Getting More RRID Mentions

The Research Resource Identifier (RRID) is a very powerful concept for improving facility citability in publications. However, its only useful when people know about it. So how does one increase awareness of their RRID?

Include it on your Websites

Websites are the virtual front doors for your facilities. Including your RRID prominently along with your facility name makes the link obvious. Also, don’t neglect your resource sites, such as iLab. List your RRIDs there as well. Below is an example site at University of Colorado, Boulder.

Include instructions and a citation tag on your site. You can export your citation tag directly from your CoreMarketplace profile (more on that here). With a little web dev magic you can include a citation button similar to the one on your profile page.

Include it in your Email

Adding your facility RRID to your email signature is easy. With that in place, every email you send to colleagues and partners using your facility alerts them to your RRID.

Also, if you send semi-regular newsletters to your facility users, consider including your RRID with quick instructions for correct citation when publishing.

Include it in your Facility Space

Print out your RRID and stick it to the wall where every facility visitor can see it. Others have told us they put the facility RRID and instrument RRID on every instrument in their facility so when users run an experiment they can’t help but see it.

Include it on your Posters and Presentations

Going to a conference? Giving a poster session or a presentation? Stick your RRID right at the top of your poster or slide. You can casually mention it. If someone asks what an RRID is, that’s a great opening for expanding on your citation efforts.

Other Places to Include it

(Quotes from other facility heads)

• "I basically have the RRID listed across all the equipment calendars on my iLab page"
• "For booking the microscopes we use PPMS from Stratocore and I have just added it to the heading of the facility, which is displayed on all PPMS AIF pages."
• "Post the RRID on a screensaver on the instruments"
• "Mention acknowledging the SRL via the RRID during new user trainings"
• "The RRID is included at the bottom of the result report sent to the users."
• "Anytime Methods write up are requested by users, we include an acknowledgement sentence which include the RRID."
• "When reviewing/editing manuscripts as an author, I always add my “core laboratory” acknowledgement section that includes the lab RRID."