Curating your online publication profile

Postgraduate researchers (PGRs) undertaking PhD programmes can use the University's research information system, Pure, to create their own profile, link it to their ORCID, and make it visible on the University’s Research Portal.  This will remain available for the duration of your programme.

For an example of a PGR profile that is already live, see Eloise Parr.

Before you start, you will ideally need:

• An electronic portrait photo of yourself (less than 1MB)
• A short biography (~50 words)
• A short description of your research interests (~50 words); check with your supervisor if there are any intellectual property rights issues around what you might share
• Your ORCID login details if you already have one.

Five steps to setting up your profile

1. To get access to Pure you need to be on campus or using the Remote Access Service.  Logon to Pure.  By default, PGRs on a PhD programme should have a Pure account.  If you find that your usual login doesn’t work, contact the IT Service Desk
2. Select your username from the black bar at the top of the Pure window.  Under ‘associated person’ select ‘edit person profile’.  You can add your profile photo and create an ORCID profile (or link to an existing ORCID if you already have one).
3. Under ‘curriculum and research description’ click on ‘add profile information…’ and use the drop-down options to add your research interests, biography and postgraduate qualifications (as appropriate).  We recommend that you add an engaging description of your research interests to represent yourself with a good quality profile.
4. Under the ‘visibility’ section, change the setting to ‘Public – visible on the Birmingham Research Portal’.  When you are happy with your additions, select the blue ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.
5. Once you have edited your person profile and saved your changes, you can close the window.  Then, if you have ‘research outputs’ (journal articles, datasets, prizes, press/media links) to add to your record, you can use the ‘+Add Content’ green button to add details of these.  The Pure help pages give guidance on both adding outputs manually and importing them directly.

Once you’re happy with your profile, check out the Research Portal and search for yourself using the ‘profiles’ tab.  Your profile should be available within 30 minutes of your saving your profile as ‘Public’.  Take a note of the URL of your page.  You can add this URL wherever you want to direct people to your profile, such as your e-mail signature or your Twitter bio.

Five steps to curating your online publication profile

Showcase your research as effectively as possible by using these five tools to pull your publications and other research activity together - this will also ensure that any citation metrics are based on your full publication history.  Start by building your profiles across Pure, ORCID and Scopus, as Pure and Scopus are linked services, and ORCID is an important ID that is used by many agents in the research ecosystem.  Spending time on Web of Science ResearcherID and Google Scholar will enhance your online identity further. 

1. Pure is the University of Birmingham's research information system which collects information about your research and makes this easily accessible on the web via the Research Portal.  Ensure your publications list is as full and up to date as possible by importing records from Scopus or other sources.  To do this:

• Login at pure.bham.ac.uk
• Under ‘Research output’, click ‘Add New’
• Select “Import from online source”, then start by selecting Scopus.
• Follow the onscreen instructions.

It is also possible to set up automatic scans for research outputs.  Further help on How to use Pure is available.  

Pure is also the route for meeting Open Access obligations from UKRI and funders, by self-archiving your final draft manuscripts immediately on acceptance.  Your entries are checked by the library for copyright compliance.

2.  ORCID is the Open Researcher and Contributor ID, connecting you with your outputs and affiliations across different services, and improving recognition and discovery.  It is used by a wide range of agents in the research lifecycle, e.g. you may be asked for ORCID as part of grant applications or when submitting for publication.  We recommend linking or creating your ORCID in Pure, as Pure can then push information to ORCID on a weekly basis, or on your instigation.  To do this:

• In Pure, click on ‘edit profile’, then in the Personal Identification section, click to ‘create or connect your ORCID ID’. 
• Click ‘Proceed’ to go into the ORCID service
• Sign in to ORCID or register via the Personal Account.
• For new ORCID accounts, Pure will populate some of the record, but you can quickly add more complete information yourself.  E.g. for Works, click +Add Works, select ‘Search & link’ and then in the LINK WORKS box, select a platform to start importing information.

3. The Scopus Author ID is an identifier used specifically by the Scopus database and helps researchers to manage publication lists and to view citation and other metrics.  Scopus data feeds into departmental/institutional profiles on SciVal, and contributes to Times Higher Education and the QS World University Rankings.   Scopus Author IDs are created automatically in Scopus.  Link your Scopus Author ID into your ORCID as follows:

• Sign in to your ORCID page
• Scroll down to Works, then click +Add Works, and select the 'Search & Link' option
• In the LINK WORKS box, select Scopus to ORCID
• Authorise for Scopus to ORCID to have access to your record
• Work through the six-stage process to select profiles, names, review publications (from here you can accept/reject any publications and search for any missing documents), send the Author ID (to ORCID), and send publications. 

It takes a week or so for your changes to be authorised and implemented in the database.

4. Web of Science data contributes to the ARWU University Rankings and is also used in the InCites benchmarking and analytics tool (not currently available at the University of Birmingham).  ResearcherID is an author disambiguation tool used within Web of Science.  Ensure you are correctly represented on this platform by claiming your author profile, generating a ResearcherID, and connecting with ORCID, as follows:

• From FindIt@Bham, access Web of Science Core Collection.   
• Change the search from 'Documents' to 'Researchers', then enter your last name and first name.  If you have published under other names, click to '+Add Name Variant' and insert the details.  Click on ‘Search’.   
• The next step varies depending on how common your name is.  You may be taken directly into your author record, or you may need to select your author record from a list.  There may be two or more records that relate to you, in which case you will need to select them using the tickboxes then click ‘View combined record’.   Alternatively,  you may need to use the refine options to locate your author record.  Make your selections and click on ‘Refine’ then follow the steps above.
• Click on “Claim my record” – you will be prompted to provide your email address or to sign in.  Follow the steps to finding all of your publications.
• Link Web of Science with ORCID.  Within your Web of Science profile, click on Edit next to your profile.  Navigate to ORCID sync, click 'Connect my ORCID', then authenticate using your ORCID username and password.  

  You can then opt so that any changes to the publication list on your ORCID record are reflected on your Web of Science Researcher Profile.  To do this, go to the ORCID Sync tab of your Profile Settings and select “Keep my publication list up to date with my ORCID record”.
  Please note that newer publications will not automatically be added to your claimed author profile, you will need to revisit your profile at intervals (e.g. once every 6 months) to ensure your profile is properly curated.

5. Google Scholar profiles enable you to gather your publications together, and for Google Scholar to generate citation metrics on those publications.  Google Scholar is recommended particularly for Arts, Humanities and Social Science researchers as it has more coverage of books and foreign language material than Scopus and Web of Science.  To create a profile:

• At scholar.google.co.uk click 'Sign in' (if you do not have a Google account, click More to create one)
• At the top left of the screen, click on My profile - your profile will open.
• Edit your list of publications by selecting, then deleting, any that are not yours, and click on the + to add articles.  Add a photo if you wish.  Ensure you click on MAKE PUBLIC  to ensure that your profile will be visible to Google users.

Mid and later career researchers can sign up for an Online Publication Profile workshop and receive a personalised action plan.   The 45-minute workshop will help you understand how other researchers, funders and prospective collaborators view your publication profile on the three most influential databases.   The action plan suggests five-minute fixes to disambiguate author records and ensure that you are getting credit for your publications.  Sign up ten days before the session to receive a personalised mini action plan from the Research Skills Team ready for the session.

Course dates

• See above at top of this page.

Accessibility

Our workshops and online courses are designed to be inclusive, catering for a wide range of disabilities. We provide accessible documents and a live transcript for online workshops as standard.

Please contact libraryresearchskills@contacts.bham.ac.uk if you have any additional support requirements, and we will be happy to provide assistance.