An online publication and activity record:
- allows your works and activities to be more easily discovered by other researchers, funders or the public, improving your visibility
- saves you time when writing applications by helping you keep track of your activities
- most have automatic updating, so are quick to update
- may allow you to showcase other activities such as peer-reviewing, editing, teaching, or dissemination (depending on the platform)
An author ID is a persistent, unique identifier which helps you:
- easily collect your works in one place
- allow your works to be more easily discovered
- prevent issues with author ambiguity (your works getting mixed up with authors who have the same name, or people not being able to find all your works due to name/affiliation variants)
- depending on the ID you choose, you may be able to use your ID in various databases, or funder and publisher websites, allowing automatic filling in of forms, and quick access to correct statistics - saving you time.

Image with a person linked to their works (articles, datasets, code) and activities (interests, projects, teaching)

The next page shows the major services available for getting an author IDs and online activity record.