Visibility of your publications

Last changed: 06 February 2023
A white flower surrounded by purple flowers, photo.

There are several things you can do to increase the visibility of your publications so they can be found, read, used and cited.

Consistent and correct affiliation

When publishing it is important that all at SLU state their affiliation in a correct and consistent way. This is important for the visibility of you and your research and for inclusion in different bibliometric analyses.

According to a decision by the vice-chancellor the name of the university should be Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet at publications in Swedish). In addition to the name of the university, it is important how the entire address is written and what it contains.

Write your name in a consistent way

Be consistent and always write your name in the same way. Consider adding more initials if you have a common name. For double last names use a hyphen.

Register for suitable author identifiers

It can be difficult to locate all of your publications if you have published using different variants of your name. One example is that double last names without a hyphen like Anders Berg Webber, can be registered as Berg, A or Webber, BA in reference databases.

An author identifier is used to identify you as a researcher and to give you an opportunity to controll which publications should be connected to your name. Two author identifiers that you should consider are ORCID and ResearcherID.

Searchable titles and abstracts

Try to include relevant terms in titles and abstracts and select keywords that are commonly used within your subject.

Doing subject searches in reference databases the default is to search within titles, abstract and keywords, but there are many researchers that restrict their searches and only search within titles. Therefore you might consider to mention the most important concepts in your article already in the title.

Concepts that are mentioned in title, abstract or keyword will impact on prioritization in databases that sort results by relevance (e.g. Google).

Presence on various forums

Make your publications and your profile visible in several forums, for example by making your publication openly available when you register it in the SLU publication database SLUpub, or by using open science publishing platforms like F1000Research and other networks for researchers.

This will not only enhance the visibility of your publications but may also result in contacts with potential collaboration partners, interesting discussions and more citations. It enables dissemination of your research to wider audiences, and might generate even further attention through altmetric mediation. In the same ways it enhances the visibility of your university.

Networks for researchers

Examples of social networks that focus on researchers and research publications are ResearchGate and Academia.edu. They are platforms created by and for researchers that want to communicate about their research. You can create your own profile, upload publications, follow other researchers, submit questions or write posts for information or discussions. Be sure to consider copyright before you upload your publications!

Social media

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are well-known social media platforms where you can participate, read and make yourself and your activities known. The webbpage SLU-global on social media contains some examples of social media contributions from SLU. See also SLU's Advice and guidance for using social media at work.

Bibliometric aspects

  • If you maximize the visibility of you and your publications there is a greater chance that your publications are found, read, used and cited. 
  • Correct university address, consistent use of name and author identifiers ensures that your publications are included in bibliometric analyses.
  • If you register your publications in the SLU publication database (SLUpub) they are included in the bibliometric analyses used at SLU and on national level (based on data from SwePub analysis and bibliometrics).