A Google Scholar profile can be set up by you, the author. The profile lists all your publications that can be found in Google Scholar including the number of citations and presents your h-index and i10-index. There may be some inflation in the citation figures due to duplication and author misidentification. A Google Scholar profile gives a quick overview of publications, citations and research interests.
It includes any journal publications that can be found on websites with an academic focus, books, chapters, conference papers and white papers. Citations are mined from any scholarly web domains. Google Scholar can be a helpful extra tool as its search engine usually finds more publications and citations from across the web.
You will need a Google Account to create a Google Scholar Profile. Profiles can be made public and therefore discoverable by other researchers and prospective employers. Profile owners can choose to have new 'matching' records automatically added to their Profile, or receive an email alert before new records are added (recommended).
Google Scholar automatically generates a persistent link for public profiles, that can be used by authors to promote their research.
Find out more about creating a Google Scholar Profile and tips on keeping your Google Profile up-to-date and clean.
Why have a Google Scholar profile?
By having a Google Scholar profile it is easier for yourself and others to quickly:
- Find your publications,
- Keep track of citations to your publications,
- Check who has cited your publications,
- Graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics.
Metrics to track for researcher impact include:
- Citation counts
- Most highly cited publications
- Average citation per publication
- H-index
