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Identity Management & Affiliation

Academic identity management ensures that scholarly achievements are visible and can be clearly attributed to an individual and an institution. Key levers are well-maintained author profiles and the consistent application of affiliation standards. The University Library supports you with information and advice.

Academic Identity Management

Research impact depends largely on the visibility of scholarly achievements and their unambiguous attribution to an individual. A carefully maintained author profile provides essential support for this and serves as a central foundation for academic identity management. Academic networks as well as open access publications further increase discoverability and help to sustainably strengthen career opportunities, trust, and reputation.

Author Profiles

In addition to good discoverability of publications, the clear attribution of scholarly achievements to an author is important. Only when publications, citations, and projects can be correctly assigned do they measurably contribute to an individual's research profile.

You can ensure that your publications are fully attributed to you by following both of the recommendations below:

Instructions on how to create and maintain your profiles can be found in our guide Academic Identity Management.

Further information on bibliometric indicators, such as the h-index or Impact Factor, can be found under Bibliometrics & Publication Indicators.

ORCID iD: The Standard for the Unique Identification of Authors

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a non-profit organisation, which provides unique identifiers (ORCID iDs) for authors. These IDs are utilized for author identification by many ORCID members – including research organizations, publishers, funders, and professional associations. TUM is a founding member of the German ORCID consortium and recommends all authors to use the ORCID iD.

The ORCID iD contains 16 digits.  As part of a web link, it refers to a person's ORCID record, in which further data can be stored – permanently and affiliation independently – such as:

  • Name variants and the entry of a name change, e.g. due to marriage
  • Addresses of websites
  • Links to other identification management services and author profiles, e.g., Google Scholar Profil, ISNI or ResearcherID

The ORCID iD has proven useful for the following use cases:

  • TUM publication services: e.g., for recording your publications or research data in mediaTUM, for applying for funding from the Open Access Publication Fund, or for the automatic export of your publications from the research information system TUMFIS.
  • Publishing and funding applications: With many publishers and funding organizations, providing an ORCID iD is required for unambiguous author identification.
  • Literature and citation databases: The integration of the ORCID iD into bibliographic databases ensures that publications are fully retrieved and correctly assigned, which is taken into account when calculating bibliometric indicators such as citation counts and the h-index.

Set Up ORCID iD at TUM

TUM members can create a personal ORCID iD via TUMonline or link an existing ORCID iD to their TUM account.

Your ORCID iD in 4 steps:

  1. Log in to TUMonline
  2. Select your Business card
  3. In the Account section, click ORCID iD
  4. Click the button “Create or Connect your ORCID iD”

You can remove the link at any time using the same procedure.

DFG Support for ORCID in Germany

Since 2016, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has been fostering the dissemination of the ORCID iD in Germany through its three-year project „ORCID DE – Förderung der Open Researcher and Contributor ID in Deutschland“ – project proposal under DOI: 10.2312/lis.16.01

The project aims to support the implementation of the ORCID iD at universities and non-university research institutions in Germany – organisationally, legally and technically. In particular, the ORCID iD is considered relevant for open access repositories and open access publishing services. A further goal of the project is the interlocking with the Integrated Authority File (GND) and thus the integration of the ORCID iD into library systems for author identification. The ORCID project partners commissioned a legal report on the protection of data privacy in ORCID, which is now available online.

ORCID DE project partners are the Helmholtz Open Science Coordination Office at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, the German National Library and the University Library Bielefeld. The project was initiated by the German Initiative for Network Information (DINI).

Academic Networking

Using academic networking sites increases the visibility of one’s own research and ensure a consistent presentation of academic activities. In addition, the professional use of social media is becoming increasingly important, particularly for science communication, networking, and career development.

Our overview on academic networking offers you a comparison between networking services.

Open Access

When you publish Open Access, your works are freely accessible online. A correlation between Open Access and higher citation rates has been demonstrated. The TUM Open Access Policy recommends that all researchers publish their scholarly results Open Access.

For publishing at TUM, we offer various open access publication options for articles and books.

Affiliation

An important component of academic identity management is the accurate and consistent specification of authors' institutional affiliations. TUM has defined a binding, standardized affiliation designation in German and English and regulated its use in a publication policy. The TUM Publication Guidelines apply to all members of TUM as well as to researchers who conduct research and publish at TUM as part of a guest stay.

Go to TUM Publication Guidelines

A uniform and correctly regulated affiliation ensures that publications by TUM researchers can be clearly attributed to the university. This is of central importance, as scholarly publications – for example, in journals, monographs, and conference proceedings – are used in the national and international research system for evaluation and comparison, or are to a large extent based on publication data, such as:

  • Performance evaluation of authors and institutions
  • Institutional performance comparisons and rankings

The TUM Publication Guidelines regulates:

  • The official TUM designation and the abbreviation of the name
  • The correct designation of schools, departments, institutes, or chairs
  • The specification in cases of multiple institutional affiliations or a change of affiliation
  • The wording of the obligation to disclose funding

Course

Research Impact Deep Dive

In the course Research Impact Deep Dive – Academic Identity Management and Responsible Metrics, we will discuss the importance of fully updated author profiles and critically examining research evaluation metrics. Together, we will question common bibliometric indicators to gain a deeper understanding of your own research impact. Take competent steps to increase the visibility of your research!

Dates & Registration

Support

We provide individual advice on questions relating to bibliometric indicators. Book a consultation session or contact us at:

bibliometrie@ub.tum.de