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Journal of Library Administration
ISSN: 0193-0826 (Print) 1540-3564 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjla20
Making Sense of Researcher Services
Justin Shanks & Kenning Arlitsch
To cite this article: Justin Shanks & Kenning Arlitsch (2016) Making Sense of
Researcher Services, Journal of Library Administration, 56:3, 295-316, DOI:
10.1080/01930826.2016.1146534
To link to this article:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2016.1146534
© 2015 The Author(s). Published with
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Justin Shanks and Kenning Arlitsch
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Journal of Library Administration, 56:295–316, 2016
Published with license by Taylor & Francis
ISSN: 0193-0826 print / 1540-3564 online
DOI: 10.1080/01930826.2016.1146534
posIT
KENNING ARLITSCH, Column Editor
Dean of the Library, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA
Column Editor’s Note. This JLA column posits that academic
libraries and their services are dominated by information tech-
nologies, and that the success of librarians and professional staff
is contingent on their ability to thrive in this technology-rich en-
vironment. The column will appear in odd-numbered issues of
the journal, and will delve into all aspects of library-related in-
formation technologies and knowledge management used to con-
nect users to information resources, including data preparation,
discovery, delivery and preservation. Prospective authors are in-
vited to submit articles for this column to the editor at ken-
ning.arlitsch@montana.edu
MAKING SENSE OF RESEARCHER SERVICES
JUSTIN SHANKS
Semantic Web Identity Researcher, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA
KENNING ARLITSCH
Dean of the Library, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA
ABSTRACT. Researcher services have proliferated in recent years
and numerous free or fee-based sites now promise increased visi-
bility and impact for authors or contributors of publications and
other research products. Not all services have the same goals, how-
ever, and it can be difficult to know with which services researchers
should engage. In this article we establish three categories (au-
© Justin Shanks and Kenning Arlitsch
Address correspondence to Justin Shanks, Semantic Web Identity Researcher, Mon-
tana State University, P.O. Box 173320, Bozeman, MT 59717-3320, USA. E-mail:
justin.shanks@montana.edu
This is an Open Access article. Non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, cited, and is not altered,
transformed, or built upon in any way, is permitted. The moral rights of the named author(s)
have been asserted.
295
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296 J. Shanks and K. Arlitsch
thor/researcher identification, academic/professional networking,
and reference/citation management) and examine nineteen ser-
vices that fit into those categories.
KEYWORDS researchers services, citation management, aca-
demic networks, researcher networks, researcher identification, au-
thor identification
INTRODUCTION
Researchers struggle to gain recognition for their work in the increasingly
crowded publication environment. No longer is it sufficient to publish an
article in a commercial or Open Access journal and then wait for it to be
read and cited by colleagues. Active promotion of scholarship has become
another aspect of the publication cycle. Moreover, the current dearth of
assistance and expertise in this area forces most authors to struggle alone.
In such an environment, there exist opportunities for libraries to develop
services that help increase the visibility and recognition of an author’s work.
Increased visibility can lead to more citations, which remain the proven
currency of the academic promotion and tenure system. Although growing
emphasis on altmetrics may be slowly changing the definition of scholarly
impact, current promotion and tenure requirements continue to focus on
research funding and citations as measurable evidence of research impact.
Researcher funding and author citations also drive reputation and ranking
of research universities, in turn positively affecting enrollment and financial
health of the institution.
In recognition of the importance of such measures and in support of the
Open Access movement, academic libraries have developed various schol-
arly communication services. Institutional repositories, data management,
and copyright services are points along the spectrum of library-based re-
searcher services that are growing to include identifiers, professional net-
working, and citation management. Recent years have seen a proliferation
of both commercial and non-profit services that help researchers increase
visibility and recognition of their work.
A plethora of digital researcher services exist to effort to enhance dis-
coverability, shareability, and citability of researchers and their scholarship.
Aims of these services vary and may include: creating unique identifiers for
researchers, increasing the visibility of individuals, and enhancing the discov-
erability of scholarly products. Given the growing importance of researcher
services, this article has two-pronged purpose:
1. Define terminology related to researcher services;
2. Categorize and provide a systematic overview of selected researcher ser-
vices.
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A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
As with any new field, terminology in the area of researcher services is
fluid. Therefore, before diving deeper into specifics features, allow us to
first define the categories we use in this article. Our method divides the
overarching term “researcher services” into three categories:
1. Author/Researcher Identification—these services provide some necessary
infrastructure that may be used in the other two categories, such as unique
identifiers and name disambiguation
2. Academic and Professional Networking—most succinctly described as “so-
cial networking for academics,” these services focus on connecting users
based on research interest, affiliation, geography, or other variables.
3. Reference and Citation Management—while these tools and services in-
clude some of the functionality and features of other categories, they are
distinct given their primary focus on management of citations that a re-
searcher compiles for use within a publication or for sharing with other
researchers.
Given overlapping functionality of services, these are not three discrete
categories. Nevertheless, this method of categorization identifies substantive
differences and broad commonalities among the various researcher services.
Moreover, this method of categorization helps provide some much needed
clarity to a diverse and robust landscape. Short descriptions will allow us to
dive deeper into the particularities of each service, and we offer an overview
of selected characteristics to help compare each service (see Table 1).
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Increased recognition from networking and collaboration can lead to mate-
rial gains, such as increased funding from granting agencies (Ebadi & Schif-
fauerova, 2015). Funding agencies may also favor established researchers
with proven track records, thereby avoiding perceived risks associated with
lesser-known scholars (Daniels, 2015). Increased visibility leading to more
citations may help researchers establish credibility and reputation.
It is not uncommon for researchers to create their own websites or so-
cial media profiles to promote their scholarship. However, content presented
on personal websites, institutional websites, or social media is not likely to
provide the visibility or carry the recognition of internationally-recognized
services dedicated to the needs of researchers. Indeed, research demonstrates
an increase in publication downloads as a result of “increased SEO [search
engine optimization] rankings through inbound links from highly ranked
websites” such as LinkedIn or Academia.edu (Kelly & Delasalle, 2012). There-
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300 J. Shanks and K. Arlitsch
fore, it seems the quality of exposure on the Internet matters, perhaps more
so than the quantity.
The need for researcher identifiers is clear, as names are not unambigu-
ous enough to assert that one person is not another. The surnames Kim, Lee,
and Park account for nearly one-half of all Koreans (Ghosh, 2013). “Nguyen”
is a surname held by 40% of the Vietnamese population, far more common
than “Smith” or “Jones” in European and American populations (Enserink,
2009). Given such ambiguity, the ability to track citations for researchers is
severely hampered without unique identifiers.
Ambiguities even occur within single authority files of names and can
include problems of pseudonyms and various roles played by an individual
over the course of his or her life and career (Hickey & Toves, 2014). Names
also change through marriage, divorce, or other life circumstances. A number
of researcher identification services have been created in recent years to
combat such ambiguity, but the quantity of services and diversity of features
has made it difficult to know with which ones to engage.
Keyword searches of several databases were performed to understand
the availability and breadth of research in the area of researcher services.
Given the aforementioned inconsistent and often unclear terminology in
research literature, we utilized the following terms: “researcher profile sys-
tems,” “researcher profile sites,” “academic profile platforms,” “academic net-
work sites,” “academic profiling sites,” “citation management,” “academic
networks,” “researcher networks,” “researcher identification,” “author iden-
tification.” Although keyword searches yielded few articles specific to this
topic of researchers services, we identified several tangential articles (Ebadi
& Schiffauerova, 2015); (Enserink, 2009); (Nentwich & Ko¨nig, 2014); (Ward,
Bejarano, & Duda´s, 2015). A number of articles investigated the purpose,
functionality, and/or potential of a single service (Butler, 2012); (Schubert
& Holloway, 2014); (Zaugg, West, Tateishi, & Randall, 2011) or provided a
comparative look at two services (Kelly & Delasalle, 2012); (Van Noorden,
2014).
In addition to keyword searches, we reviewed all bibliographies yielded
from articles to gather additional relevant research not captured via key-
word searches. Articles gleaned from bibliographies included further insight
from various topics, including: author self-promotion (“Author Resource
Centre,” 2015); (“Help Readers Find Your Article,” 2016); libraries and re-
searcher services (Bosman, 2015); bibliometrics, altmetrics, and academic
social networks (Ortega, 2015); information and communications technology
(ICT), research, academic networks, and knowledge construction (Montoya
& Soledad, 2012).
The article most aligned with our research explains how “academic
network sites have indeed become a part of the researchers’ profes-
sional life” in Norway (Mikki, Zygmuntowska, Gjesdal, & Al Ruwehy,
2015). The research team analyzed data from five “academic network sites”
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(ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar Citations, ResearcherID, and
ORCID) in combination with demographic information from Norway’s Cur-
rent Research Information System (CRIStin) database in order to understand
prevalence throughout Norway as well as variations by age, gender, and
discipline. Building upon the foundation provided by Mikki and colleagues,
our research broadens the geographic parameters as well as the number of
platform to provide a close look at 19 Internet-based researcher services.
What follows is a systematic overview of services that aim to increase
the visibility and recognition of an individual’s scholarly activity. Although it
is a large list, it is almost certainly incomplete. Services featured herein are
included because of their large number of users, widespread availability, or
because they were revealed through our review of the literature.
OVERVIEW OF SERVICES BY CATEGORY
Author/Researcher Identification
Researcher identifier services are intended to assign unique and unambigu-
ous identifiers to people who conduct research and publish their findings.
While identification systems have long existed for published works (ISBN,
DOI, ISSN), the very idea of assigning numbers to people raises concerns
about privacy and conjures Orwellian visions. Despite such concerns, the
creation of unique and persistent digital identifiers furthers efforts for author
disambiguation, helping to automatically recognize and gather the right pub-
lications, and aiding in greater visibility and wider recognition of scholarly
activity. Each of the following services utilizes differing methods of author
identification according to its own metrics and data sources. To a greater or
lesser extent, each service attempts to automatically match publications with
a researcher identity.
Although this article focuses on individuals, it should be noted that
identifiers are also needed for organizations. Identifier systems for organi-
zations may prove more difficult because organizational identity includes
a series of legal issues, hierarchical ambiguity, and maintenance concerns.
Nevertheless, visibility and recognition of organizations is also an impor-
tant consideration in the fabric of researcher services for many of the same
reasons that are important to the individual (e.g., funding, networking). Ad-
ditionally, organizational visibility and recognition bolsters an individual’s
ability to be identified.
Digital Author Identifier (DAI)
Since 2007, every author employed at a Dutch university or research institute
has received a unique national number (DAI) (Enserink, 2009). Developed
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302 J. Shanks and K. Arlitsch
by SURF (the collaborative information and communications technology or-
ganization for Dutch higher education and research) in cooperation with
OCLC PICA, DAI is the only independent, non-commercial identification
number for Dutch researchers. Each DAI corresponds to a researcher page
within the National Academic Research and Collaborations Information Sys-
tem (NARCIS)—the Dutch national portal for information about researchers
and their work. The information found on the researcher page in NARCIS
is drawn from the NARCIS database which is populated by various institu-
tional repositories. DAI not only distinguishes between authors who share
the same name, it also attributes publications using variations of an author’s
name including name changes resulting from marriage, divorce or other cir-
cumstances. Therefore, DAI aims to ensure that all of an author’s publications
can be traced, regardless of how his or her name is reported on individual
publications. Although its comprehensiveness is impressive and offers a po-
tential model, the applicability of DAI is limited to individuals affiliated with
Dutch institutions.
Google Scholar Citations
A small organization within the search engine and Web services giant,
Google Scholar has emerged as perhaps the single largest academic search
engine on the Web. In addition to harvesting and indexing millions of peer-
reviewed and non-peer-reviewed articles from publishers and open repos-
itories, Google Scholar also offers individuals the ability to create profile
pages using Google Scholar Citations. Quick to establish, easy to maintain,
and largely automated, a Google Scholar Citations profile offers two primary
benefits for researchers: (1) list of publications and (2) citation metrics. Built
upon the robust Google Scholar foundation, this author/researcher identifica-
tion service matches and automatically updates publications that it thinks are
associated, thereby decreasing the time and effort required for maintenance.
Alternatively, researchers can review updates before they are added to the
publication list or opt to manually update articles. Google Scholar uses statis-
tical modeling to differentiate among authors, nevertheless disambiguation
is an ongoing challenge. If the automatic update system improperly asso-
ciates article(s), an author has the opportunity to dismiss incorrect matches
using a straightforward delete function. In addition to listing publications,
Google Scholar Citations tracks citations using platform-dependent h-index,
i10-index, and total number of citations. Citation metrics are computed and
updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations for an author’s
work. While a private profile affords users full Google Scholar Citations
functionality (e.g., list of publications and citation metrics), a verified public
profile adds the additional benefit of making the profile suited for inclusion
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in Google and Google Scholar results when people search for an author’s
name.
International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI)
The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is managed by OCLC, cer-
tified by the International Standards Organization (ISO), and casts a wide net
to cover not only researchers and authors, but also artists, publishers, inven-
tors and performers. It is part of a family of international standard identifiers
that includes identifiers of works, recordings, products and right holders
in all repertoires, e.g., DOI, ISAN, ISBN, ISRC, ISSN, ISTC, and ISWC. ISNI
holds public records of over 8.99 million identities, including: 8.46 million in-
dividuals (of which 2.55 million are researchers) and 525,636 organizations.
According to its website, ISNIs are created after combing through hundreds
of databases and are “assigned when there is a high level of confidence in
matching new names to existing names in the database” (ISNI International
Agency, n.d.). Once created, ISNI URIs are published as Linked Open Data
along with their metadata, making them a potentially powerful source of au-
thoritative information on the Semantic Web. The ISNI website also facilitates
“enrichments, clarifications, and corrections” of metadata.
Microsoft Academic Search
Initially developed as a competitor to Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic
Search is a beta service to explore data mining, named-entity disambigua-
tion, and visualization corresponding to scholarly publications (Knies, 2014).
Microsoft describes Microsoft Academic Search as an experimental research
service developed to explore how scholars, scientists, students, and practi-
tioners find academic content, researchers, institutions, and activities, and
further states that the service is “not intended to be a production Web
site” and that its existence as a separate site will likely cease upon con-
clusion of the research project (“Help Center—Microsoft Academic Search,”
2013). Similar to Google Scholar in intent, Microsoft Academic Search in-
cludes a researcher profiling and identification service. In addition to index-
ing academic publications, Microsoft Academic Search also strives to place
research into context—displaying key relationships between and among
subjects, content, and authors. An author profile is automatically created
when a publication is added to Microsoft Academic Search. Unlike most
author/researcher identification services, Microsoft Academic Search allows
any user (signed in via Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo!, or Google credentials)
to modify basic profile information and/or publications about any other user.
As noted by Van Noorden, the service’s failure to “track even a fraction of
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papers published since 2011” (Van Noorden, 2014) is a significant short-
coming. Despite its experimental status, lackluster performance, and corre-
sponding criticism, Microsoft Academic Search is slated for integration into
Microsoft’s existing search services. This appears to be an effort to differ-
entiate itself from its main competitor, Google Scholar. Rather than use a
separate search engine for academic information and scholarly content, all
Microsoft search activity will appear in Bing search results (Knies, 2014).
ORCID
The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) positions itself as an “an
open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry
of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research
activities and outputs to these identifiers” (ORCID, Inc., n.d.). First proposed
in 2009 it quickly gained the support of 23 organizations, including numer-
ous commercial publishers (“Credit where credit is due,” 2009). It generates
identifiers to individuals and organizations on request, and it also provides
APIs for authentication and for systems to communicate with one another.
Some publishers have begun to integrate ORCID into their publication mech-
anisms. ORCID allows the user to create a profile that includes resume-like
elements such as education, employment, funding and publications. ORCID
features the U¨ber Wizard, which is a subcontracted service that, when au-
thorized, connects to the researcher’s institution to extract funding award
information. However, the wizard currently has limited application for li-
brarians as it does not recognize funding sources such as the Institute for
Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
ORCID can exchange data with figshare, ResearcherID, and Scopus Author
ID upon request, although the exchange is not always bi-directional (see
Scopus Author ID, below).
ResearcherID
A product of Thomson Reuters, ResearcherID generates identifiers for re-
searchers and allows them to create profiles that include their titles, institu-
tional affiliations, research interests and publication lists. It leverages other
Thomson Reuters products by integrating with EndNote, a popular citation
manager, and with Web of Science. It also provides the ability to associate
with ORCID. ResearcherID creates publication lists when the author uploads
them through EndNote, manually, or by searches conducted in Web of Sci-
ence (Thomson Reuters, 2015b) (ResearcherID Web site). It exchanges data
nicely with ORCID, so it’s a simple process to keep publication lists updated
in ResearcherID, although some manual deduplication may be necessary.
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There is a bulk uploading feature called ResearcherID Upload, which allows
authorized members of an academic institution to create accounts en masse
and upload associated publications, but it “requires familiarity with XML and
Web service protocols” (Thomson Reuters, 2015a).
Scopus Author ID
Scopus is an abstracting/indexing service of the Elsevier Publishing Group
that draws its information only from peer reviewed journals. Unlike Google
Scholar it does not harvest from blogs, institutional repositories, or other
Web sites. Like ResearcherID it also generates an identifier for the researcher,
and it integrates with Elsevier’s SciVal product and ORCID. But while Re-
searcherID allows data transfer with ORCID in both directions, Scopus is
currently only able to deliver its records to ORCID. Development is in the
works for Scopus to be able to receive records from ORCID as well, and
Elsevier says that functionality should be in place during the latter part of
2016 (Azoulay, 2016).
VIAF
The Virtual International Authority File is an OCLC-led project that has gath-
ered tens of millions of names from authority files held in national libraries
and other agencies around the world. The aim is to create “controlled entities
and the relationships between them” (Hickey & Toves, 2014), by generating
a “merged ‘super’ authority record” from the various authority files (OCLC,
Inc., n.d.). VIAF is therefore not a system that individual users can engage
with; individual records cannot be edited although they may be redacted
from the database (Hickey & Toves, 2014). Another limitation of VIAF is that
because its names are drawn from library authority files, they tend not to
include article level authors unless those persons have significance in other
contexts. VIAF is expected to play a potentially powerful role in providing
linked data for the Semantic Web because it creates authoritative entities
with relationships.
Academic and Professional Networking
Academic and professional networking platforms assist researchers in creat-
ing and maintaining a digital network among other researchers, academics,
and organizations. By creating a user profile within a given platform, a re-
searcher is able to provide information about his or her own work unique
to each platform’s fields (e.g., publications, employment history, educa-
tion background). Unlike the auto-matching common to author/researcher
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identification services, the information provided in this category is more
likely to be user-generated. Similar to other popular social media (e.g.,
Facebook), academic and professional networking platforms enable re-
searchers to link through user-initiated searches and/or platform suggested
connections based upon research interest, affiliation, geography, or other
variables. It is yet to be determined whether the establishment of con-
nections initiates collaboration or furthers research, funding, or related
resources.
Academia.edu
Founded in 2008 with a goal of making academic research freely and widely
available, Academia.edu is part repository, part social network, and part
analytics monitoring. Registration on the site is free and allows users to
connect with colleagues, post their own publications, and track the reader-
ship of their work. Following an Open Access model, Academia.edu allows
users to download all papers posted to the site at no charge. As of Jan-
uary 2016, Academia.edu reports 8,325,534 papers have been added by the
30,148,823 academics who have signed up for the platform (Academia.edu,
2016). Users are provided Web analytics corresponding to profile views, doc-
ument views, unique visitors, referring sites, keywords, etc. Academia.edu
uses two metrics to report relative popularity of papers and authors. Pa-
perRank is a function of the number of recommendations a paper has re-
ceived, weighted by the AuthorRanks of the recommenders. AuthorRank
is a function of the PaperRanks of the papers on the author’s profile. In
short, an Academia.edu user whose papers have high PaperRanks will have
a high AuthorRank. A report published on the Academia.edu Web site by
Academia.edu employees, (Niyazov et al., n.d.) claimed that “a typical ar-
ticle posted on Academia.edu receives approximately 41% more citations
compared to similar articles not available online in the first year after up-
load, rising to 50% after three years, and 73% after five years.” A previous
version of the article claimed 83% more citations after five years, but that
number was revised after criticism in The Scholarly Kitchen (Davis, 2015).
In late 2013 Elsevier (shortly after purchasing Mendeley) issued takedown
notices to Academia.edu as well as a number of universities and colleges in
effort to remove unauthorized copies of articles published in Elsevier jour-
nals (Peterson, 2013). Although there has not yet been any additional legal
action, as Wecker explains (Wecker, 2014), takedown requests are “cause
for concern for academics who are drawn to the site precisely because it
promises to disseminate their research.” Moving forward, it will be inter-
esting to see how academic publishers respond to the growing popularity
and evidence-based importance of academic social networking sites such as
Academia.edu.
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Impactstory
Impactstory is an open-source, Web-based tool that helps scientists explore
and share the diverse impacts of all their research products. While many
researcher services give preference to publications (i.e., articles and books),
Impactstory allows users to upload various types of research products (e.g.,
datasets, figures, preprints, published articles, slides, software, etc.). Impact-
story aims to help scientists tell data-driven stories about their impacts in
effort to build a new scholarly reward system that values and encourages
Web-native scholarship (ImpactStory Team, n.d.). In many ways a hybrid re-
searcher service, Impactstory is part LinkedIn (e.g., online CV), part Google
Scholar (e.g., links to publications, bibliometrics, altmetrics), part VIVO and
figshare (e.g., repository for data, slidesets, etc.). There are three methods
for adding content to an Impactstory profile:
1. Linking accounts for continuous import from figshare, Github, Google
Scholar, ORCID, Publons, slideshare, Twitter
2. Adding products individually by ID (i.e., Article PMIDs, Article DOIs,
Dataset DOIs, GitHub repo URLs, Webpage URLs, Slide deck URLs, Video
URLs)
3. Sending an email (publications@impactstory.org) whenever a user pub-
lishes something new
Intending to uncover and share all impact from every research product,
Impactstory measures and reports a variety of metrics. As of January 2016,
Impactstory reports more than 40 measures of impact from 18 platforms, with
plans to add yet more (“Metrics,” n.d.). Similar to Academia.edu’s PaperRank
and AuthorRank, Impactstory provides metrics corresponding to the profile
as well as the owner’s scholarly products. A non-profit, Impactstory provides
a free 30-day trial. Thereafter, $60/year is required to maintain an active
account.
LinkedIn
As the self-proclaimed “world’s largest professional network,” LinkedIn in-
cludes “more than 400 million members in 200 countries and territories
around the globe.” Broader in scope than many of the other researcher ser-
vices described in this article, LinkedIn seeks to “create economic opportu-
nity for every member of the global workforce” (LinkedIn Corporation, 2016).
Profiles are free to create and enable users to build professional identity and
stay in touch with colleagues, classmates, and collaborators. Unlike other
researcher services, LinkedIn requires users to manually update publication
listings and other CV information. As a business-oriented social network,
LinkedIn focuses on the discovery of professional opportunities, business
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deals, industry news and insights. Beyond the free basic version, LinkedIn
offers four premium versions with unique features for particular objectives
(i.e., Job Seeker, Sales Navigator, Recruiter Lite, Business Plus) available
with subscription fee. With its 2015 purchase of lynda.com and unveiling
of University Pages (a profiling and ranking system), LinkedIn is increas-
ingly involving itself in higher education (Fain, 2015). While most of these
new features are geared toward prospective students and young alumni,
academic researchers should watch future developments. Connectivity, vis-
ibility, and reputation of individual researchers will likely hold implications
for institutions and vice versa. Given its broad scope, researchers will find
LinkedIn suitable for creating and consuming content from academic as well
as non-academic networks.
ResearchGate
Founded in 2008, ResearchGate aims to connect researchers and make it
easy to share and access scientific output, knowledge, and expertise (Re-
searchGate GmbH, 2016a). Free to join and easy to establish, profiles are
designed to help users connect with people, discover research, and view
jobs. After inputting name, institution, and email information, ResearchGate
attempts to attribute publications to a new user. Selecting “I am the author”
or “This is not me” helps ResearchGate better identify which publications
are likely attributed to a user. During this stage, ResearchGate also looks
for name variations, further improving the accuracy of publication matching.
Articles can be added to a ResearchGate profile via three quasi-automated
options: author name matching, publication searching, reference manager
(via import of BibTex, RIS, MODS, RefWorks, Refer/BiblX, Dblp, or XML), as
well as entirely manual entry. Users can also add conference papers, work-
ing papers, negative or raw data, and other types of research content for
which ResearchGate will create a free DOI. Dissatisfied with how the “dis-
semination of knowledge was slowed down by the way those papers were
published and stored” (Madisch, 2015), ResearchGate strives to speed up the
cycle of scientific feedback and influence by allowing users to link to upload
full-text versions of publications. Based upon a user’s self-identified disci-
plines, subdisciplines, skills, and expertise ResearchGate creates a unique
publication feed to help a user discover relevant content, researchers, and
job opportunities. ResearchGate provides a variety of metrics to measure a
user’s science impact. “Reads” is a single metric to measure exposure of all
a user’s work on ResearchGate. It tracks the number of times someone: (a)
reads the full-text or summary of any type of research on ResearchGate; or
(b) downloads a file hosted on ResearchGate, including direct downloads
from search engines. “Citations” shows both what a user has cited as well
as where the user’s work has been cited and is automatically updated when
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ResearchGate finds new or previously omitted citations. “Profile Views” mea-
sures how many people visit a ResearchGate profile, including country and
research institution. ResearchGate also provides a comprehensive “RG Score”
designed to measure scientific reputation based on how other researchers
interact with a user’s content, how often, and who they are. Additionally,
ResearchGate ranks institutions by the sum of RG Scores of their individual
members (ResearchGate GmbH, 2016b).
VIVO
VIVO is an open-source Semantic Web application designed to enable team-
based, interdisciplinary, cross-institutional, discovery of research and schol-
arship. The software and ontology support recording, editing, searching,
browsing, and visualizing various types of scholarly activity. Populated with
detailed researcher profiles (e.g., publications, teaching, services, and af-
filiations), VIVO provides powerful search functionality for locating people
and information across disciplines and institutions. VIVO relies upon data im-
ported from authoritative sources including institutional records (e.g., human
resources, course listings, faculty activity information, etc.), bibliographic in-
dexes, and grant databases. VIVO can also be supplemented with manual en-
try. The semantic functionality relies upon the integration of several existing
ontologies (e.g., BIBO, Dublin Core, Event, FOAF, geopolitical, SKOS). VIVO
data is annotated based on the VIVO ontology to semantically represent and
integrate information about faculty research (i.e., educational background,
publications, expertise, grants), teaching (i.e., courses, seminars, training),
and service (i.e., organizing conferences, editorial boards, other community
services) (Bo¨rner, Conlon, Corson-Rikert, & Ding, 2012). Unlike other re-
searcher services addressed in this article, VIVO operates at an institutional
scale rather than solely an individual level. Institutions can participate in
the VIVO network (and by extension the Semantic Web) by installing and
using the application and associated linked data. The requirement for local
installation sets it apart from other networking services described here, and
thus requires local administration resources. VIVO currently offers a multi-
site search prototype (vivosearch.org) that allows users to sample the rich
data available in VIVO from people, papers, grants, events, organizations,
and concepts at eight universities.
Reference and Citation Management
Citation managers are highly useful tools that make it very easy to gather,
manage, and store references and integrate citations into a research publi-
cation. Most facilitate a wide variety of publication types and allow citations
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310 J. Shanks and K. Arlitsch
to be gathered simply by pasting a DOI or ISBN, from which the software
then locates and structures the full citation. Citation managers generally offer
cloud-based storage of limited size for free, and then a fee structure for stor-
age increments. Some have plug-in software for popular word processors
like Microsoft Word and will generate properly formatted in-text citations
and bibliographies in a variety of accepted styles, such as APA, Chicago,
Harvard, MLA, or Turabian. While it may seem peculiar to include reference
and citation management platforms when discussing researcher visibility,
these platforms maintain an important role within the researcher services
landscape. Not only are reference and citation management services used
widely throughout academe, but they are becoming increasingly connected
with networking sites and identification services.
EndNote
EndNote, owned by Thomson Reuters, is a reference management and bib-
liography creation platform. The freely available, online-only package pro-
vides a basic citation manager with limited storage (50,000 references and
2GB of attachments). Presently, collaboration capabilities allow for sharing
libraries with a small group of people. EndNote X7, the most recent pre-
mium edition available for purchase, provides unlimited storage and various
advanced and customizable features (e.g., Cite While You Write, hyper-
linked in-text citations, personalized rankings, read/unread status, PDF auto-
importer, etc.). Available both online and as desktop software, EndNote X7
includes more than 6,000 reference styles, provides continuous background
synchronization of all content (i.e., citations, attachments, reference groups
and annotations), and enables users to share libraries with up to 14 collabo-
rators. An EndNote account provides access to an online community where
researchers can discuss research, ask questions, and receive feedback on
ideas from a diverse group of peers, either privately with select users or
publically with the entire EndNote community (Thomson Reuters, n.d.). As
both services are owned by Thomson Reuters, an EndNote online profile
integrates with a user’s ResearcherID profile. This synchronization makes
a ResearcherID publication list easily accessible within EndNote, thereby
combining the authority and disambiguation of an author/researcher identi-
fication service with the outputting functionality of a reference and citation
management service.
figshare
figshare is an online storage platform for researchers to share a variety of
research products, such as datasets, graphics, presentations, posters, etc.
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The service is free and includes 20GB of free private space and unlimited
public space. In addition to preserving research output, figshare aims to en-
hance research impact by improving the dissemination, discoverability, and
reusability of research content. Users can mark uploaded content with tags
and metadata to improve searchability and discoverability. Project spaces al-
low users to share private data and collaborate with select figshare members.
All publicly available research content (stored under Creative Commons Li-
censes) on figshare is provided a DataCite DOI, making it easier for others
to use and cite the content. As an ORCID launch partner, figshare inte-
grates seamlessly and features bi-directional synchronization with ORCID.
This ensures all publicly available figshare outputs are added to a user’s OR-
CID account and an ORCID publication list will populate within a figshare
profile. Released in 2014, figshare for institutions provides administrators
with various metrics to understand and control the reporting, management,
dissemination of all digital research data at a university. figshare tailors its
institutional service to accommodate university branding, storage needs, and
research intensity. Costs vary with the unique needs of an institution.
Flow
Flow is a relatively new Web-based reference and document manager from
ProQuest. Designed to facilitate cloud-based, team-oriented research, Flow
offers a basic version for free with limited storage (2GB) and collaboration
(up to ten people) as well as an upgraded pay-to-use version with greater
storage (10GB), more robust collaboration (including annotation), and ana-
lytics reporting. Flow synchronizes a user’s reference library with Microsoft
Word and/or Google Docs to provide cite-while-you-write functionality. With
an available plug-in, users are able to import citations from Web pages, tag
and organize searches, import PDFs into the system, sync with Dropbox, and
export references. ProQuest has announced that as of January 18, 2016, Flow
will be integrated with RefWorks, its long-time citation management product
(conversation with product manager at ProQuest booth, ALA Boston).
Mendeley
Mendeley serves as both a citation management platform and au-
thor/researcher identification service. Originally developed by an indepen-
dent company as an open-science forum designed to capture alternative
metrics to the traditional researcher impact factor, Mendeley was controver-
sially bought by Elsevier in 2013 (Dobbs, 2013). Currently, Mendeley func-
tions in both the desktop and online environments to manage references
and create bibliographies, collaborate in public and private groups, and de-
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312 J. Shanks and K. Arlitsch
velop a researcher profile to showcase interests and expertise. Mendeley
also provides statistics about researcher readership and usage of a user’s
publications. Current research about Mendeley focuses on the service’s role
in enhancing altmetrics or its ability to more accurately capture researcher
impact (Haunschild & Bornmann, 2016); (Fairclough & Thelwall, 2015). Sub-
scribers initially sign up for free and have the opportunity to pay for increased
storage space and enhanced group functionality.
RefWorks
RefWorks is a longstanding commercial, Web-based citation management
software from ProQuest. In this system, users store and access reference
libraries online, which can also be shared. RefWorks subscribers can link
to e-journals that the institution subscribes to and collaborating websites in
order to create a streamlined research and citation process. Users also have
the opportunity to import RefWorks into MS Word documents to create in-
text citations and bibliographies. ProQuest has announced that as of January
18, 2016, RefWorks will merge with Flow, another ProQuest reference and
document manager.
Zotero
Zotero bills itself as a “free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize,
cite, and share your research sources.” Created by the Roy Rosenzweig Cen-
ter for History and New Media at George Mason University, Zotero is an
open-source research tool that can run as a stand-alone version (Windows,
Mac, or Linux) or integrated within the Firefox Web browser, responsive
to the content that the researcher is viewing (Cohen, 2008). Both versions
include plug-ins for MS Word or LibreOffice, allowing easy import of cita-
tions into a document and automatic creation and updating of bibliographies.
Users can pay a fee to receive more storage space. Beyond citation services,
Zotero offers group and community functions. In a group, researchers share
sources, collaborate, and find other researchers citing the similar works. By
creating a profile, Zotero’s “People” function allows the researcher to create
a community and find others working on similar projects and share CVs and
libraries.
SUMMARY
Researcher services have proliferated in recent years, creating a landscape
that is vast with potential, but also confusing to researchers and the librarians
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who work with them. The primary aim of this article was to bring some
structure and description to that landscape, and to hopefully bring some
clarity to the various options that are available.
We also tried to lay some groundwork on which we intend to build
in later publications. In an article published in 2014, our research team
introduced “new knowledge work” that libraries could engage in to de-
velop a suite of services for constituents (Arlitsch, OBrien, Clark, Young, &
Rossmann, 2014). Those services included Semantic Web Identity, structur-
ing metadata for search engines, centralizing faculty activity data manage-
ment, developing social media strategies, and rethinking the book container
through open extensible software.
The proliferation of non-profit and commercial services that we have
identified in three major categories, and the growing attention being paid to
them now entices us to expand the notion of new services that libraries can
offer. We are convinced that researchers will benefit from having the prod-
ucts of their work distributed as widely as possible, and the institutions they
serve will in turn benefit from their success. But, clearly, those researchers
could use help in seeding and maintaining profiles in selected venues, and
librarians are ideally positioned to offer such assistance. In a future article
we plan to report on a framework of these services as they are currently
being developed at Montana State University.
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