Open Access Publishing

Visit the Metrics Toolkit to learn about the different types of metrics.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a free unique identification system for researchers. It assigns a persistent 16-digit identifier to each researcher, helping differentiate individuals in the academic world. Researchers link this identifier to their scholarly works like publications, grants, and datasets. ORCID enhances accuracy in research attribution, integrates with various systems, and provides researchers control over their profile's privacy. It's widely adopted by publishers, funders, and researchers to streamline research information and ensure proper credit for contributions.

OCIDs are in wide use and there are nearly 8.5 million registered researchers. 

Registering for an ORCID is easy! Register here https://orcid.org/register

For more information about how ORCID can help you, check out our Research Guide here https://csus.libguides.com/orcid

Sac State Scholars is a tool for celebrating the scholarly and creative achievements of our campus and to help connect our researchers with others. It is a research networking platform where Sac State research, scholarship, creative activities, and teaching and service will be highlighted. Esploro, the software powering Sac State Scholars, auto-populates faculty profiles with little intervention, so that faculty will not have additional workload to manage their profiles.

Faculty should submit this form to get started.

What to know more? Check out the Sac State Scholar FAQs

Google Scholar Profiles provide a simple way for authors to showcase their academic publications. You can check who is citing your articles, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name, e.g., richard feynman.

Best of all, it's quick to set up and simple to maintain - even if you have written hundreds of articles, and even if your name is shared by several different scholars. You can add groups of related articles, not just one article at a time; and your citation metrics are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations to your work on the web. You can choose to have your list of articles updated automatically or review the updates yourself, or to manually update your articles at any time.

Set up your Google Scholar Profile

Want to publish OA and not sure where to start?

There are a number of transformative agreements to help you publish at no cost in major journals. Check out these links to see current agreements between publishers and the CSUs:

• American Chemical Society
• Cambridge University Press
• Company of Biologists
• Elsevier

Want to explore other options? Search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to see if you find a good fit for your research.

Alternative metrics (altmetrics) are another view of the scholarly conversation. Altmetrics paint a picture of how research is discussed across the internet and pick up mentions including the following:

• Citations in government reports
• Social media mentions
• Mainstream media coverage
• Blog discussions
• And more

For stakeholders interested in the broad influence of scholarly outputs, altmetrics may offer insight by calculating an output's reach, social relevance, and attention from a given community, which may include members of the public sphere (Outputs of the NISO Alternative Assessment Metrics Project, section 1).

You can find altmetrics on some databases including Google Scholar. 
(See arrow)

Download a browser tool here https://www.altmetric.com/ to view altmetrics of articles open in your browser. 

You can also generate badges to include in your CV.

For a PlumX badge:

1. Go to the PlumX website and create an account if you haven't already.
2. Once you're logged in, click on the "Widgets" tab in the top menu.
3. Choose the type of badge you want to add (e.g. "Plum Print" or "Altmetric Donut").
4. Customize the badge by selecting the settings you prefer (e.g. color, size, etc.).
5. Copy the HTML code provided by PlumX.
6. Paste the code into your research output (e.g. on your website, in a presentation, etc.).

For an Altmetrics badge, you need to publish your research article in a journal that is tracked by Altmetric. Once your article is published, Altmetric will automatically track its online attention and generate a badge that you can display on your website or CV.