Award for campaign to promote visibility of researchers
An interview with Felix Weijdema
Of the entries, that of Utrecht University stood out with a view to combining functionality with creativity. By linking workshops on visibility to an ORCID raffle, Felix Weijdema mixed useful information with humour.
Felix Weijdema, Faculty Liaison Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University Library, works at improving the (online) visibility of researchers. This is one of the themes of the Open Science Programme of Utrecht University. This year Felix spotlighted ORCID, a personal digital identifier for researchers. His work resulted in Utrecht University being awarded with the Story Teller Award for the most creative campaign from the national coordination office Research Impact of the UKB (the Dutch consortium of University Libraries and the National Library).
An interview with Felix Weijdema
An ORCID; an iD consisting of four times four numbers. How do you present such a tool to researchers in a humorous way?
"It is true, ORCID is quite boring, but that does not mean it's not important. In fact, it is just as important as your citizen service number, but in this case for your academic work. An ORCID iD being a number gave me the idea for a raffle. The past year, every faculty planned conferences of the Open Science Community Utrecht. Unfortunately, only two of them were held live: at Humanities and at Science. During these meetings I organised a raffle to underline the importance of ORCID.
In this way I could persuade researchers to set up an account. The prospect of a coffee or tea gift pack made almost every one willing to set up an account or to look up the numbers of their already created account and throw it in a glass jar.
The conferences are now changed into an online format and that means the raffle too. Let me say that the script for a fair draw is ready!"
What else do you do at the university library to improve the visibility of researchers and their research?
"As a library, we have a lot of expertise in the field of the digital research infrastructure. I make use of this knowledge and share it in the recurring workshop Improve your online presence and at conferences of the Open Science Community Utrecht. Researchers see a lot of platforms where they can present themselves and their research. We give advice on the efficient use of these platforms. For instance by creating an ORCID and to use it."
Which subjects do you discuss in the workshop Improve your online presence?
"We give information about the most widely used platforms and their pros and cons. In addition, we give advice about which platform is the most suitable for reaching the right audience. Also open access is discussed: if knowledge is only available for a small group, it does little for your visibility."
Register for:
- Improve your online presence workshop on 2 December
- Improve your online presence workshop on 27 January
What is the most frequent question researchers ask you about online visibility?
"Frequently I get the question if it is worthwhile to set up a personal website. This seems like a good option because you are the one who determines its contents. It can be useful, certainly, but such a website quickly becomes invisible in the worldwide web if it does not attract lots of visitors soon. And to get people to visit your website, you need to invest much time in it. UU pages, so also the profile pages, automatically get many visitors. That is why I advise researchers to keep this page up to date and to link it to an ORCID iD."
What insights have the activities of the past year given you?
"I mainly concerned myself with ORCID and it is clear that many researchers are familiar with it. The importance of ORCID is not always clear, because there are so many online platforms. That means that its full potential is not reached yet. By only taking a few extra small steps, many researchers can greatly increase their visibility."