2025-07-03-digital_identity_digital_profiles.mp4

DIGITAL IDENTITY AND DIGITAL PROFILES

The purpose of this topic
is to help you create or improve

your digital identity
and manage your digital profiles.

Digital identity is what the Internet
says about us, that is,

information about a person on the web,

personal data, images,
records, news or comments.

In research, your presence as researchers
on the Internet and your relationship

with other researchers in your field
is absolutely essential.

Those who are starting out in research
and thus wish to make themselves known,

as well as those who have
been doing so for longer,

already know the importance

of having an online presence,

collaboration or citations.

To achieve this,

we need a scientific digital identity.

The digital identity
of researchers

is also important
for the visibility of the university

in rankings and, therefore,
for its international prestige.

This is related to another
term called digital reputation,

which is the opinion
or social consideration

that other users have
of a person's online experience.

In our field,
this refers to the level of prestige

a researcher has
within their scientific area.

This prestige is obtained
through the quality and impact

of their scientific output
number of articles,

number of citations,
h-index and other indicators.

The more visible they are,
the easier it is for others to find them

and the more likely they are
to take an interest in our research

and, ultimately, cite them,
which is what we,

as researchers, are looking for.

In order to build
a good digital reputation,

we need three aspects,

which are shown

on this slide and which we have called

the kit for creating and managing
a digital researcher identity:

academic signature,
permanent identifier

and researcher profiles.

Digital identity begins with
your academic signature,

which is how you are identified
in your publications.

This signature is a unique identifying
element for each researcher.

However, a researcher's name
often appears in different forms,

which has a negative effect
on the impact of publications.

Signing each article
in a different way makes it difficult

to locate and compile all of an
author's bibliography or citations,

thereby reducing the impact of their
scientific output and visibility.

It is therefore necessary to
establish a unique form of identity.

The academic signature consists

of two parts: the author's name
and the institutional affiliation,

that is, the institution
to which they belong.

Both are essential to ensure
a researcher's scientific output

can be retrieved from different databases

and platforms in its entirety
and without any ambiguity.

To decide on our name and see
how many people have the same name,

we can start by doing
a search on the Internet.

To avoid the problems that can arise
from using different signatures,

it is essential

to choose a signature that
sets you apart from other authors

with the same name and keep it
throughout your career.

Always sign the same way.

Choose a signature format

that is interpreted correctly by editors
and producers of international databases.

Make sure you include your institutional
affiliation always with the same format.

The correct reference

to the university together
with the author's name helps

to uniquely identify the
writer of the document.

At the same time,

standardizing the names of the department,

research group and university makes
it easier for research engines

and other scientific
output evaluation tools

to compile the university's
research output,

thereby improving its visibility
in scientific rankings.

Institutional affiliation must include
the name of the research group,

department, university,
or institute,

full official name and/or acronym,
if commonly used.

Institution, full name in official form

and optionally acronym, postal address,

city and country,
in the language of your choice.

All these elements
are separated by commas.

Example:
Department of History,

Universitat Jaume I,

Department of History,

comma, Universitat Jaume Primer, comma,

Avinguda de Vicent Sos Baynat,

comma, s/n, comma,

one two zero seven one
Castello de la Plana, comma, Spain.

Failing to standardize
researchers' names in major databases

reduces visibility
both nationally and internationally,

makes it difficult to retrieve
publications and citations received.

Persistent identifiers

or author identifiers
have emerged to solve these problems.

Author identifiers
can be defined as numeric

or alphanumeric codes
assigned to each researcher

in order to distinguish them from others

and uniquely associate
their work with them.

Examples include ORCID,

Open Researcher
and Contributor ID,

and Scopus,
Author ID.

There are many
researcher identity management systems

developed by publishers, libraries,

universities, search engines
and content aggregators

with different data models,
coverage and quality.

All efforts to identify researchers
have converged in the ORCID project.

ORCID has become the world's
only author identifier registry

and is now a requirement
in numerous calls for proposals.

ORCID is an open, non profit,
community-driven project

launched in 2012
that provides a system

for the unambiguous identification
of researchers

and a clear method
for linking research activities

and outputs to these identifiers.

ORCID provides
a persistent digital identifier

that distinguishes one researcher
from all the others.

The ORCID number
is an interoperable identifier

that remains unique throughout
a researcher's career.

Even if they change universities,

the ORCID code always remains
the same as though it were

the researcher's ID number.

It is associated with a researcher's
profile and all their publications,

facilitating the exportation
of bibliographic references to databases,

standardized CVs, or other applications.

It can also be linked to other
identifiers such as Scopus,

Researcher ID, Author Resolver,
Inspire, Aralis,

Ripec or LinkedIn.

The unique ORCID identifier
is independent and standardized

in accordance with ISO 27729.2012.

It consists of 16 digits
that form a unique, persistent code

associated with each author
registered in the ORCID.

The ORCID is expressed as an HTTPS URL.

The 16 digit identifier is preceded
by https://orcid.org.

A hyphen is inserted every 4 digits of
the identifier to facilitate readability.

It is a unique personal code synchronized
with the different identifiers

of each researcher
in the main academic portals,

thereby making it easy
for authors to share information,

promote scientific discovery,

and the visibility
of research through databases,

platforms, and services
that support research processes.

Some bibliographic databases

and platforms create
their own researcher profiles to identify

and group publications by the same author.

These slides show links to some of them.

Web of Science Researcher ID,
Scopus Author ID,

OpenAlex or Dimensions.

Best practices for digital
profiles in research.

There are a number of essential pieces
of information that must be included

when creating a profile.

Name: it is important to always
use the same format for the name.

Some platforms allow you
to enter several ways of expressing

the author's name and link them
to a single affiliation.

Affiliation: register at least
the researcher's main place of work.

Authorship and affiliation
are two key aspects

for the correct identification

and retrieval of intellectual output
in different databases.

Contact email address:

some platforms allow you
to add your email address.

We recommend using your
corporate email address.

Education and work experience:

this section should include
the most relevant information.

Avoid registering short courses
and instead cite master's degrees,

postgraduate training or doctorates.

Publications:

we recommend registering
all publications indexed in databases,

priority being given to those
with scientific content.

Some platforms allow you to select
the articles you want to make visible

and to restrict access
to others, which will remain hidden.

Funded projects:

it is important

to complete this section
if you have obtained funding

through some type of call for proposals.

Securing funding in a call for proposals

is a criterion of excellence,

and it means that both the project
and the researcher

meet high standards of quality.

It is advisable to keep your
researcher profile up to date.

On the other hand,
this is necessary

to ensure transparency
about who we are and what we do

and, on the other hand,
to demonstrate competence.

The better known a researcher is,
the more professional opportunities

they will have and the more likely
they are to be cited.

So, it is important to work on visibility.

The better known a researcher is,
the more professional opportunities

they will have and the more likely
they are to be cited.

So, it is important to work on visibility.

What can you do to improve
your scientific visibility?

Create your digital identity.

Academic signature?

Register in ORCID.

Create your research profiles
and keep them up to date.

ORCID profile, Google Scholar profile.

Boost your visibility.

Create a profile on at least
one scientific social network,

ResearchGate or academia dot edu.

And make your research output
known, respecting copyright.

Deposit your research output in open access
institutional or thematic repositories.

Disseminate your research
output on X, Facebook or blogs.

The video in this slide shows how to
register and create an ORCID profile.

The links on this slide explain

how to create and update a
researcher profile on Google Scholar.

Google Scholar Citations is a
service offered by Google Scholar

that allows researchers

to create an academic profile,

which they can use to group and
organize all the scientific output

that can be found in the search engine,

enabling other functions such
as tracking citations received,

indicating who cited them
and in which documents,

visualization, by means of a graph of
the evolution of citations over time,

and metrics, number of
citations, h index or i10 index.

The main advantages of this
service are that it is free,

easy to create and update,

and provides high visibility

if our profile is public,

as Google Scholar is one of the
most widely used search engines.

However,

although its coverage is
broad, it is not exhaustive.

Furthermore, it does not differentiate
between researchers with the same name,

So when publications
are added automatically,

those of other authors are linked
to the Google Scholar profile.

Thank you for your attention.