ORCID and IdHAL IDs

As a researcher, you need unique digital IDs to compile and showcase all your research outputs. ORCID and IdHAL are essential tools that help distinguish you from any namesakes and link all your publications to your personal profile. They ensure your research output’s visibility and traceability both nationally and internationally.
The slideshow below provides a detailed explanation of what these IDs are used for and walks you through the creation process.

You may not yet have posted all your publications on HAL. You can update the list by browsing specialized scientific and technical information search engines like Base, Airiti, Google Scholar, CrossRef, and others. You can add missing references directly in just one click by using your ORCID account. However, be careful not to mistakenly add articles under your name that you did not author.

Populating your institutional page and/or personal web page

Even if you are only attached to your research unit while working on your thesis, you will need a personal web page on the research unit or host institution website.

This will give your work extra credibility. Journalists, for example, can use your web page to link your online work to the host institution, which is important in terms of reliability. Furthermore, the institutional page identifies you with a recognized scientific field and community.

However, the site may not be easily editable. Contact your laboratory director or the head of your institution’s Communications Service for access to edit your web page.

The page should preferably include the following information:

• A subject field (with relevant keywords related to your work)
• Your HAL and ORCID IDs
• Your contact details (a professional email address in particular)
• Your academic and professional credentials

You may also want to include:

• A list of publications from HAL (see below)
• A picture to create a visual link between your presentations (e.g., at a conference) and the rest of your publications
• A link to a personal website (e.g., a research blog)

A few sample profiles on institutional pages:

Mikaël Kepenekian CTI Team Leader - CNRS Research Director

Professor of Chemistry (page hosted on the lab's website)

Pascal Plantard Professor

Professor of Education Sciences (Rennes 2 University allows all staff to create a personal page on its website)

Iza Marfisi Professor

Professor of computer science (lab page)

Claire Burban Doctoroal student

Doctoral student in geography (lab page)

Margaux Bonnardot Doctoral student

Doctoral student in health studies (lab page)

Creating a personal third party-hosted web page

A personal website gives you control over your online presence and helps you project a consistent professional image. You can showcase your background, work, current projects, and compile your publications.

There are free tools you can use to create your personal page: see this table comparing the best free website creation apps.

You can create a personalized domain name for this web page, ideally using your own name. Visit whois.com to check its availability. The cost of a domain name depends on the provider (on average, around €20 per year). A carefully chosen domain name will improve your visibility and referencing on a general search engine like Google.

Creating a static professional website

Another option is to create a static website with a few pages using free online tools such as:

• GitHub  (or your research organization's gitlab forge if it allows you to publish your code)
• A static web site generator  (MKdocs, Jekyll, Hugo, etc.)
• An online site deployment tool (GitHub Pages for GitHub)

Creating a web site requires certain skills but you don't need to be a developer to publish a static site using these tools. Any researcher who is moderately proficient with a text editor should be able to create one.

Basic proficiency with Git is a plus, though it’s not essential.

Static sites are lightweight alternatives to dynamic sites generated by CMSs (Content Management Systems) such as Wordpress or Drupal. These remain valid options, whether they are third-party hosted (e.g., Huma-Num for Hypotheses.org (opens in a new tab) by your university, or by yourself on a server to which you have access.

Further insights

Researcher Jisell Howe, on one of her website pages (created with Quarto), explains how and why she dropped a dynamic website on WordPress servers in favor of a static website published via a GitHub repository. This post provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the procedure.