Researchers' Identities

ResearcherID, ORCID, and other attempts to disambiguate authors, grant writers and other contributors

Registering in Web of Science -- it's free!

Registering in Web of Science allows you to create a researcher profile, what used to be called a ResearcherID, and to save and re-run searches. Registration is free, and it also makes it easier to tag and send records, and allows you to use EndNote Basic through their site. Their form allows you to include other versions of your name, which may be important over the course of your career.

IF you have already created a login and password for Web of Science or Endnote, you can create a profile using the same one. It's much better to NOT create duplicates.

opening screen of a researcher profile in Web of Science. This one is already populated- if it were started from scratch it would give you blanks to fill in.

The primary purpose of the Researcher profile is to help disambiguate authors with similar names and/or similar research areas. Persons with common surnames (Johnson and Smith are common in the U.S., and Li, Zhang and Chen are most common in China according to http://www.mandarinhouse.com/100-common-chinese-family-names) may wish to create a ResearcherID profile and put citations to their works in the reference lists.

The secondary purpose of a Researcher profile is to help you track citations to your published works, if you include them in your profile, and especially if they are in journals that are indexed in Web of Science. A third purpose is to help you find collaborators with interests in common or complementary interests.