Friday 2 September 2016

Enhancing Your Impact - Tools for Authors - BeckerGuides at Becker Medical Library

 Source: http://beckerguides.wustl.edu/authors/eri

Strategies for Enhancing Research Impact

Establish Your Profile and Identity



  • Authors
    are highly recommended to use the same variation of their name
    consistently throughout the course of their academic studies and future
    professional activities. If the name is a common name, consider adding a
    middle name to distinguish it from other authors or changing the name
    itself. Consistency enhances retrieval and helps to disambiguate author
    names in databases. Uniqueness of a name helps establishes a “presence”
    for an author. See Establishing Your Author Name and Presence for more information.
  • Register
    for an ORCID ID. Registering for an ORCID identifier helps to promote
    discoverability among multiple information platforms and workflows as
    well as establishing a unique presence for researchers and scholars,
    regardless of name variants or affiliation history. Registration for the
    ORCID ID is free and privacy settings are controlled by the individual.
    See Create an ORCID ID, Add Information, Import Works and Connectivity.
ORCID provides a universal, non-proprietary solution by linking your publications/research activities to you.
  • Check
    the website of the academic or research institution you are affiliated
    with to make sure that your name is noted correctly.
  • Check out the Author Identifier feature in the SCOPUS
    database. The SCOPUS database addresses the issue of author name
    variants and reconciles authors who use different variations of their
    names throughout their careers. Authors are highly recommended to review
    their profile in SCOPUS to confirm the profile is correct, and set up
    alerts for their works. Authors can contact SCOPUS to request
    corrections to their name profile. See How do I request corrections to author details?or contact Cathy Sarli for corrections.
  • Authors are highly encouraged to use a standardized version of an affiliation address using no abbreviations. The Washington University Style Guide provides guidance on how to note your affiliation and related information.
Enhance Discoverability and Dissemination



  • Cultivate
    a series of academic and professional networks by participating in
    committees or other related activities. Volunteer for conference-related
    activities, participate in committees that issue position statements or
    clinical guidelines, act as a reviewer or Editor-in-Chief for a
    journal, serve as a mentor, develop relationships with policy-makers on
    the state or national level, be part of a team for conducting a
    systematic review, teach a Continuing Education class, serve as a grant
    application reviewer, participate in responsible conduct of research or
    curriculum committees affiliated with an academic or institution, serve
    on Institutional Review Boards or committees for animal studies, and
    other related activities.
  • Follow reporting guidelines appropriate to your area of research. See the Guidelines for Reporting of Research box.
  • Post a CV online and make it publicly available for others to view. One way to post a CV is to use the NIH Biosketch tool SciENcv available via NCBI.  
  • Publish
    as much as possible. Publication productivity demonstrates willingness
    to share research findings and helps foster knowledge transfer. See Selecting a Journal for Publication for guidance on selecting an appropriate journal.
  • Present
    preliminary research findings at conferences or other symposia.
    Conferences are an excellent venue for disseminating new research
    findings and enhancing your visibility. 
  • Formulate
    a concise, well-constructed title and abstract for a work. The title is
    your hook to grab the attention of readers. A declarative title is
    recommended. Include crucial keywords (both natural language and
    controlled vocabulary words) in the abstract. Most databases allow for
    searching of words noted in a title and an abstract, and secondly, a
    clear abstract allows users to quickly discern the basis of the work
    when reviewing a list of results generated by a search query. It is
    recommended that authors construct an abstract that includes as many
    specific keywords that summarize the content of the work. What is the
    work about? Be specific in describing the work to enhance retrieval of
    the work in databases and search engines. 
See the classic 1947 work by Dr. Estelle Brodman “How to Write a Paper” on the importance of a title.
  • Review
    the publisher copyright form for a manuscript and retain as many rights
    to the work that to allow for maximum flexibility to re-use the work.
  • Consider
    the desired audience when choosing a journal for publication. 
    Topic-specific journals or journals published by a specialized society
    may disseminate research results on a topic more efficiently to a
    desired audience than general science journals, such as Nature or
    Journal of the American Medical Association. More specialized journals,
    even with a potentially smaller readership, may offer an author broader
    dissemination of relevant research results to their peers in their
    specific field of research. 
  • Publish
    “negative” as well as positive research findings. Publication of
    negative findings leads to further applicability of research and
    prevents others from duplicating research.  
  • Publish a manuscript in a journal that is currently indexed by PubMed/MEDLINE. Citations in PubMed/MEDLINE are “crawled” by Google Scholar which can help promote the visibility and accessibility of a work.
  • Consider
    publishing a work in an open access journal. Open access journals allow
    authors to retain rights to the work that allow for many options for
    further dissemination of the research.
  • Publish negative research findings. The Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine
    is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal that provides a
    platform for the publication and discussion of unexpected,
    controversial, provocative and/or negative results in the context of
    current tenets.
  • Self-archive
    the final, peer-reviewed manuscript version of a journal articles in an
    institutional repository. Many major academic or research institutions
    have institutional digital repositories that archive the work of authors
    affiliated with the institution. Some institutional digital
    repositories allow for creation of specific online communities that
    showcase the research output of an author or group such as a research
    study, a department or a center. Digital Commons@Becker
    is the institutional repository for the School of Medicine and accepts
    most file formats including white papers, podcasts, slide presentations,
    posters, among others. Please contact Amy Suiter for more information.
  • Consider making your figures available through FigShare and your presentation materials available in your institutional repository or on a sharing site such as SlideShare
    so that others may discover and share your materials post-event. You
    might also consider submitting your content to a permanent, citable
    archive such as F1000Posters.
  • If
    the work relates to a research study, create a website devoted to the
    research study and post materials such as peer-reviewed versions of
    manuscripts of journal publications, conference abstracts, supplemental
    materials such as images, illustrations, slides, or specimens, progress
    reports, to name a few. Authors are encouraged to review any copyright
    forms to confirm that they have the right to post materials on an
    institutional website. If the right to post a manuscript on an
    institutional website cannot be obtained, create links to the manuscript
    from your website using the PMID from a PubMed/MEDLINE citation or
    persistent URLs/DOIs that link directly to the publisher’s website.  If
    the research study involves work that may be of interest to consumers or
    potential clinical trial participants, provide information tailored for
    the layperson.
  • If
    there is a website related to a research study, website developers
    should utilize SEO (search engine optimization) strategies to enhance
    retrieval of materials by search engines such as Google.
     The web developer should confirm that the web page titles describe the
    content of the website and include the name of the research study.
    Metatags that note appropriate keywords should be included in the page
    header section. Search engines look at this “hidden content” and use
    this as a basis for search results page rankings.
  • Add your works to platforms such as Zendodo, Mendeley, or Citeulike
    and start a “library” of publications related to a research project or
    by author and share the research project library with others.
  • If
    a work pertains to potential translational medicine applications,
    consider including a discussion of how the research could translate into
    clinical outcomes. This may provide insight for policy-makers as to the
    potential impact of the research study. See the Aims and Scope section of Translational Research: The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine for guidance on how to include potential translational medicine applications in your manuscript.
  • Start a blog devoted to the research project. Check out ResearchBlogging.org
    which is a site that allows bloggers to write about peer-reviewed
    research, but also to share that work with readers and bloggers around
    the world to learn about cutting-edge research developments. Need help?
    See "How to Write a Blogpost From Your Journal Article."
  • Create a podcast or video describing the research project and submit the podcast to YouTube. Many major academic or research institutions have created their own YouTube channels and provide video services at no charge. Washington University School of Medicine’s YouTube channel has many examples of videos created by authors.
  • Issue
    press releases for significant findings and partner with the
    institutional media office to deliver findings to local media outlets.
    Be willing to provide interviews with the media that explain the
    research study or area of research.
  • Tweet about your research. Many authors use Twitter to
    announce new publications or other research products. Include the DOI
    or a link to your article along with text to announce a new article.
Social
media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and many
others offer unique opportunities to connect and communicate with people
across the globe.
Contact the Office of Medical Public Affairs prior to launching any social media initiatives.
  • Conduct
    outreach visits or provide seminars to other institutions/scientists,
    policy-makers, practicing physicians, consumers and health care
    providers to discuss a research study or topic related to current
    research efforts.
  • Collaborate with authors and researchers from other institutions and from other subject areas.
  • If
    the nature of the work is clinical, consider discussing clinical issues
    that arise with research investigators to help identify possible new
    areas of research to undertake, or vice versa. Such collaborative
    efforts help to accelerate translational research efforts.
  • Publish
    in trade journals. Trade journals allow for a greater audience reach
    such as clinicians, consumers, policy-makers and industry. Increase
    awareness of your research beyond academia.
  • Document
    all forms of research outputs such as journal articles, outreach
    visits, research data, conference materials, patents, etc. Keeping track
    of research outputs is crucial to documenting impact of research. See
    the Assessing the Impact of Research website to learn more about documenting the impact of research.


Enhancing Your Impact - Tools for Authors - BeckerGuides at Becker Medical Library

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