How to make your research more visible?
Our Vision
ORCID’s vision is a world where all who participate in research, scholarship, and innovation are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders, and time.
Our Mission
In order to realize our vision, ORCID strives to enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and their affiliations by providing a unique, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.
We do this by providing three interrelated services:
The ORCID iD: a unique, persistent identifier free of charge to researchers
An ORCID record connected to the ORCID iD, and
A set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), as well as the services and support of communities of practice that enable interoperability between an ORCID record and member organizations so researchers can choose to allow connection of their iD with their affiliations and contributions
What is meant by Open Access publishing?
Open access is a publishing model for scholarly communication that makes research information available to readers at no cost, as opposed to the traditional subscription model in which readers have access to scholarly information by paying a subscription (usually via libraries). Source: Dutch National
Ways to provide Open Access to your work:
There are two basic approaches to making research findings Open Access. One is to deposit a copy of every article in an Open Access repository (this process is known as 'self-archiving' or "Green OA") and the other is to publish in Open Access journals (also known as "Gold OA") or in one of the growing collections of hybrid journals.
Self-archiving
Authors can make their work Open Access by posting their pre-print, post-print or, when permitted, the publisher version of the article in an Open Access repository. These are collections of articles, datasets and other supporting research-related material. They may cover a particular discipline or subject or they may be broad-scope. Institutional repositories are usually of the latter type though there may be specialised repositories within institutions - in departments or schools or even in research groups. A repository collecting the research outputs of a university or research institute is an excellent institutional tool as well as the means for enabling the institution's researchers to showcase their work. See much more on Open Access repositories here.
Open Access journals
Open Access journals are peer-reviewed just like traditional subscription-access (Toll Access) journals except that they do not charge readers to use them. They cover their costs in other ways and publish their content online for free. Open Access journals operate like Toll Access journals in every other way, including managing the peer review process. For much more on Open Access journals, see here.
Hybrid journals
Authors can also choose to publish in traditional toll access journals whose publishers offer an option to make articles Open Access upon payment of a fee. The list of publishers offering this hybrid model in available here: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
Making your research more visible
Research impact is an important topic in the research world.
Use this guide to understand what impact means for you and your work, how to measure it, and get tips on sharing your article to increase its impact once it has been published.
"Social collaboration refers to processes that help multiple people or groups interact and share information to achieve common goals. Such processes find their 'natural' environment on the Internet, where collaboration and social dissemination of information are made easier by current innovations and the proliferation of the web.
Sharing concepts on a digital collaboration environment often facilitates a "brainstorming" process, where new ideas may emerge due to the varied contributions of individuals. These individuals may hail from different walks of life, different cultures and different age groups, their diverse thought processes help in adding new dimensions to ideas, dimensions that previously may have been missed. A crucial concept behind social collaboration is that 'ideas are everywhere.' Individuals are able to share their ideas in an unrestricted environment as anyone can get involved and the discussion is not limited to only those who have domain knowledge." (Wikipedia)
Informal research publishing practices
Informal research publishing practices includes publishing in research-centred platforms which promote informed commentary and debate on the issues affecting our world.
The Conversation Africa is an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community, delivered direct to the public.
Our team of professional editors work with university and research institute experts to unlock their knowledge for use by the wider public.
Access to independent, high quality, authenticated, explanatory journalism underpins a functioning democracy. Our aim is to promote better understanding of current affairs and complex issues. And hopefully allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversation.
Quest: Science for South Africa is a full-colour, quarterly, popular science magazine directed at a target audience comprising learners, educators and the general public.
It aims to present the country’s foremost scientific work in an accessible form. Quest is widely distributed to public high schools with science departments, Dinaledi schools and at national science events, such as SciFest Africa, Science Olympiads, National Science, Engineering and Technology Week; and the NSTF Awards functions.