can be compared with any research field metrics in the database by entering the desired field in the box "Compare statistics to researchers in..."

● "Verified reviews" is repeated from your profile card.

● "Verified reviews (last 12 months)" is the number of your verified reviews that were performed in the last 12 months.

● "Review to publication ratio" is calculated using the total number of peer reviews and publications you have added to your profile.

29 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

● "Verified editor records" is the total number of verified editor records you have added to your profile.

● "Verified editor records (last 12 months)" is the number of your verified editor records that relate to manuscripts published in the last 12 months.

● "Reviews per month" is a graph showing the number of verified reviews you have completed either per month or cumulatively on a month-by-month basis.

30 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Figure 19. Review metrics in ResearcherID. 31 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

ResearcherID also allows seeing other authors' profiles and provides the option to search for journals and articles and see the research performance of a particular country. To access this feature, locate the option "Browse" on your toolbar and click on it (see red box in Figure 20). A drop-down menu displays where you select the specific option you want to search.

Figure 20. Browse feature on ResearcherID for publications, journals, etc. 32 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

Once you have clicked on the desired option, ResearcherID directs you to a new page to provide the information related to the field you seek. Figure 21 shows these pages for researchers, publications, journals, institutions and countries/regions. Every page shows the top category performers according to the criteria specified in the columns to the right. In the case of "Publications," the most recent journals display.

Figure 21. Home page browse options for a) Researchers, b) Publications, c) Journals and Conferences and d) Institutions. 33 of 34 Creating and Managing a ResearcherID Account

In the present handout, we discussed creating a ResearcherID account and the main features offered to authors. As previously mentioned, this platform provides a unique ID number for every author regardless of the current or past affiliations. Keep in mind that other expert platforms such as ResearchGate, ORCID and Google Scholar also provide relevant information and features for the academic community. The harmonic use of these platforms leads to a deep and robust professional and academic network.

34 of 34 For further information and support contact [email protected]