Managing Research Profiles and Output
Exploring your public research profile
An overview of the opportunities and tools available to you to develop your research
presence online.
Why develop your online presence?
Your online presence is the sum of all the identities you create (e.g. personal website, LinkedIn, Twitter
profiles) and the interactions you establish through them. It is what allows people to find you, interact
with you, and get to know, like and trust you.
Many people manage very well without, but if you want to develop your professional reputation
amongst your peers and a broader public, then establishing a successful online presence is a must.
However, building your online presence takes time and does not happen overnight, but the effort can be
rewarding. Potential benefits include:
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enhanced professional/academic reputation that demonstrates your expertise and the
significance and relevance of your research;
an opportunity to expand your professional/academic networks;
increased opportunities for collaborations, employment, funding, discussion and research;
access to collective intelligence to become more knowledgeable about your own and other
fields of research
Before you start, be clear about who you are and what you want to achieve
Who are you as a professional? What does this mean to others?
Communicating:
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WHO we are,
WHAT we do,
WHY we do it,
WHERE we do it,
WHEN we do it, and
HOW we do it.
…is not easy!
ACTIVITY - 1) explain in plain English what your role is and why it matters, 2) what are your key skills?
Add these skills and keywords to your professional online profiles.
How does Google see us?
Source: searchengineland.com/infographic-how-to-rank-for-your-name-in-google-129850
ACTIVITY - 1) Do a Google search on the following people: "Bex Lewis" and "Alex Marsh". Make a note
of the first page results for each of them. What do you notice? 2) Try Googling yourself if you want
and make a note of the first page results!
Social media profiles rank highly in search engines!
Be clear about what you are trying to achieve
ACTIVITY - Think about what you are trying to achieve and write down a few goals.
6 ways to start building your online presence:
1. Polish your University personal page and/or create a personal website
ACTIVITY - Go to www.drbexl.co.uk and compare it with goo.gl/HSxHUV. Which do you think gives the
best representation of Dr Bex Lewis?
Website hosting platforms:
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wordpress.com
uk.godaddy.com
2. Join LinkedIn
LinkedIn often comes top in Google searches and is used by over 400 million professionals worldwide1.
3. Use SlideShare and link it to your LinkedIn account
SlideShare is a presentation sharing platform bought by LinkedIn in 2012.
ACTIVITY - Go to www.slideshare.net and search a topic of interest to you. What did you find?
4. Write your own blog (or contribute to a guest blog)
ACTIVITY - Have a look at the following blogs by Bristol academics. What do you think makes them
successful?
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www.alexsarchives.org
jonathansaha.wordpress.com
Blogging platforms:
 wordpress.com
Guest blogging:
 theconversation.com
 www.theguardian.com/science/series/science-blog-network
 www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/the-blog/ - Email your blog-pitch to
[email protected]
 cabot-institute.blogspot.co.uk
 policybristol.blogs.bris.ac.uk
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source: press.linkedin.com/about-linkedin
5. Start twittering
Use Twitter to share valuable content related to your professional/research interests (e.g. links to
relevant articles, blog posts, etc) and to network with people who share these interests. Use #hashtags
(e.g. #ecrchat, #phdchat, #acadtwitter, #scitwittips) to find people with shared interests and interact
with them.
ACTIVITY - Have a look at the following Twitter accounts. What do you think makes them successful?
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twitter.com/AlgarFaria
twitter.com/Jonathan_Saha
twitter.com/profsarahchilds
6. Sign up to an academic social networking site
Academic social networking sites allow you to post your articles, your abstracts, your syllabi, your CV,
calls for papers, and other materials. They encourage rapid exchange and chat, and can cut through
traditional academic hierarchies. They also include “vanity” statistics and are usually easy to use.
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ResearchGate (www.researchgate.net) - claims to have over 8 million members (almost 7000
Bristol members), only those with ac.uk emails can join, organised into subject areas, autodiscovers your publications, encourages document upload.
Academia.edu (www.academia.edu) - over 33 million member (unknown number of Bristol
members), anyone can join, anyone can start a new department. However, beware copyrights
infringements: in 2013 Academia.edu was the subject of 2,800 take down notices from Elsevier.
PIIRRUS (www.piirus.com) - run by University of Warwick, keeps it simple by focusing on
connecting researchers RIGHT NOW, rather than requesting the whole back story. Not a huge
database (only 18 Bristol accounts) but you can easily link to your other profiles.
Loop (loop.frontiersin.org) - profiles integrate with FrontiersIn (54 journals) and Nature
Publishing Group journals (150 journals). Unique approach.
Methodspace (www.methodspace.com) - Sponsored by SAGE, business, humanities, social
sciences.
ACTIVITY - Have a look at these different services, maybe sign up to 1 or 2 and
Risks
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data ownership concerns
copyright issues
sites can discontinue
noise can be distracting
disheartening - fear of missing out (FOMO)
UoB priorities
Explore Bristol Research:
 Official profiles for the University
 Organised by Faculty/School/Group
 Includes data from Pure - publications, activities, projects
 What do you need to do? Add your photo, research interests, publications/documents and
activities to Pure!
ORCiD (orcid.org)
 An ID that solves the problems of author identification: common names, middle names, maiden
names.
 Free, not for profit, technology neutral.
 ORCiD publication lists are being used in other systems, e.g. Researchfish
 Mandated by some funders and strongly recommended by others.
 What do you need to do? 1) Get an ORCiD 2) Associate your publications with your ID, build up a
list/profile.
Further information
At the University:
 UoB social media homepage (www.bristol.ac.uk/connect)
o UoB social media directory (www.bristol.ac.uk/connect/directory)
 UoB social media policy (www.bristol.ac.uk/style-guides/web/policies/legal/social-media)
 PURE, the University's research information system
(http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/)
Other resources:
 Vitae Innovate Handbook of social media for researchers and supervisors, Open University 2012
(www.vitae.ac.uk/vitae-publications/reports/innovate-open-university-social-media-handbookvitae-2012.pdf)
 LSE guide on Twitter for academics and researchers
(www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/style-guides/documents/twitter-guide-lse.pdf)