# Comparison of research networking tools and research profiling systems

Research networking (RN) is about using tools to identify, locate and use research and scholarly information about people and resources. Research networking tools (RN tools) serve as knowledge management systems for the research enterprise. RN tools connect institution-level/enterprise systems, national research networks, publicly available research data (e.g., grants and publications), and restricted/proprietary data by harvesting information from disparate sources into compiled profiles for faculty, investigators, scholars, clinicians, community partners and facilities. RN tools facilitate collaboration and team science to address research challenges through the rapid discovery and recommendation of researchers, expertise and resources.
RN tools differ from search engines like Google in that RN tools access information in databases and other data not limited to web pages. They also differ from social networking systems in that they represent a compendium of data ingested from authoritative and verifiable sources rather than predominantly individually-posted information, making RN tools more reliable. Yet, RN tools have sufficient flexibility to allow for profile editing. RN tools provide resources to bolster human connections: they can make non-intuitive matches, do not depend on serendipity and do not have a propensity to return only to previously identified collaborations/collaborators. RN tools generally have associated analytical capabilities that enable evaluation of collaboration and cross-disciplinary research/scholarly activity, especially over time.
RN tools and research profiling systems can help researchers gain recognition. Active promotion of scholarship is an aspect of the publication cycle. Commercial and non-profit services help researchers increase visibility and recognition. Digital researcher services enhance discoverability, shareability and citability of scholarship. According to Shanks and Arlitsch, digital researcher services fall into three categories:
* Author/Researcher Identification—these services provide infrastructure that may be used in the other two categories, such as unique identifiers and name disambiguation.
* Academic and Professional Networking—most succinctly described as “social networking for academics,” these services focus on connecting users based on research interest, affiliation, geography or other variables.
* Reference and Citation Management—these tools and services include some of the functionality and features of other categories, although their primary focus is on management of citations that a researcher compiles for use within a publication or for sharing with other researchers.
Importantly, data harvested into RN tools can be repurposed, especially if available as Linked Open Data (RDF triples). These RN tools enhance research support activities by providing data for customized, web pages, CV/biosketch generation and data tables for grant proposals.

## General

General :
| Research Networking Tool | Link to Product Page | Developer/Owner | Open source | Adopters |
| AcademicLabs | AcademicLabs | AcademicLabs | No | Top pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, academics from hundreds of universities, worldwide. |
| Activity Insight | Activity Insight | Digital Measures | No | Hundreds of major research institutions around the world |
| C-IKNOW | C-IKNOW | Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) - Northwestern University | Yes | National Cancer Institute, National Science Foundation |
| PROFILES by Mentis (formerly Collaborative Partnership / Profile System) | PROFILES by Mentis] | Inknowledge, Inc (previously University of Texas at Arlington) | No (Profiles is available in a free forever plan) | UT Arlington, UT Pan American, University of North Texas Health Science Center, UT El Paso, UT San Antonio, UT Tyler, UT Health Science Center, University of North Texas (formerly), UT Dallas, UT Health Center at Tyler, Texas Christian University, Gulf Coast Consortia: Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine and several others) |
| Community Academic Profiles - CAP | Community Academic Profiles | Stanford University | No | Stanford University |
| Converis | Converis | Clarivate Analytics | No | Several universities, governments and funders across North and South America, Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Sub Saharan Africa and Asia. |
| Curvita Profile Manager | Curvita Profile Manager | SciMed Solutions | No | University of North Carolina, University of Virginia, Duke University |
| CUSP - Columbia University Scientific Profiles | CUSP | Columbia University | No | Columbia University |
| Digital Vita | DigitalVita | Center for Dental Informatics - University of Pittsburgh | Yes | University of Pittsburgh, Pitt Health Sciences Center |
| Dimensions | Dimensions | Digital Science | No | University of Michigan, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, University of California San Diego. See case studies. |
| Elsevier's Pure | Pure | Elsevier | No | 250 implementations worldwide containing profiles for over 185,000 researcher profiles. See Pure client list. |
| Elsevier's SciVal | SciVal | Elsevier | No | Over 200 adopters worldwide |
| Epernicus Solutions & Epernicus Network | Epernicus | Epernicus | No (but Epernicus Network is free to use) | Harvard, MIT, Indiana University, Stanford, University of California Berkeley (but not exclusively) |
| Epistemio | Epistemio | Epistemio | No | N/A (platform is directed toward individual researcher use) |
| ERIM Member Profile System (ERIM MIS) | People ERIM People profile system | Erasmus Research Institute of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands | No | Erasmus University |
| Esploro | Esploro | Ex Libris | No | > 10 in early adopter program; Ex-Libris has a large presence in the higher Education community |
| EUREKA! Enhancing Student Research | EUREKA | University of Texas at Austin (UTA) | No | University of Texas at Austin |
| Expertise @ Maryland | UM Experts | University of Maryland | Yes (will be) | University of Maryland College Park |
| Faculty Profile System | UC Irvine Faculty Profile System | University of California Irvine | No | UC Irvine |
| Faculty Profiles System | Stony Brook University Faculty Profiles System | Stony Brook University | No | Stony Brook University |
| Faculty Research Information Profile (FRIP) | Discontinued. Work on this system ceased; moved on to developing Digital Vita | University of Pittsburgh | N/A | (formerly) University of Pittsburgh |
| Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index | Academic Analytics | Academic Analytics, LLC | No | Unknown |
| Faculty180 | Faculty180 | Interfolio | No | Institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada. |
| GENIUS | InfoEd GENIUS | InfoEd Global | No | Many Big Ten/CIC institutions |
| Google | Google search generated from an institution's home page or Google search limited to only one domain (e.g. university.edu) | Google | No (but anyone can access Google) | Anyone can access |
| HUBzero | HUBzero | Purdue University | Yes | Indiana CTSI, Indiana University, Purdue University, Notre Dame |
| iamResearcher | iamResearcher | University of Southampton, UK | Unknown | N/A (platform is directed toward individual researcher use) |
| iAMscientist | iAMscientist | iAMscientist.inc | No | Unknown |
| i2iConnect | i2iConnect | Indiana University | No (but original software from ThemesJoomla is) | N/A (platform is directed toward individual researcher use) |
| InCites | InCites | Clarivate Analytics | No | Unknown |
| INDURE (Indiana Database for University Research Expertise) | INDURE | Indiana University / Purdue University | No | Ball State, Indiana University, Purdue University, University of Notre Dame |
| IRIS (Institutional Research Information System) | IRIS | CINECA | Yes (will be in CERIF mode in first half of 2016) | 60 universities |
| Knode | Knode | Knode | No | Multiple, anyone can use, collaborating with VIVO and UCSF |
| The Lens | The Lens | Cambia | No (but free to use and API available) | Researcher, Universities, Research institutes, Patent Offices |
| Lattes Platform | Lattes | CNPq - Brazil | Unknown | N/A (Platform is directed toward individual researcher use in Brazil) |
| LatticeGrid | LatticeGrid public Wiki | Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) - Biomedical Informatics Center (NUBIC) | Yes | Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine & Cancer Center, UCSF Cancer Center, Fox Chase Cancer Center, University of Michigan, Case Western University |
| LinkedIn | LinkedIn | LinkedIn | No (but LinkedIn is free to use) | N/A (Platform is directed toward individual researcher use. Millions of users are registered globally.) |
| Life Science Network | Life Science Network | Life Science Network gGmbH | Yes (upon request) | Anyone can use. |
| Loki | Loki | University of Iowa | No | University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science |
| Lyterati | Lyterati | Entigence Corporation | No | George Washington University, The New School, Lehigh University |
| McCormick Collaboration Visualization Tool | Collaboration at McCormick | Northwestern University | No | McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University |
| Mendeley | Mendeley | Elsevier | No | Anyone can use |
| MizzouLinks | none available | University of Missouri | Unknown | University of Missouri |
| MyScienceWork | MyScienceWork | Unknown | No (but anyone can register and use the network) | Anyone can register and use. The network is directed at the individual researcher |
| OSU:pro | OSU:pro | Ohio State University | No (but can be licensed) | Ohio State University |
| Pivot | Pivot | ProQuest, LLC | No | 100 university campuses and research organizations globally |
| Portfolio & Showroom | Portfolio & Showroom | University of Applied Arts Vienna | Yes (Apache License) | University of Applied Arts Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Bertha von Suttner Privatuniversität, Catholic Private University of Linz, Mozarteum University Salzburg (testing), (source code ) |
| Profiles Research Networking Software | Profiles | Harvard University | Yes (BSD license) | Harvard, UCSF, and many others (see Profiles users ) |
| REACH NC Life Science Experts Visualization Tool | REACH NC | RENCI (Renaissance Computing Institute, a collaboration between University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University and North Carolina State University) Duke Research Triangle Institute, University of North Carolina General Administration | No (but free to the public) | Appalachian State University Duke University East Carolina University Elizabeth City State University Fayetteville State University NC A&T North Carolina Central University North Carolina State University RTI International UNC-Asheville University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill UNC-Charlotte UNC-Greensboro UNC-Pembroke UNC-Wilmington Western Carolina University Winston-Salem State University |
| Research Accelerator | YCCI Research Accelerator | ResearchAccelerator.org | Unknown | Yale University |
| ResearcherID | ResearcherID | Clarivate Analytics | No (but ResearcherID network is free to access and use by individual users) | N/A (Platform is directed toward individual researcher use) |
| ScholarBridge | ScholarBridge | ScholarBridge LLC | No | 14 university members and free access for any individual student or researcher |
| SciENcv | SciENcv | A pilot program sponsored by the Federal Demonstration Partnership and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) supported by the STAR METRICS program | Yes | Sponsored by the Federal Demonstration Partnership and the NSTC's interagency groups: Research Business Model (RBM) and Science of Science Policy (SoSP) |
| Symplectic Elements | Symplectic Elements | Digital Science | No (However, an open source is available.) | 115+ major research institutions around the world, including the University of Cambridge (UK), University of Oxford (UK), University of Melbourne (AUS), Duke University (US), University of Auckland (NZ), Tufts University (US), and University of Michigan (US). (see Some of Symplectic's clients) |
| UNIWeb | UNIWeb | Proximify | No | University of Ottawa, McGill University, Dalhousie University, University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus, École de technologie supérieure, CIMVHR |
| VIVO | VIVO | Lyrasis | Yes | Cornell University, University of Florida, Washington University in St. Louis, Weill Cornell Medical College, Indiana University, Ponce School of Medicine, Scripps Research Institute, Duke University, University of Colorado at Boulder, Northwestern University, University of Nebraska, University of Melbourne, Griffith University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. There are currently over 140 VIVO implementations in the United States and international VIVO projects in over 25 countries. |
| WorkWeb | WebWork at archive.org | Columbia University | No | Columbia University |
| Yaffle | Yaffle | Memorial University of Newfoundland | Yes | Memorial University of Newfoundland |

## Data sources, ingest and export formats

This table provides information on the types of data used in each RN tool and how this data is ingested, along with data export formats (e.g. XML, RDF, RIS, PDF)
Data sources, interoperability :
| Research Networking Tool | Data Source / Infeed Functionality | Auto Ingest? | Linked Open Data? | Data Export Types |
| Academic Room | Manual entry of data by users. May be some auto-ingest of PubMed citation data | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| AcademicLabs | Pubmed, ORCID, funded projects from a.o. NIH, NSF, France, Flanders, Clinical Trials from WHO, ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trial Register, Patents from USPTO and EPO, national and regional public repositories, websites, direct input by researchers. | Yes | Unknown | XLS, CSV, JSON |
| Activity Insight | Information typically imported from the following sources: PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, RefWorks, Banner, Datatel, PeopleSoft, CampusVue, Jenzabar, Sedona, EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, BiBTeX, a RESTful web services API, CSV Data Imports, etc. Also supports various methods of manual entry. | Yes | Yes | RTF, XLS, CSV, PDF, HTML, XML |
| C-IKNOW | Network Surveys, automated upload for any kind of network data including archival, scientometric, webometric and computer log data. Also import data in GraphML, RDF, and DL (used by UCINET) | Yes(for defined data) | Yes | RDF, XML/RDF |
| PROFILES by Mentis (formerly Collaborative Partnership / Profile System) | Automated or on-demand import from PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Banner, PeopleSoft, Web Services, Flat files and Manual Entry. Can be easily configured with any institutional subscription or database. | Yes | Yes | RTF, XLS, CSV, PDF, HTML, XML, JSON |
| Community Academic Profiles - CAP | CAP automatically generates a profile for all faculty, physicians, students, postdocs and staff (both academic and administrative) in the School of Medicine. Data flows automatically from a variety of source systems. | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| Converis | Default connection to Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, Scopus, pubmed, europubmed, etc. Ay internal data feed (HR, finance can be configured) | Yes—can be pre-populated and alerts recommend new data | Yes—can be used to power VIVO | Excel (.xlsx), EndNote (.ciw), BibTex (.bib), XML, JSON, PDF, RTF |
| Curvita Profile Manager | Information collected from university systems | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| CUSP - Columbia University Scientific Profiles | Databases for employees and grants; PubMed for publications | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| Digital Vita | PubMed, some from HR system, direct input from investigators. System authenticates users through an application developed by the IT group that supports the Senior Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences; that system accesses the HR system for data about employees' rank and status (active or not), working with the grants office to get a regular report of data from their proposal database. Manually entered publications/presentations are automatically forwarded to co-authors. | Yes (Some) | Yes | PDF, RTF |
| Elsevier's Pure (now integrated with SciVal Experts) | Sources include Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Mendeley, arXiv, Worldcat, CrossRef, Journal TOC, CAB Abstracts, SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System and SciVal Funding opportunities; Data from institutions' internal systems, including HR data, grants, publications, patents, core facilities/resources, etc. Researchers or proxy users can enter additional content into the profiles, including research statements, research interest keywords, publications, grants, patents, books, creative works, education, researcher datasets, press clippings, awards and honors; free text can also be imported. Integration with all major institutional repositories. | Yes | Yes | XML, RDF, SPARQL, CSV, CERIF XML, MS Word, Excel, PDF, ATOM/XML web services, EndNote/Reference Manager, BibTex, various government assessment submission formats |
| Elsevier's SciVal | Scopus and ScienceDirect usage data | Yes | No | CSV, PDF, PNG, JPEG |
| Epernicus Solutions & Epernicus Network | Data entered by applicant | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| ERIM Member Profile System (ERIM MIS) | ERIM MIS database, Erasmus Publication Repository, Oracle portal | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| Esploro | Information is imported from ProQuest‘s Summon Service and from the following sources: PubMed, ORCID, BiBTeX, a RESTful web services API, CSV Data Imports, etc. Also supports methods of manual entry. | Yes | Yes | RTF, XLS, CSV, PDF, HTML, XML |
| EUREKA! Enhancing Student Research | Information about faculty research interests | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| Expertise @ Maryland | Central university faculty database | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| Faculty Profile System | Manually entered data about the faculty (faculty can enter, a proxy can enter, or designated staff work on maintaining profiles) | No (Faculty status verified by comparison with UC Irvine HR's Academic Personnel system) | Unknown | Unknown |
| Faculty Research Information Profile (FRIP) | Discontinued. Work on this system ceased; moved on to developing Digital Vita | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index | FSP Database (2007–2008) | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| GENIUS | InfoEd proprietary grant funding databases | Yes (But only of InfoEd database data. Faculty profile information must be entered manually.) | Unknown | Unknown |
| Google | Institution's directory, news releases, and other institutional websites | Yes | Yes | Many types, depending on the format of the file retrieved. |
| HUBzero | Comprehensive portal to support virtual research organizations including modular Web 2.0 tools, modeling and simulation tools, computational integration, identity management, workflow, personal profile management, data management, education | Yes | Yes | Unknown |
| iamResearcher | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| iAMscientist | PubMed | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| i2iConnect | Listings of industry licensing representatives categorized by product and disease categories with matchmaking and collaborator discovery features | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| InCites | Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, ESI, JCR | No | No | XML, .mbb, XLS |
| INDURE (Indiana Database for University Research Expertise) | Faculty-entered information about research, faculty home pages | Yes? (Partial?) | Unknown | Unknown |
| Lattes Database | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| LatticeGrid | Medical School Faculty database, PubMed, InfoEd, Northwestern's eIRB database | Yes | Yes | Microsoft Word, Excel, PDF |
| The Lens | ORCID and other publicly available sources | Yes | Yes | BibTex, JSON, CSV, PNG, SVG |
| LinkedIn | Information entered manually by user | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| Life Science Network | PubMed / Information entered manually by user. | No | Yes | CSV (for some modules). |
| Loki | Local Medline, PubMed, local NSF award database, local NIH RePORTER database, campus directory services | Yes (Partial) | Unknown | Unknown |
| Lyterati | PubMed, Google Scholar, BibTex, Ellucian, PeopleSoft, Workday, RESTful APIs, Template Driven Imports, CSV, Excel, Manual Entry Using Webpages, Faculty CVs | Yes | Unknown | PDF, MS Word, Excel, CSV, Web Services |
| McCormick Collaboration Visualization Tool | Clarivate Analytics Web of Science | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| MizzouLinks | Information collected from interviews and imported from a few institutional systems | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| MyScienceWork | Information input by user | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| OSU:pro | OSU systems | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |
| Pivot | Combines editorially created data on funding opportunities and profiles. Profile data sources from publicly available university organization and faculty member/researcher information, user-generated data, PubMed, Agricola, ERIC, and ProQuest citation databases, indexed faculty/researcher webpages. | Yes (for all citation data from sources listed in DataSource. Profiles editorially created, but user-generated profiles also included) | No | Unknown |
| Portfolio & Showroom | ORCID, library catalogue, GND, VIAF | No | Yes | BibTex, CSV, PDF |
| Profiles Research Networking Software | HR systems, PubMed, NIH RePORTER, commercial sources of publication data, institution-provided and user managed data | Yes | Yes | XML, RDF, SPARQL |
| REACH NC Life Science Experts Visualization Tool | SciVal Experts, RAMSES | Yes | Yes | RSI, CSV, Web-service API |
| Research Accelerator | Information entered by individual members | No | Unknown | Unknown |
| ResearcherID | Manually entered biographical and bibliographical information. Members can search Web of Science, Web of Knowledge, and other online collections, or manually enter publication data. Accounts can be created by individuals or by administrators using a web service. | Yes (Partial; profiles created by administrators are pre-populated for individuals to review.) | No | None |
| SciENcv | Information that would normally be found in a curriculum vitae or biosketch | Yes | Unknown | Uses open data exchange standards |
| Streamlyne FundFit | Information collected from web scraping and proprietary methods to match researchers with funding opportunities across the Streamlyne FundFit AI / ML SaaS platform. | Yes | No | Native export integration to Streamlyne Research platform |
| Symplectic Elements | Custom import from any internal data source via API, out of the box automatic bibliographic import (subject to subscriptions where appropriate) from arXiv, Cinii, CrossRef, DBLP, Europe PMC, figshare, PubMed, RePeC, Scopus, Web of Science, with more planned. Secure ORCID integration also available. In-feed from HR/Identity systems, internal grant databases. Integration with all major repository technologies. | Yes Through integrated portals like VIVO and Profiles RNS | Yes Source for linked data | CSV, CERIF XML, MS Word, Excel, PDF (APA6), ATOM/XML web services, EndNote/Reference Manager, BibTex, RDF (Linked Data), various government assessment submission formats |
| UNIWeb | Users can enter their CV or bibliographic data manually, or import from the Canadian Common CV, PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, Bibtek, Endnote. | Unknown | Unknown | XML, MS Word, Excel |
| VIVO | PubMed, NIH RePORTER, PeopleSoft, internal HR & administrative databases, Scopus (with institutional license), Web of Science (with institutional license); emphasis on verified data sources, many many others being ingested at various institutions. | Yes (manual data entry possible, too) | Yes | RDF, GraphXML, CSV file |
| Yaffle | Memorial University systems | Yes | Unknown | Unknown |

## Data interoperability and integration

Whether a research networking tool is compatible with institutional enterprise systems (e.g. human resources databases), can be integrated with other external products or add-ons and can be used for regional, national, international or federated connectivity.
Interoperability :
| Research Networking Tool | Interoperability with Institutional Enterprise Systems | Interoperability with External Systems | Integration with Add-on Components or Products | Regional, National, International or Federated Connectivity? |
| Academic Room | No | unknown | unknown | The system is voluntary, so national and international by active inclusion |
| Activity Insight | Yes (Banner, Datatel, PeopleSoft, CampusVue, Jenzabar, etc.) | Yes (Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, RefWorks, etc.) | Yes (EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, tools which generate BiBTeX, CSV or XML files) | No |
| C-IKNOW | No | Yes(is possible) | Unknown | No |
| PROFILES by Mentis (formerly Collaborative Partnership / Profile System) | Yes | Yes (has API, works with Elsevier PURE, Activity Insight, VIVO etc.) | Yes (funding opportunities from grants.gov) | Yes (National and International) |
| Community Academic Profiles - CAP | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Converis | Yes - Bi-directional and one way integrations with institution's enterprise systems available either through APIs or Kettle. | Yes - Standard integrations with Web of Science, EndNote, Kopernio, InCites, EuroPMC, Research Professional, iThenticate, VIVO, Scopus and others. Individual integrations needed for specific institutions can also be configured via APIs or Kettle. | Yes - Integrates with Pentaho Data Integration, InCites and VIVO | Yes |
| Curvita Profile Manager | Yes | Yes | Unknown | No |
| CUSP - Columbia University Scientific Profiles | No | Yes PubMed only | Unknown | No |
| Digital Vita | No | Yes (only PubMed) | Unknown | Yes National federated connectivity through DIRECT2Experts |
| Elsevier's Pure | Yes institutions have access to Web Services in order to feed data into internal databases; Web Services can be consumed as directed by institution. Pure currently ingests a range of data from institutions' own systems, including grants data, HR data, institutional repositories, publication databases, book listings and more. | Yes Scopus, PubMed, NIH RePORTER, Embase, Mendeley, arXiv, Worldcat, CrossRef, JournalTOC, CAB Abstracts, SAO/NSA Astrophysics Data System, Web of Science, institution's internal databases, including HR data, grants, publications, patents, etc. | Yes Pure integrates with SciVal to allow easy analysis of your researcher impact with the benchmark capabilities of SciVal. | Yes The Pure Community Module interconnects participating institutions into a single centralized Pure instance. Additional functionality enables users to search across different institutions or run cross-campus reports |
| Elsevier's SciVal | Yes (Institutions have access to the API with Scopus data in order to feed data into internal databases.) | Yes (Integrates with Pure.) | Yes (Scopus & ScienceDirect) | No |
| Epernicus Solutions & Epernicus Network | Yes (Possible, for Epernicus Solutions) | No | Unknown | No |
| ERIM Member Profile System (ERIM MIS) | Yes | Yes ID resolver included, so links to external systems are created, like SSRN, ResearcherID, Google scholar alerts & Search, social mention search from personal page, MEEBO sharing possible, Tynt statistics included | Unknown | No |
| Esploro | Yes Esploro provides multiple REST APIs for integration with enterprise systems such as HR Systems, CRIS / RIM, Institutional Repositories, profiles, grant management systems and more. Integration with repositories can be done also via OAI-PMH and Esploro automatically captures data, such as outputs, grants, researchers profiles and more from multiple institutional and cross- institutional systems. | Yes Integration with the, ProQuest‘s Summon Service, ORCID, PubMed, CrossRef, DataCite etc. Files can be imported and exported in formats like DublinCore, DataCite and BibTeX. | Yes | Yes Plans to enable consortium and collaboration capabilities based on Ex Libris Alma Network and Community Zones |
| EUREKA! Enhancing Student Research | No | No | Unknown | No |
| Expertise @ Maryland | May be possible | No | Unknown | No |
| Faculty Profile System | No | No | Unknown | No |
| Faculty Research Information Profile (FRIP) | Discontinued. Work on this system ceased; moved on to developing Digital Vita | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| GENIUS | Yes | Yes Only other InfoEd modules (SMARTS: Service that automatically sends notices of funding opportunities via email. You provide keywords that describe your research interests, and SMARTS matches those keywords with present funding programs; SPIN: Enables subscribers to directly search for all sponsored programs, past and present, contained within the InfoEd database) | Unknown | No |
| Google | No | Yes | Possibly | No |
| HUBzero | No | Yes PubMed; data is semantic web compliant as of August 2011 | Possibly | No |
| iamResearcher | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| iAMscientist | No | Yes PubMed | Unknown | No |
| i2iConnect | No | No | Unknown | Yes |
| InCites | Yes (Institutions have access to Web Services in order to feed data into internal databases.) | Yes (Integrates with Converis.) | Yes (Web of Science, ResearcherID) | No |
| INDURE (Indiana Database for University Research Expertise) | No | No | Unknown | Yes for 4 Indiana institutions only |
| Lattes Database | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| LatticeGrid | Yes InfoEd, eIRB, Medical School faculty database | Yes (PubMed) | Yes (Possible) | Yes National federated connectivity through DIRECT2Experts |
| LinkedIn | No | No | Unknown | No |
| Life Science Network | No | Yes (Pubmed) | No | No |
| Loki | Yes Possible | Yes | Unknown | No |
| Lyterati | Yes (Ellucian, PeopleSoft, Workday InfoEd, Coeus) | Yes (PubMed, VIVO, Google Scholar, BibTex or CSV Sources) | Yes (BibTex and CSV) | Yes, capable |
| McCormick Collaboration Visualization Tool | No | Yes Only Clarivate Analytics Web of Science | Unknown | No |
| MizzouLinks | Maybe | No | Unknown | No |
| MyScienceWork | No | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| OSU:pro | No | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| Pivot | No | Maybe | Unknown | Unknown |
| Portfolio & Showroom | Yes | Yes ORCID, university's repository, library catalogue. Files can be imported and exported as BibTeX. | Yes | Yes Showroom works as a cross-instance search. |
| Profiles Research Networking Software | Yes | Yes Pubmed, commercial sources of publication data, semantic web applications via VIVO ontology. | Yes | Yes Profiles Users Group has regular conference calls and works on collaborative software development projects. Profiles can perform federated queries across other Profiles instances, and with other products using linked open data (VIVO ontology) and the DIRECT2Experts API. |
| REACH NC Life Science Experts Visualization Tool | Yes | Yes Through SciVal API | No | No |
| Research Accelerator | No | No | Unknown | No |
| ResearcherID | No | Yes Through ResearcherID download service, institutions can load data into their internal systems. Also is integrated with other Clarivate Analytics offerings, including Web of Science, EndNote, and Research In View | Unknown | No |
| SciENcv | Yes (is possible through open data exchange standards) | Yes | Unknown | No |
| Symplectic Elements | Yes Clients have the ability to integrate with existing web profile management systems, export data for business intelligence solutions and easily submit research outcomes for various government assessment exercises. This includes HR, publications, teaching activities, grants, institutional repositories, and any other system providing or consuming research data. | Yes Elements integrates with a variety of external systems including: Altmetric, figshare, ORCID, SHERPA/RoMEO (licensing information), DOAJ (licensing information) | Yes Elements can be linked to all major open repository technologies and an open source is also available. | Yes Elements public profiling tool, Discovery Module, can be integrated with Direct2Expert. |
| VIVO | Yes Data can be ingested from a wide variety of local sources (including HR, grants, course databases, institutional repositories, membership rosters, research interests, and many others) to reflect a complete view of the institution's priorities and efforts. | Yes see mini-grants <https://web.archive.org/web/20121028002514/http://vivoweb.org/blog/2011/01/award-announcement-vivo-collaborative-research-projects-program>; eagle-i; Drupal; many others - any tool that can consume open linked data. Other ongoing collaborations with Wellspring (maintaining VIVO profiles with a focus upon tech transfer and also as a 3rd party implementation service provider) and with Symplectic. | Yes VIVO collaborates with eagle-I on research resources. Future plans include adding many additional data types which are meaningful in the academic research setting. VIVO data are structured using a comprehensive ontology designed for local extension and major ontology "plugins" such as BIBO and eagle-i. | Yes VIVO Consortium received $12.2M NIH ARRA U24 award in 2009 to fully develop software and create national system of federated research expertise directories/research networking systems; All other semantic web-compliant software platforms can be integrated into the consortium (example: Harvard Profiles). Participant in Direct2Experts and VIVO Search |
| Yaffle | No | No | Unknown | The Canadian research funding councils as well as knowledge mobilization networks across the country (governments and universities) are working to develop a model to share what Yaffle has built |

## Users profiled, user interactivity and networking functionality

This table provides information on what user population is profiled for each tool, ability for users to edit their own profile data and type of networking. Active networking means that the user can enter connections to the network by entering colleagues' names. Passive networking means that the software infers network connections from a user's publication co-authors and builds a network from these names.
User facilities and social graph :
| Research Networking Tool | Profiled User Population | Can Users Update Their Own Profile Data? | Type of Networking (Active or Passive) | Includes Functionality to Match Expertise with Funding Opportunities |
| Academic Room | Anyone can create a profile. Profiled categories include "Faculty", "Grad Students", "Undergrads", "Professionals" | Yes | Active | No |
| AcademicLabs | Research Group profiles and profiles for all researchers with ORCID, publications, patents, clinical trials or funded projects. | Yes | Active and Passive | Yes |
| Activity Insight | Faculty, Staff, Graduate Students | Yes | Active and Passive | Yes |
| C-IKNOW | Defined using Web of science ID or on an ad hoc basis | No | Active and Passive | No |
| PROFILES by Mentis (formerly Collaborative Partnership / Profile System) | Faculty, Students, Staff, Equipment Owners, Research Centers, Facilities, Technologies, Units etc. as per institution's needs | Yes | Active and Passive | Yes |
| Community Academic Profiles - CAP | Active Stanford physicians, School of Medicine faculty, students, staff and postdocs. | Yes | Active and Passive | Unknown |
| Curvita Profile Manager | All | Unknown | No networking | Unknown |
| CUSP - Columbia University Scientific Profiles | All Columbia faculty | Yes | Active | Unknown |
| Digital Vita | All | Yes | Passive | Unknown |
| Elsevier's Pure | Any researchers can be included | Yes the Administration module enables users to enter content into their profiles via forms, uploads or imports. Content types supported include (but not limited to): Persons, awarded grants, journals, org units, projects, events, equipment, activities, press clippings, funding opportunities, research outputs (from journal articles to memorandums of understanding), impacts, applications, datasets, student theses, courses taught and prizes | Active and Passive | Yes Funding Institution within Pure, interacts with Pure collecting funding opportunities to the profile researcher page with no manual effort. |
| Elsevier's SciVal | All published researchers | Yes, SciVal links to profiles in Scopus and researchers can submit feedback on profiles within Scopus to have papers added or removed. | Passive | No |
| Epernicus Solutions & Epernicus Network | Anyone who enters a profile (for Epernicus Network) | Yes (for Epernicus Network) | Passive | Unknown |
| Epistemio | Any researcher who creates a profile | Yes | N/A | No |
| ERIM Member Profile System (ERIM MIS) | Multiple faculties at Erasmus use it | Unknown | Active | Unknown |
| Esploro | Faculty, Staff, Library Staff, Graduate Students | Yes | Active and Passive | Yes (integration with Pivot and Research Professional) |
| EUREKA! Enhancing Student Research | University of Texas at Austin faculty | Unknown | No networking | Unknown |
| Expertise @ Maryland | All | Unknown | Currently passive, but building active | Unknown |
| Faculty Profile System | Any faculty at UC Irvine | Yes | No networking | Unknown |
| Faculty Research Information Profile (FRIP) | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index | Federally funded, published faculty | Unknown | No networking | Unknown |
| GENIUS | Any faculty member who creates a profile on the system | Yes | Passive | Unknown |
| Google | Anyone can be searched on Google | N/A | No networking | No |
| HUBzero | Indiana University, Indiana University School of Medicine, Purdue University, U. of Notre Dame, Regenstrief | Unknown | Active | Unknown |
| iamResearcher | Any researcher who creates a profile | Yes | Passive (?) | Unknown |
| iAMscientist | Any researcher who creates a profile | Yes | Passive | Unknown |
| i2iConnect | Industry licensing representatives | Unknown | Passive | Unknown |
| InCites | All published | Yes | Passive | No |
| INDURE | All faculty at 4 Indiana institutions | Unknown | Passive | Unknown |
| LatticeGrid | Currently Medical School faculty only. Developed for biomedical research organizations | Yes (Users can update the Medical School faculty database, which then feeds LatticeGrid | Passive) | Yes (Connected to a Northwestern tool called FacultyConnect to match faculty with a special limited set of Northwestern-specific non-federal funding opportunities in the life and biomedical sciences domains) |
| Lattes Database | Curriculum and institutions database of Science and Technology areas in Brazil. Anyone can create a profile. | Yes | No apparent networking | Unknown |
| The Lens | Profiles are automatically created and can be linked (e.g. via ORCID) | Yes | Active and Passive | Unknown |
| LinkedIn | Anyone who creates a LinkedIn profile | Yes | Passive and Active | Unknown |
| Life Science Network | Anyone who creates a profile | Yes | Active and Passive | No |
| Loki | All faculty at University of Iowa | Yes | Passive | Unknown |
| Loop | Anyone who creates a profile | Yes | Passive and Active | Unknown |
| Lyterati | Faculty, academic administrators (department chairs, deans, provost), center directors, grad students, staff | Yes | Active and Passive | Yes (through advanced searching and web profile exploration) |
| McCormick Collaboration Visualization Tool | All Northwestern publications from Web of Science | No | Passive | No |
| MizzouLinks | Currently a pilot group from two Missouri interdisciplinary centers | Unknown | Passive | Unknown |
| MyScienceWork | Anyone who creates a profile | Yes | Active and Passive | Unknown |
| OSU:pro | All OSU faculty | Unknown | No apparent networking | Unknown |
| Pivot | 3 million profiles (and growing, according to the publisher). Profiles are compiled even without user registration, but can only be viewed by registered users | Yes | Passive | Yes through a direct connection with the COS product |
| Portfolio & Showroom | All users may be included (as defined by the university). | Yes | Passive and Active | No |
| Profiles | All users as defined by each institution. "Profiles" are also created for institutions, departments, concepts, publications, networks, events or any other class defined in the ontology | Yes | Passive and Active | No |
| ReachNC | UNC faculty in various disciplines, Duke, and RTI Fellows | Yes | Passive | No |
| Research Accelerator | Any member of the Yale research enterprise | Yes (?) | Passive | Unknown |
| ResearcherID | Anyone who creates a profile | Yes | Passive and Active | Unknown |
| SciENcv | Not yet established | Not yet established | No apparent networking | No |
| Symplectic Elements | All users may be included (as defined by institution). | Yes (Profiles are automatically populated with data, as dictated by internal and external data feeds. Some profile data can be manually curated by end users, proxy users, or administrators. Users can create new relationships between elements.) | Passive and Active | Yes - Through integrations with research news and funding information provider *Research, researchers are able to get tailored funding opportunities linked to their Elements accounts. |
| VIVO | All users (as defined by the institution) | Yes | Passive and Active | Possibly |
| Yaffle | All Memorial University faculty | Yes | Passive | Unknown |

## Controlled vocabulary, ontologies and author disambiguation

This table provides information on the types of controlled vocabulary or thesauri used by the tools, as well as ontologies supported and whether author disambiguation is performed by the software.
Ontologies and disambiguation :
| Research Networking Tool | Thesaurus/Controlled Vocabulary Used | Ontology/Ontologies Supported | Automatic Author Disambiguation |
| Academic Room | unknown | unknown | No |
| AcademicLabs | Term suggestions and filters use a.o. MeSH and MAG | unknown | Yes |
| Activity Insight | Yes | Fully customizable data collection screens; campus, college and department-defined ontologies | Yes |
| C-IKNOW | Not applicable | Uses elements of FOAF and Dublin Core in RDF; uses Pellet reasoning engine | No (but can be done in conjunction with software developed at Northwestern University) |
| PROFILES by Mentis (formerly Collaborative Partnership / Profile System) | Yes | Dublin Core, Social Media and compatible with VIVO and other popular ontologies | Yes |
| Community Academic Profiles - CAP | MeSH | Unknown | Yes (partial) |
| Converis | In some fields | CASRAI, VIVO | Yes (Author clustering capabilities used to match authors with papers) |
| Curvita Profile Manager | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| CUSP - Columbia University Scientific Profiles | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| Digital Vita | Unknown | Unknown | No (but can be done manually by authors) |
| Elsevier's Pure (now integrated with SciVal Experts) | The "Elsevier Fingerprinting Engine" uses ten thesauri including MeSH to match and identify key concepts for an individual or group of people. Thesauri updates and expansion are ongoing. | Maps to VIVO ontology | Yes |
| Elsevier's SciVal | The "Elsevier Fingerprinting Engine" uses ten thesauri including MeSH to match and identify key concepts for an individual or group of people. Thesauri updates and expansion are ongoing. | Maps to VIVO ontology | Yes |
| Epernicus Solutions & Epernicus Network | Unknown | Unknown | No (can be done manually by authors) |
| ERIM Member Profile System (ERIM MIS) | Unknown | Unknown | Yes (uses author ID numbers) |
| Esploro | ProQuest thesaurus, ERA FOR, PQTD, and more, All thesauri are regularly updated. | Plans to implement the VIVO ontology | Yes |
| EUREKA! Enhancing Student Research | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| Expertise @ Maryland | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| Faculty Profile System | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| Faculty Research Information Profile (FRIP) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| GENIUS | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| Google | None (Google uses generic keywords) | Unknown | No (but can be done manually through Google Scholar "My Citations" functionality) |
| HUBzero | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| iamResearcher | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| iAMscientist | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| i2iConnect | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| InCites | In some fields | Unknown | No (Though InCites can accept data from ResearcherID and Converis profiling systems for disambiguation) |
| INDURE | Unknown | Unknown | N/A |
| LatticeGrid | MeSH | Uses elements of FOAF and other ontologies | No (but can be done manually by authors) |
| Lattes Database | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| The Lens | Yes | Customizable data collection screens and university/institutional profiles | Yes |
| LinkedIn | None | Unknown | No |
| Life Science Network | Unknown | Unknown | No (but can be done manually) |
| Loki | Unknown | Unknown | Yes (uses campus directory for authentication) |
| Lyterati | Yes | Fully customizable ontology that maps to VIVO | Yes (using parsing algorithm on free text) |
| McCormick Collaboration Visualization Tool | None | Unknown | Yes |
| MizzouLinks | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| MyScienceWork | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| OSU:pro | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Pivot | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| Portfolio & Showroom | Yes | Yes The ontology's vocabulary is mapped to international ontologies (e.g. Getty AAT, GND, MARC Code List for Relators Scheme) | Yes (users can also differentiate manually) |
| Profiles | MeSH, others are being developed to go beyond the life and biomedical sciences | VIVO RDF ontology with additional Profiles RDF classes and properties | Yes Harvard Profiles uses an XML-based "disambiguation service" to import Medline publications and uses configurable heuristics in its disambiguation algorithm |
| ReachNC | Scopus taxonomy uses MeSH and general keywords | Maps to VIVO ontology | Yes |
| Research Accelerator | Unknown | Unknown | No |
| ResearcherID | Unknown | Unknown | No (although authors can build their publication list and manually disambiguate) |
| SciENcv | No thesaurus used | Unknown | No |
| Symplectic Elements | MeSH, Fields of Research, ScienceMetrix. | Supports mapping of publication, person and grants data to the VIVO ontology via their open source VIVO Harvester Extension, as well as Harvard Catalyst's Profiles RNS. | Yes |
| VIVO | VIVO uses several thesauri that are available through Semantic Web, including MeSH | The VIVO Ontology was developed and supported by NIH-funded efforts and continues to be developed and built by its open source community at GitHub and in collaboration with the eagle-i project. | Yes |
| Yaffle | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |

## Bibliometrics

This table provides information on the types of bibliometrics provided in the tool.
Biblometrics :
| Research Networking Tool | h-index | Citation count | Altmetrics | SNIP and SJR | Journal Impact Factor* | Other | Comment |
| Academic Room | | | | | | | |
| AcademicLabs | Soon | Yes | | Yes | | | |
| Activity Insight | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | |
| C-IKNOW | | | | | | | |
| PROFILES by Mentis (formerly Collaborative Partnership / Profile System) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | |
| Community Academic Profiles - CAP | | | | | | | |
| Converis | Yes | Yes | Yes Can integrate with altmetric data feed | No | Yes | Category Normalized Citation Impact, Journal Normalized Citation Impact, Percentile in Category, Highly Cited Paper, Hot Paper, International Collaboration, Institutional Collaboration, Industry Collaboration and Open Access | |
| Curvita Profile Manager | | | | | | | |
| CUSP - Columbia University Scientific Profiles | | | | | | | |
| Digital Vita | | | | | | | |
| Elsevier's Pure (integrated with SciVal) | Yes | Yes | Yes Altmetric and PlumX | Yes | No | Field-weighted Citation Impact, Number of Authors, CiteScore | |
| Elsevier's SciVal | Yes | Yes | Yes Views data from ScienceDirect and Scopus | Yes | No | 20+ indicators ranging from h, g & m indices, to Publications in Top Journal Percentiles, Field-Weighted Citation Impact, Academic-Corporate Collaboration Impact & Views per Publication | |
| Epernicus Solutions & Epernicus Network | | | | | | | |
| ERIM Member Profile System (ERIM MIS) | | | | | | | |
| Esploro | YesPlanned | Yes integrated with external tools | Yes | Yes planned | Yes planned | Multiple research-related indicators to measure research outputs usage and impact | |
| EUREKA! Enhancing Student Research | | | | | | | |
| Expertise @ Maryland | | | | | | | |
| Faculty Profile System | | | | | | | |
| Faculty Research Information Profile (FRIP) | | | | | | | |
| Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index | | | | | | | |
| GENIUS | | | | | | | |
| Google Scholar | Yes | | | | | | |
| HUBzero | | | | | | | |
| iamResearcher | | | | | | | |
| iAMscientist | | | | | | | |
| i2iConnect | | | | | | | |
| InCites | Yes | Yes | Yes Recorded Future partnership provides customized newsfeed and institution activity from web content | No | Yes | | |
| INDURE | | | | | | | |
| LatticeGrid | | | | | | | |
| Lattes Database | | | | | | | |
| The Lens | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Patent Citations, OA-Ratio, Collaborative Ratio | |
| LinkedIn | No | No | None | | | | |
| Life Science Network | No | No | Yes (views counts, recommendations, rating scores calculated from anonymous and non-anonymous contributions) | No | No (but journals can be entered into the database and their IF indicated) | | |
| Loki | | | | | | | |
| Lyterati | | | | | | | |
| McCormick Collaboration Visualization Tool | | | | | | | |
| MizzouLinks | | | | | | | |
| MyScienceWork | | | | | | | |
| OSU:pro | | | | | | | |
| Pivot | | | | | | | |
| Portfolio & Showroom | No | No | No | No | No | | Portfolio & Showroom deliberately dispenses with bibliometrics and focuses on alternative quality measurement methods, such as the DORA initiative |
| Profiles | | | | | | | |
| ReachNC | Yes | | | | | | |
| Research Accelerator | | | | | | | |
| ResearcherID | Yes | Yes | | | | | |
| SciENcv | | | | | | | |
| Symplectic Elements | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | |
| VIVO | | | Yes | | | | |
| Yaffle | | | | | | | |