Researcher profiles are essential to the success of your work. They are platforms that allow you to promote your research in a consistent and legitimate manner.
Faculty/University profiles are beneficial as it provides a university affiliation to your work and yourself. It allows you and your work to be seen as reputable.
You can get a CDU profile page via the RIS landing page. You can find instructions here https://charlesdarwinuni.sharepoint.com/sites/RISLandingPage/SitePages/CDU-Research-Webportal.aspx
ORCiD or Open Research and Contributor iD is a global, not-for-profit organisation. Your ORCID iD is a free, unique, persistent identifier that you own and control forever. It distinguishes you from every other researcher across disciplines, borders, and time. You can connect your iD with your professional information affiliations, grants, publications, peer review, and more. You can use your iD to share your information with other systems, ensuring you get recognition for all your contributions, saving you time and hassle, and reducing the risk of errors.
Research Gate is a social media platform for researchers. It allows you to share your research and connect with other researchers. There are a lot of forums and discussion boards for you to be involved in. You cannot measure the citation and metrics count for grant applications or promotions. Furthermore, Research Gate is unregulated.
Academia.edu is another social media platform for researchers. It’s another way to promote your research and is more regulated than Research Gate. Academia.edu is also Open Access. However, citations and shares cannot be measured and are not accepted by grant applications or academic promotions. While it is a free platform, there is a paid subscription.
You can also share your work via LinkedIn. It’s a great place to networks and write about your research. You shares can be measured via Altmetrics.
Here is a great piece about LinkedIn for Academics https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-academics-professors-adjuncts-lecturers-school-sue-ellson
Google Scholar is something you should be familiar with. Google Scholar is fast and easy to use. It provides a citation count that can be analysed further to measure your impact. Your Google Scholar profile has more reach and is more accessible to the public. In many instances, people access research through Google Scholar rather than a databases search.