Making HKU Research Discoverable & Findable: The HKU Scholars Hub

Abstract

Developed and maintained by the University Libraries, the Hub is the institutional repository of The University of Hong Kong (HKU). On top of its regular work to place HKU publications in open access, it has received funding from the HKU Office of Knowledge Exchange (KEO) to make HKU research and researchers highly visible on the web, with the aim of increasing all forms of collaboration, internally and externally. The Libraries extracted data from several internal HKU silos and external databases to create author profiles, or "HKU ResearcherPages" for each of the professoriate staff. These pages bring together in a public mashup, interlinking publication details, patent records, and grant applications, as well as details of community service, postgraduate student supervision, research interests, etc. Bibliometrics provided by Scopus and ResearcherID, as well as Hub generated view counts and download counts, cumulated to the article level, and to the author level, show that this work and these pages have increased visibility, and thus impact. Serendipitously this work has also received the attention and efforts of many HKU researchers, who now interact with Library staff and their ResearcherPages to ensure that their details are complete and shown in the best light. The Hub is therefore one tool by which a new culture and community of Knowledge Exchange is being forged at HKU.