The more people conduct and communicate research in social ways, the more metrics have evolved to give a nuanced understanding of the effect of research throughout its lifecycle. This can lead to an unsatisfactory situation where researchers face many ways to promote their work but few means to understand which actions generate actual results. This guide will explain how busy academics can promote their research in a time-efficient manner using Kudos.
Kudos is a web-based service that helps researchers to increase the visibility of their work AND then track the subsequent impact of their published articles. It is free for researchers to use and an account can be easily set up here. Kudos has been developed in response to a growing awareness that readers are struggling to filter the growing quantity of published research, especially with the advent of Open Access. It provides a single platform to help researchers assemble and create information in a way that can:
How does Kudos work?
Kudos offers 3 simple steps to manage and monitor the effective dissemination of your research.
Step 1 - Explain. Create a plain language summary of your publication so that it can be found and understood by a broader audience. This includes ways to:
For example, changing the article title from "California foredune plant biogeomorphology" to "California costal plants build sand dunes through teamwork."
Step 2 - Share. Enrich the article by adding links to other materials (such as video clips, interviews and datasets) that provide context. Share it to your social networks, web pages or email contacts. Use Kudos' trackable links to connect the article back to those other resources.
Step 3 - Measure. Measure the effect on clicks, views, downloads, mentions and citations to learn which communication channels are most effective at disseminating your work. Monitor the results in BRAD using the altmetric doughnut score and citation counts.
Why should I use it?
Kudos helps researchers who want assistance with increasing the usage of, and citations to, their publications. A 2015 NTI study found that using Kudos resulted in a 23% increase in full text downloads on publisher sites. It also helps researchers understand which of their promotion efforts are having the greatest effect on article performance. Specifically, it helps you:
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals adopted by the United Nations and its members in 2015 to address key global challenges and help the world achieve a better and more sustainable future by 2030.
Services for researchers
Kudos offers dedicated chargeable services to help individual researchers collate, showcase and explain their research in relation to the SDGs.
Kudos offers to help you make sure your research is tagged with the relevant SDG metadata, so that it is discoverable by the public, media, policymakers, funders, collaborators and industry. This helps promote the visibility of your research, potentially boosting citations and research influence.
The service makes use of generative AI summaries as detailed in their blog, with an illustrative example is another post: AI Summaries by Kudos: authors' verdict (spoiler: it's good news) (growkudos.com).
More information and fees for individual researchers are detailed on the Kudos website: Your research can help progress the Sustainable Development Goals (growkudos.com)
How Kudos works with publishers
Kudos also work with publishers to help them identify, explain, showcase and promote research in alignment with the SDGs. Among those partnering with Kudos are: Springer Nature, Sage, Wiley, BMJ, Brill, American Chemical Society (ACS) and Royal Society of Chemistry. They are joined by Crossref, the world's largest registry of metadata and DOIs, and a key data source of publications metadata and identifiers for articles, grants and other research objects.
Research exploring sector requirements
Kudos has launched a Real World Change study to gather information on attitudes and needs of researchers, universities, funders and policy makers in relation to the SDGs. Details are available here: Information and pricing for the Real World Change SDG research study (growkudos.com)
Kudos are leading a series of workshops to help Brunel researchers develop the skills and confidence in using and tracking social media to promote the visibility of their research. Places are limited to 20 and allocated on a first come / first served basis. To book a place please contact brad@brunel.ac.uk
