If you want an impressive research profile it is a good idea to keep track of where information about you and your research can be found on the internet and curate your image.  The tools below can be used to promote your research and gather research impact data as well as network with national and international colleagues in your field. It is not an exhaustive list!

What is my ORCID iD and how should I use it?

Have you published any research, or received any grants? Are you conducting research or planning to in the future? If so, you need an ORCID account.  This is SWSLHD librarians' number one recommendation for anyone wishing to improve their research visibility and impact. Your ORCID iD is a unique, persistent open digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher with the same or a similar name to you and allows you to claim your publications.  Publishers often now ask you for your ORCHID iD. It is strongly recommended you register for one if you do nothing else to promote your work.

Anyone who participates in research, scholarship, or innovation can register an ORCID iD for themselves free of charge, and you can use the same iD throughout your whole career -- even if your name changes or you move to a different organization, discipline, or country.. read more

Why is it important to create an ORCID account?

An ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) gives you a way to reliably, connect your name(s) with your work throughout your research career, including publications, grants, education, employment and other biographical information, etc.
Creating and maintaining your ORCID ID has some benefits:

• You will be distinguished from every other researcher, even researchers who share your same name
• Your research outputs and activities will be correctly attributed to you
• Your contributions and affiliations will be reliably and easily connected to you
• You will save time when filling out forms, (leaving more time for research!)
• You will enjoy improved discoverability and recognition
• You will be able to connect your record to a growing number of institutions, funders, and publishers
• Your ORCID record is yours, for free, forever

How do I create an ORCID iD? Go to the ORCID website and Register online via an easy quick process.

Step 1. Add personal data

Step 2. Set up notifications

Step 3. Set up visibility (public view)

Top tips:

• Make sure you provide a back-up email so you can easily update your ORCID account if you change your work email
• Please include your Hospital affiliation as well as any University connections

SWSLHD affiliation:

You can add multiple affiliations to your ORCID profile. We recommend this format to add your SWSLHD affiliation: 

The name of the Hospital, the district. eg. Campbelltown Hospital, South Western Sydney Local Health District ​

It is obviously important to share your research findings so that it can make a difference in the real world.  Being able to demonstrate your research is being read and makes a difference will also help with grant applications so you can do more research. 

Research impact can be measured by:

How many people read and cite your work. Citation data is a long established measure of your research impact.
See more: Western Sydney University Library guide to metrics and the Monash Library Libguide on Research Metrics 

Altmetric data. This relates to social media impact, for example how often your posts are shared in online platforms such as Twitter and blogs and how often you are mentioned online. 
Read: The Altmetric Attention Score: What Does It Mean and Why Should I Care?

Making an actual difference to people's lives. NHMRC defines the impact of research as the verifiable outcomes that research makes to knowledge, health, the economy and/or society

Read more about the value of using social media to promote and disseminate research:

Luc, J., Archer, M., Arora, R., Bender, E., Blitz, A., Cooke, D., Nihici, T., Kidane, B., Ouzounian, M., Varghese Jr, T., & Antonoff, M. (2020). Does Tweeting Improve Citations? One-Year Results from the TSSMN Prospective Randomized Trial. The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.athoracsur.2020.04.065

“tweeting results in significantly more article citations over time, highlighting the durable scholarly impact of social media activity"

 Klar S, Krupnikov Y, Ryan JB, Searles K, Shmargad Y (2020) Using social media to promote academic research: Identifying the benefits of twitter for sharing academic work. PLOS ONE 15(4): e0229446. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229446

"The possibility that scholars can push their research out, rather than hope that it is pulled in, holds the potential for scholars to draw wide attention to their research."