UTMB Research Expert Profiles

Research Expert Profiles at UTMB is intended to assist both those in the UTMB community and those outside to locate collaborators, easily find associated research output and grant awards. UTMB Research Profiles are available for all faculty and students enrolled in postdoctoral programs.

UTMB Research Experts was recognized in a recent case study by Elsevier as a leader in how we used the Pure platform throughout the COVID-19 health crisis and pandemic.  This is just one way Research Experts can be used to focus on one research area.

If you would like to know how your department can use Research Experts to highlight your research, or you need help learning how to update your profile, please contact Melodi Moore to set an appointment.   

Experts

  • What is it and how do I use it?

    UTMB Research Experts is a public-facing interface that captures and displays research output and external research awards.  The portal will allow you to:

    • See a researcher's recent publications, and view article metrics such as citations, news mentions or Mendeley readers
    • Find/Identify potential collaborators
    • Search for collaborators by topic - enter a keyword into the search
    • Analyze a block of text and find researchers with related work- enter a block of text into the search box
    • Discover what external funding has been obtained on campus.
  • Who is included?

    Research Experts includes UTMB postdoctoral fellows/trainees and research faculty.  The database does not include those individuals who have clinical or educational titles only.

  • How do I get help?

    Research Experts consists of the public-facing portal and an administrative portal which includes profile editing tools.  For access to the administrative portal, please email Research Experts Support.  Administrative portal access allows you to make changes to the user’s profile such as adding/editing activities, adding non-Scopus indexed publications, adding ORCiD, etc.

  • Can I edit my profile?

    Research Experts can edit or add information in the following fields of their profiles:

    • Add new research output such as articles, meeting abstracts, books, chapters, posters and more.Remember that research output now also includes videos (i.e. YouTube, Ted Talks), presenting scholarly webinars and other activities.
    • Add editorial and membership responsibilities.
    • Add public engagement opportunities including conference participation, invited talks, policy lectures, etc.
    • Include significant prizes/awards you have earned.
    • Add ORCiD.
  • Who supports Experts and what if I have a question?
    • The portal is maintained through Research Services under the Vice President of Research with support from the Office of the Provost.
    • Those with questions can contact Research Experts Support.
  • How are Expert profiles created?
    • Names, current rank, some titles, contact information and primary department are populated from UTMB records and other internal sources through POWER.
    • Grant Award and Education data are also updated through POWER.
    • Research output and citation counts are captured from Scopus (Elsevier).
    • “Fingerprints,” or key topics, are associated with each profile, generated by Elsevier based on a researcher’s output.
    • Social media mentions are noted through PlumX and Altmetric.
  • How often is Experts Updated?
    • Job descriptions, education and grant award data is updated nightly via POWER.
    • Publications are updated weekly via Scopus. (Once a profile is established*) Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings.
      • *By contract UTMB is only allowed three times a year to establish and “refine” profiles.This is when all the data updated by Elsevier is initially added.This is typically done at the end of January, May and August.For example, a research faculty member hired in June will see their publications and citations in September.
    • Citation data is updated monthly.
    • Social media analytics (PlumX and Altmetric) are updated daily.
    • All other updates (activities, non-Scopus indexed publications, etc.) can be added by the user or a user-delegate.
  • Why might my data be different in Pure than in Google Scholar?

    Google Scholar is an open-access way of distributing information about scholarship.

    However, the absence of quality control in this tool can be an issue. Sometimes a publication will show up in Google Scholar multiple times, due to subtle differences.  This seems to occur with highly cited publications. This can artificially amplify the citation count seen in Google Scholar versus what you will see through Research Experts. The Scopus-based citation count refines publications to ensure they only appear once.

    The Scopus-generated H-index is more reliable and will generally be lower for every investigator than the Google Scholar H-index.

  • What is a User Delegate?

    There may be times when an Expert needs to delegate another person to assist in updating their Experts profile.  User delegates can be set in cases such as this.  If you need or need to delegate access to a delegate user, please email Research Experts Support