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Build a Professional Digital Identity

What does your online digital presence say about you?

Share your Research

Share your research, data, and publications in order to both build your professional brand and find potential research partners. 

These resources may also act as places to highlight your curriculum vita, but their primary benefit is to allow you to store and share the content of your actual research output.

Green Open Access & Self-Archiving

Green Open AccessIf your agreement with your publisher allows you to self-deposit or share your published article or research after a period of time, you may allow everyone everywhere to access your full-text work. To learn more about open access, check out our open access library guide.

Do not upload your full-text articles unless you own the copyright, or your agreement with your publisher allows you to do this. If you need help determining the copyright status of your article, contact your liaison librarian.

The following resources are widely used by scholars and researchers as depositories and sharing mechanisms.

Dryad: Published Data

Dryad icon

Dryad

Dryad is a depository that aims to make makes the "data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable - it offers a home for data files associated with any published article in the sciences or medicine, [as well as] software scripts and other files important to said articles". Dryad only accepts data files associated with accepted articles, and reviews them to ensure that they are functional. Use it to store and share your data, thus retaining credit for your data while ensuring that it continues to contribute to the research community.

  • Primary User Community : Academic researchers and authors
  • Acceptable for most publishers with Open Data requirements
  • Provides open hosting and metadata to better make your data findable to others
  • Get a reliable DOI for your research data
  • Preserve your research data for the long term
  • Affiliates with DataCite and DataONE, two of the largest data indexes

figshare: Data and Charts

figshare

 Figshare

Figshare is a depository for user-submitted research figures, charts, images, and similar forms of data. Creators and researchers retain copyright and ownership of submitted data, and may keep it private, but making it public will permit others to download and use it while giving the creators credit. Use it to store and review your research product, to disseminate and share your research, and increase your reach and influence.

  • Primary User Community : Academic researchers and faculty
  • Openly searchable
  • 20 GB of private storage space; Unlimited storage for data made public
  • Get a reliable DOI for your research product and content
  • Use to collaborate in a private workspace with chosen colleagues
  • Use to store and promote research images, figures, charts, data

Google Scholar: Full-Text Articles

Google Scholar icon

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a platform provided by Google that allows authors to create a profile showing published works and offers an altmetric measure for article impact - the h5-Index. Its options for creating a CV and profile are limited, but it is very widely used for sharing research.

  • Primary User Community: Academic researchers and faculty
  • Openly searchable
  • Indexed by Google, etc.
  • Green Open Access platform
  • Generates the widely used altmetric the H-Index
  • Use to generate alerts when your content is cited or mentioned
  • Use to promote published academic work

ORCID: a Connector

ORCID 

ORCID

ORCID provides a unique alphanumeric persistent digital identifier to attach to a researcher and a researcher's published works. Use it to tie your professional identity together. The use of an ORCID as a unique identifier is rapidly becoming nearly universal in the scholarly community.

  • Primary User Community : Academic researchers and authors
  • Openly searchable
  • ​Nearly universal
  • Use it to post on your professional website, include in your CV, when you submit publications, apply for grants, or on other professional identity platforms
    • Many of the above will offer a specific field to include your ORCID

ResearchGate: Full-Text Articles

ResearchGate icon ResearchGate

ResearchGate is one of the most popular networking for-profit sites for academics, and is designed to easily display publications or presentations.

  • Primary User Community : Faculty & Researchers
  • Openly searchable
  • Indexed by Google, etc.
  • Green Open Access platform
  • Use to display and promote published academic work to other academics

Note : While ResearchGate is very widely used, many scholars are beginning to view it as engaging in predatory behavior in its efforts to earn a profit. At present, it is still recommended due to its broad general adoption in the biomedical research community, but this may change.

SlideShare: Presentations

 

SlideShare

SlideShare is a platform that allows users to upload and share PowerPoint and other presentations, infographics, etc and associate them with their professional identity profiles on LinkedIn.

  • Primary User Community : All professional or student content creators
  • Openly searchable
  • ​Upload your presentations and content to share your knowledge and build your brand
  • Link your uploaded content with your LinkedIn professional profile

Twitter: News

twitter 

Twitter

Twitter is different from the other resources on this page - it does not host publications or content. However, it is very widely used by professionals to share and discuss news and research. Use it to find, follow and connect to peers in your field and to promote your own work.

  • Primary User Community : Academics, professionals, students, the general public
  • Openly searchable
  • ​Tweet brief news and links to your research
  • Connect to other researchers and follow their work and thoughts

Note: You can connect your professional Twitter account with your Canvas profile by clicking a button within Canvas.

Predatory Networks

Predatory scholarly social networks may engage in any of the following activities in an attempt to monetize hosted scholarly contact information and output :

  • Charge scholars a fee to promote their work, changing their search algorithm to promote paid articles rather than relevant articles
  • Sell access to hosted scholarly works without securing copyright holder permissions
  • Sell contact information for hosted scholars 
  • Allow false profiles with unconfirmed affiliation or authorship of content
  • Falsely claim affiliation with scholars to promote a company's own profile
  • Etc.

Some examples of scholarly social networks commonly considered problematic because of this behavior : Academia.edu, ResearchGate (still widely used, and does verify academic affiliation), Sci-Hub (currently under an injunction for illegal file sharing). 

Research sharing networks are still generally quite useful for sharing and promoting research, but choose them wisely.