Online professional profiles constitute easy ways to share and showcase your work and represent a great way to increase your visibility and discoverability. For these profiles to be effective, it is important that scholars take control of the information included and decide on which platforms used by their peers would be most beneficial to build a profile. Some platforms may automatically create a profile for an author while other platforms require that the author creates a profile. Managing online profiles may seem as time consuming but the benefits are worth the effort.
Due to its popularity as a research tool, Google Scholar represents an excellent platform to promote your work. Built on the vast Google data, Google Scholar indexes literature regardless of the source. While one's publications are indexed by default, a Google Scholar Profile is created at the scholar's request. A Google Scholar Profile ensures that all the publications are brought together and correctly assigned to the right author(s), as well as keeps track of citation numbers.
Today's challenge is to setup your Google Scholar Profile if you do not have one yet or update/clean up your profile if you already have one.
Be sure to complete your name, affiliation, and email address at this time. We recommend that you use your Case Western Reserve University email address and authorize Google Scholar to display your affiliation. Later, check your email to complete the verification process. This will authorize Google Scholar to display your affiliation with the Case Western Reserve University as “verified.” Consider whether you want to add a picture to your profile or not.
Next, Google Scholar will present you with a list of publications that include your name as author. Some may be yours, and some may not be, especially if you have a common name. If you are a prolific author, or if you have a very common name, there may be many publications to review the first time you set up your profile. If there are publications that don’t belong to you, click the check box beside each and then click “delete.” This will remove the record for that item from your profile.
If Google has identified multiple records that are really referring to the same work, you can click the checkbox next to all records that refer to the same work and click “merge.”
If you do not have any publications, Google Scholar will present you with some options for publications that it thinks could belong to you. Unfortunately, in order to move forward with the process, you will have to accept one of these and then later remove it from your profile.
When you're done, click "Next."
Now you'll be given two decisions to make:
Click “Follow” in the upper right hand corner of your profile page to receive email alerts for any new publications associated with you, as well as new citations of your work. (Tip: you can “follow” new publications and new citations for any researcher with a public Google Scholar profile, not just yourself)
Enhance your profile by adding co-authors: click “Edit” next to “Co-authors” on the right-hand side of your profile page.
Congratulations! Your Google Scholar profile is now set up, ready to add your new publications as they appear on the web, and you’ll receive email alerts every time Google Scholar finds a new publication or citation that it associates with you.
To complete the challenge, send us the link to your Google Scholar Profile.
Go to your Google Scholar Profile.
One way to make more visible scholarly works not yet indexed or other kinds of work (like posters, syllabi, instructional materials, or slide decks) is to deposit them in an appropriate digital repository. This will make it more visible to Google Scholar and to others. Tomorrow’s challenge will show you how!