How do you find people?

What is Google Scholar?

Search engine to find scholarly materials

Set up your account to access Cambridge

materials

Have a profile page so people can find you

and cite you properly

Great for tracking stats and making sure

your name is the right one being cited

Downsides?

Citations/stats can be a bit unreliable

(as with anything)

Needs maintenance to ensure accuracy

Dependent on Google’s whims

(see Google Reader)

Relies on the h-index

What is ORCiD?

Unique alphanumeric idenitifier

Makes sure that you are definitely you and not

someone else with a similar name

Similar persistent link concept as DOIs

Gives associated profile page if you want it

Works with other services to populate your

list of publications automatically

Why should I use it?

Funders want you to such as:

NIHR

Wellcome Trust

FWF

Autism Speaks

and many more again…

Why should I use it?

Publishers also want you to:

The Royal Society

eLife

PLOS

F1000

Wiley

IEEE

and many more…

Downsides?

Maybe some maintenance?

Promoting that you have an ORCID so

people use it

…not many

academia.edu

What is academia.edu?

A social media website for researchers

Platform to share and promote work

Spaces to discuss research with peers

Provides online profile page

Allows file uploads and requests

ResearchGate

What is ResearchGate?

A social media website for researchers

Platform to share and promote work

Spaces to discuss research with peers

Provides online profile page

Allows file uploads and requests

Both academia.edu

and ResearchGate

are for-profit

organisations

But then so is Facebook…

So use it as a social media platform

Connect with researchers

Promote your work

Share resources and ideas

But also be aware…

Share the accepted

version

Do not share publisher manuscripts as you

could breach copyright

Deposit your work in Apollo and get a

sharable link

ResearchGate et al. are not open access

compliant

They will profit from your data…just like

Facebook

In summary…

Use everything but with a pinch of salt

Consider usefulness of each tool before

investing your time

Remember the ethical aspects of tools like

ResearchGate and academia.edu

Get services to work for you, not the other

way around