ORCID, Scopus Author ID and Google Scholar profiles

Which researcher profiles does a PhD scholar need?

Each profile answers a different question. ORCID answers “which person is this?”; Scopus and Web of Science answer “what has this person published in indexed sources, and how is it cited?”; Google Scholar answers “what has this person written, anywhere?”.

Most scholars need three: ORCID, Scopus (which arrives on its own), and Google Scholar. Add a Web of Science ResearcherID if your university or your field uses Web of Science more than Scopus; the comparison of Scopus and Web of Science will help you decide. Vidwan and IRINS matter when your university asks you to update them for NAAC or NIRF data, and some do so every year.

How do you create an ORCID iD?

Register at orcid.org with an email you will keep for years. A personal email plus your institutional email as a backup is safer than an institutional address alone, because many Indian universities recycle or disable student email after you leave. Registration takes five minutes and gives you a 16-digit iD in the form 0000-0002-1825-0097 (the example ORCID uses in its own documentation).

Then fill in the record properly:

1. Name and other names. Add every version of your name that appears on your papers.
2. Employment and education. Your university and department, with start dates. Choose the organisation from the list so it links to a standard identifier.
3. Works. Use “Add works” to import from Scopus (via the Scopus to ORCID wizard), Crossref, or by DOI. Avoid typing works by hand where an import is possible; imports carry the DOI and are cleaner.
4. Visibility. Set items to “Everyone” unless you have a reason not to. A private ORCID record helps nobody.

Give your iD to every journal at submission. Most manuscript systems now ask for it, and some require it for the corresponding author. When the paper is published with your iD attached, Crossref can add it to your ORCID record automatically once you grant permission through ORCID’s auto-update feature.

How do you find and correct your Scopus Author ID?

You cannot register for a Scopus Author ID. Scopus builds author profiles automatically, using name, affiliation, co-authors and subject, when it processes an indexed document. Your profile appears a few weeks after your first paper is indexed; our Scopus guide explains that indexing lag.

Find it with the free author lookup on Scopus Preview: search your surname and first name, and filter by your university. The profile shows your Author ID (a long number), your documents, citations and h-index as calculated by Scopus. If the numbers seem strange, our guide to impact factor, quartile and h-index explains how they are worked out.

Why Indian scholars often have more than one profile

The algorithm splits one person into two profiles when the name or affiliation differs between papers. That happens constantly with South Indian naming conventions (initials before or after the given name), with names transliterated differently, and when a scholar moves from a college to a university. It also merges two people with the same common name at the same institution. Both errors affect your publication count and h-index, and selection committees do look at these.

Cleaning up your profiles

• Search every name variant. Indian names are split and abbreviated in many ways: “Ramesh Kumar S.”, “S. Ramesh Kumar”, “Kumar, S.R.”, with or without the initial. Search each in the free Scopus author lookup and note every profile that is you.
• Request a merge for duplicates through the Scopus Author Feedback Wizard, choosing one preferred name. Merges can take a few weeks to show.
• Remove papers that are not yours. Common surnames get merged with strangers. Use the same wizard to take them off your profile.
• Fix the affiliation if Scopus shows an old or misspelled department or university.
• Connect Scopus to ORCID using the Scopus to ORCID wizard, so your ORCID record lists your Scopus papers without retyping.
• Review Google Scholar’s additions regularly. Set it to email you for confirmation before adding articles, and delete anything that is not yours.
• Keep one standard form of your name for all future papers, and use the same spelling of your university’s name.

You need a free Elsevier account to use the Author Feedback Wizard; no institutional Scopus subscription is required. Keep the request confirmation email in case you need to follow up.

How do you set up a Google Scholar profile?

Sign in with a Google account at Google Scholar, choose “My profile”, and enter your name, affiliation, areas of interest and institutional email. Google then suggests articles it believes are yours. Select only the ones you wrote. Set the profile to public.

A few settings save trouble later:

• Article updates: choose “Don’t automatically update my profile” and approve additions by email instead. Otherwise Google may add papers by someone with a similar name.
• Institutional email: once you verify it, your profile shows “Verified email at” your university’s domain, which makes it more credible and more likely to appear in search results.
• Your thesis and preprints: if Google has indexed your Shodhganga thesis or a repository version of a paper, add it. It helps people find your full text.

Expect your Google Scholar citation count and h-index to be higher than in Scopus. Google counts citations from theses, preprints, books, and journals that Scopus does not index. Neither number is wrong; they measure different things. When a form asks for your h-index, state which database it is from.

How should you keep your researcher profiles up to date?

Twice a year, perhaps before each RAC meeting, spend half an hour on your profiles:

1. Check that every new paper appears in Scopus (or Web of Science) under your single profile.
2. Confirm the paper has reached your ORCID record, and import it if not.
3. Approve or reject Google Scholar’s suggested additions.
4. Update your Vidwan or IRINS profile if your university asks for it.
5. Save a PDF or screenshot of each profile. Research sections, pre-submission committees and interview panels sometimes ask for proof of indexing, and a dated screenshot answers that quickly.

Use the same form of your name, and the same spelling of your university and department, on every paper from now on. That single habit prevents most profile problems.