In response to the International Science Council’s concerns about limitations in how scientific and scholarly publishing systems serve the needs of researchers and the public, the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Department of Library Services (DLS) has developed the Research(er) Visibility Checker Tool to help UP researchers increase the visibility of their work and measure its impact.

Lazarus Matizirofa, Deputy Director of Scholarly Communications, Digital Systems and Services in the DLS, explains how the tool will streamline the work of researchers while edging them closer to open access.

What is the Research(er) Visibility Checker Tool?

The tool is a LibWizard platform and hosting site where researchers can complete a form that provides the Scholarly Communications unit with information so that the unit can assist them to build their online presence, such as on Google Scholar. 

What is limiting the visibility of researchers and how can this tool assist them? 

UP has been ranked 69th globally in the 2023 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, which measures how universities are working towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. UP has improved its position (up from the 101 – 200 band in 2022) in relation to 1 705 universities in 115 countries; this is the result of some of our researchers having linked their research outputs to platforms like ORCiD and Google Scholar. The DLS has identified that most UP researchers do not utilise online research tools, instead linking their research outputs to UPSpace, data repositories and other databases. 

The tool provides researchers with insight into the extent of their output reach, visibility, engagement and impact. The DLS uses the submitted information to support individual researcher’s needs to create complete online researcher profiles and link research output URLs, DOIs, handles from repositories and publisher databases, among others.  

What is “research impact” and why do researchers struggle to track the impact of their work? 

Research impact is defined as the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy. Researchers have not championed science communication through their partnership with the Department of Institutional Advancement; researchers can really master this. Most UP researchers do not have online profiles, while others do not update them regularly – they do not link research outputs (such as articles, books, conference presentations, patents and data) using unique and persistent identifiers like URLs. Having well-managed, complete profiles makes it easier to calculate a variety of metrics, such as h-index, citations, altmetrics and collaboration networks.

How does the tool reduce the amount of time that researchers spend on applying to be included in scientific rankings?

The tool is a once-off reminder for researchers to create and update their profiles. This also gives them the best coverage for all their research visibility and impact tracking. ORCiD is indispensable for modern researchers, but, rather than being dependent on a particular database, the tool allows researchers to compile all their outputs in a single location/profile.

What makes this tool different and possibly the only one of its kind? 

This unique innovation facilitates research visibility and impact, and enables researchers to collect, organise, analyse, visualise and publicise their outputs. This relates to ratings, funding applications and promotion. The resulting visibility that this tool gives researchers may result in promotion or tenure, funding opportunities and National Research Foundation ratings.

How can researchers access the tool and what steps do they need to take to start benefitting from it?

The tool is accessible via the following link: https://library.up.ac.za/research_visibility

Once a researcher has registered, they will be contacted and a session will be scheduled to create, update and connect their profile. The steps include: 

• Updating their ORCiD profile by connecting and authorising Crossref, DataCite and Scopus within ORCiD 
• Searching for missing documents within ORCiD 
• Updating their Google Scholar profile
• Updating websites and social links on ORCiD using the Intembeko ORCiD Hub  
• Connecting Figshare and ORCiD profiles and claiming authorship for datasets
• Improving access and use by adding links to publications 
• Adding ORCiD to their email signature 
• Tracking and monitoring their research outputs using Altmetric Explorer