Dear Senior Academic Staff members,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is updating its staff members' personal profile webpages. Within a few weeks, the new profile will replace the profile that is currently on the department website.
The new profile system, Scholars@BGU, is based on two tools:
A personal international ORCID account providing every researcher and author an international ID, a credible link to their work and a VIVO interface to manage and display each staff member's personal profile on the university website.

A number of leading universities has adopted similar processes, based on these same tools, – we did not "reinvented the wheel".

After close revision and personalization processes to meet our needs, including a pilot with a group of staff members, the system Scholars@BGU was recently launched on the university website.

What is Scholars@BGU's purpose?
The new personal profile webpage is designed to enhance researcher's visibility as well as their research outputs on digital media.
Important features of the system include minimal manual feed and editing, and maximal automated data generation from open databases.
Scholars@BGU allows staff members to decide what information to reveal and what they would like to hide, edit, delete or add in their personal profile webpage, in a user-friendly environment.
Scholars@BGU is not intended to facilitate faculty member's CV's management (this tool will be available within a year, and the CV's will be integrated into the personal profile).

What do I need to do?
In the past week you should have received a notice from [email protected], indicating your profile is up, including general information only – at this stage publications will not be included. In this first message, you are asked to confirm your account and update your password.
The password to Scholars@BGU is not you organization password, but a different one which you will be able to change anytime.

A few days after your account is open, you will receive another notice from [email protected], requesting your confirmation of articles of yours, found on the web and in several databases.
Immediately after confirmation, the publications will be available on your personal profile and you will be able to edit the profile as you wish. Most fields are open for editing. Fields that are specifically designed in sync with databases (publications, name and degree) are not open for editing. Should you find a mistake in one of the fields that are unavailable for editing, please contact the system administration.
You may upload a picture (size: 200X200 pixels) – follow this link for instructions on adapting picture size:  https://www.canva.com/photo-editor.
You may add a link to your personal website (if relevant).

What will my profile contain?
In the first stage, only journal articles or conference proceedings in English are retrieved. In the next few weeks, we will expand the retrieval mechanisms to additional types of publications, beginning with books and book chapters, to be followed by patents and grants.
The retrieval mechanisms will become more and more sophisticated as we receive your feedback, broadening the variety of sources, finer specification and classification, etc.
In the future, we will expand the retrieval to data on publications in Hebrew and / or other languages, or enable manual updating.

Why an ORCID account?
The process of enriching and completing the information on each personal profile relies significantly on ORCID accounts. These accounts feature automated tools for collecting data on publications and improving the ability of publishing companies and content providers to associate researchers with their own work.
Bibliometric index and citing analysis systems, as well as research relations networks, use these accounts to get a complete picture of  researcher's work. Of course, this is important not only for researcher's reputation and career, but for the department, the faculty and the university reputation and bibliometric evaluation, as well. Therefore, it is highly recommended for each faculty member to have an ORCID account. We will assist you in this part of the process, as well.

Who can I reach out to?
The Academic Development & Teaching Advancement Unit is in charge of the process (see signatures below). Adi Rodriguez Barnea is the system manager and may be contacted with matters regarding the system via email on  [email protected]
The unit plans to recruit students to assist faculty members in their first steps using the new profile, and beyond, as needed.

If necessary, we will offer demonstration and training meetings on demand to units / departments.

Faculty members,
The personal profiles webpages showcase each and every one of us, as well as the university as a research institution.
We will surely face challenges that will require further development of the system, but we are certain we are moving in the right direction for improving our status.
The process was presented to and approved by the Coordination Committee, as well as the President, Rector and Director of the university. It was prepared in cooperation with the Vice-President and Dean for Research and Development, Computing and Information Systems Department and others.
Senior academic faculty members who did not receive this notice are requested to contact [email protected].
In order for this process to succeed – we will need full cooperation!

Thank you,
Prof. Gadi Rabinowitz – Vice-Rector and Head of the Academic Development & Teaching Advancement Unit
Prof. Dan Blumberg – Vice-President and Dean for Research and Development
Sagi Langer – Manager of the Academic Development & Teaching Advancement Unit and Manager of the Marketing Department
Moti Margalit – Head of the Computing and Information Systems Department