Databases that track academic publications can create duplicate researcher profiles, misattribute citations and list incorrect affiliations.Credit: Vasilina Popova / Getty
When news broke last November that Guo Wei, a well-known researcher in China, had been suspended after serious discrepancies were found in his stated qualifications, social-media pundits quickly swooped in to ask the obvious question: how did no one notice earlier?
It is tempting to assume that a quick online search would have exposed inconsistencies in his education, affiliations and publication record. So, shortly after the news broke, we set out to test this assumption, drawing on our experience as librarians working with researchers’ digital identities.
A search for ‘Guo Wei’ in ORCID, a global system for tracking academics and their research activity, returned 616 profiles. None of them had been affiliated with the Jiangsu University of Science and Technology in Zhenjiang, China, the organization that fired the researcher for misconduct. A search of Scopus, a prominent bibliographic database, produced 615 author records, three of which were nominally linked to the university, each listing a single publication. There was no reliable way to tell whether any of these records belonged to the same person. Even a diligent hiring panel would have struggled to verify who they were looking at, illustrating how even basic searches can become complicated when digital identities are fragmented.
Our experiences tell us that these scattered online profiles are becoming more common in science — and not just because of fraudsters. We feel that it’s crucial for academics to keep on top of their online profiles to collate a consistent image of themselves for potential collaborators, review panels and colleagues.
How identity ambiguity begins
Several digital platforms have tried to solve the problem of mismatched academic identities. ORCID, the social-media site LinkedIn, indexing databases and preprint servers all go to some lengths to distinguish between researchers who share the same name. But these platforms update according to their own schedules and have a variety of rules for their users. Even on a single platform, some details are captured more reliably than others. Scopus, for instance, receives information from the journals that it indexes, but the author profiles it produces do not always reflect a complete affiliation history.
A new form of CV for researchers
A researcher who moves institutions or publishes under several name variations (such as ‘Guo Wei’ and ‘Guo W.’) can accumulate several profilexs without realizing it, and people often stop managing old records. Moreover, anyone with a common name might be one of dozens of digital duplicates. These scattered records rarely create serious problems, but they often distort how researchers are seen: papers can drop out of databases, metrics can change unpredictably, affiliations can be unreliable and researchers might not receive full credit for the work that they have done. Long before the Guo case surfaced, we had already seen these problems first hand. In 2023, we examined the digital identities of all of the researchers at our own institution — the University of Bath, UK, where we work as research librarians — to understand the effects of ambiguous online identities. What we found made the scale of the issue clear and shaped the practical steps that we took to inform our colleagues of how to tidy up their online presence.
What our audit uncovered
Between 2023 and 2024, we reviewed more than 1,000 staff profiles across three platforms: ORCID, Pure and Scopus. Pure is the system that our university uses to manage researchers’ affiliations, publications and funding information. Scopus is the indexing database used most widely across the disciplines researched at the University of Bath. We undertook this review to improve the accuracy of our researchers’ digital profiles, which shape how our staff members are regarded externally. Our review was internal and so has not been peer reviewed or published.
We sent out personalized reports to the academics whose profiles we had assessed, comparing how their individual publication data were represented by different platforms. We found empty ORCID records, duplicate ORCID and Scopus profiles, and misattributed and missing publications. These errors often persist because platforms rely on researchers and institutions to flag and correct errors. On the basis of this work, we created short videos for our library website to help researchers to review and tidy up their digital profiles.
How can I break into industry if my CV keeps disappearing into a black hole?
What happened next was the most revealing part of the exercise. Once our colleagues had received their reports, many corrected their profiles within days. At our university, most researchers already had an ORCID identifier, but the number of people who had linked their ORCID profile to their Scopus one rose sharply, resolving many of the mismatches. We also ensured that ORCID and Scopus author identifiers were recorded in Pure for all staff members, which made it easier for the institutional system to match publications to the correct researchers and improve data quality.
One professor discovered that nearly half of his publications and more than half of his citations were sitting in a second Scopus profile that he did not know existed. After the records were merged, his citation count rose from around 5,500 to more than 12,000, and his online presence finally reflected his actual body of work. Others had similar experiences. “I had not realized how much of my work was scattered until I saw it all together,” one researcher said. Another added: “Two profiles I did not even know I had were merged in minutes.” For many, the process provided clarity and a renewed sense of control.
By early 2024, most researchers at the University of Bath had aligned their ORCID profiles with their institutional record and, when relevant, with their Scopus author profiles. Once the gaps were visible, the fixes were straightforward and the benefits immediate.
The experiences we gained from reviewing others’ profiles have shaped the guidance that we offer here.
