Simple ways to boost your academic profile

Making your research more visible is one way academic colleagues can help boost the University’s reputation.

Increasing awareness of research you have been involved in makes it more likely to be cited by others, building your and Reading’s profile and strengthening our academic ranking scores.

The following simple actions are the latest tips we are sharing to build on our recent success in the Times and Sunday Times rankings – which was achieved in part by reputation-boosting work.

Check your digital identity

Make sure that you have a consistent digital identity so all your outputs can be correctly attributed to you.

• Check your Scopus Author Profile – You may not know that this profile exists - check it is correct so that your publications and citations are attributed to you
• Create a Google Scholar profile – Full instructions on how to set up a Google Scholar profile
• Register for an ORCID ID – Creating an ORCID ID will mean that your research outputs are correctly assigned to you,

Cite yourself  (when appropriate and in moderation)

Always cite your own work correctly, using the DOI if one was assigned. Self-citations can be excluded from citation indices, but advertise your previous relevant work to others.

And don’t forget to cite your colleagues if appropriate.

Evidence shows that female authors don’t tend to self-cite as often as male authors. Self-citation is OK when appropriate and in moderation.

Write clear titles and abstracts

Think what keywords/phrases your audience might search for, and use keywords and phrases in the title, and repeatedly in the abstract.

Write a plain-language summary that you can share widely.

Collaborate

Articles with two authors double citations, on average – and co-authors from other countries or other institutions can give a citation advantage.

Explore opportunities to collaborate across disciplines thereby tapping into multiple citation networks.

Open access

Upload your output to CentAUR as soon as it is accepted. This is mandatory for all staff and all research outputs.

Since 2020, there have been more than 5.5 million views of CentAUR records and 3.7 million downloads of full texts.

Share your work

Send shareable links provided by the publisher to your peer network (or PDFs if allowed by your publisher). Don’t assume they will see it in a journal.

Upload permitted versions to Academia.edu, ResearchGate or Mendeley – and tag with keywords.

Include links to your latest publications in your email signature.

Promote your research

Use social media to drive traffic to your publications – e.g. post a plain-language summary on Linked-In (not forgetting the DOI).

And promote associated outputs such as research data or software code – cite them by DOI or other unique identifier.

If you have time, you might blog about your research to encourage ongoing discussion – try a subject-specific blog, The Conversation or our own Connecting Research blog.

Alternatively, edit relevant Wikipedia pages, inserting text and references to your research.

Track attention and impact

Use Altmetric Explorer to track mentions of your outputs on social media, policy documents and news sites.

You can also track citations to your paper via Google Scholar, Web of Science or Scopus. If someone is citing you, they may be interested in your next paper.

Find more tips in the University LibGuide: Boost your academic profile.