The different variants with which an author signs their articles or includes the name of their institution in a publication make it difficult to analyze the citations received, reducing the impact of their scientific production and visibility.
In the case of Spanish names, the problem is magnified by having more signature options (two surnames, compound given names, addition of particles, different translations of the name in local languages etc.), besides the fact that English is the majority language in scientific communication (articles, papers, websites etc.) and in the dissemination and retrieval of information (databases, repositories, search engines, etc.). Therefore, the following recommendations are provided.
Given name(s)
The name should distinguish someone from other authors, especially working on the same area of knowledge.
Using the full form of the name differentiates gender or possible homonyms. Some databases reduce the given name to an initial.
For a compound name:
Include the full given name and the middle initial to prevent it from being interpreted as the first surname. For example: Maria J.
Connect both names with a hyphen, such as: María-Jesús
Avoid the particle “of” or replace it with hyphens. For example: For Isabel del Carmen, use Isabel C. or Isabel-del-Carmen
Surname or surnames
Use the first surname only if it is rare. For example: Ignacio Lanzarri
Use both surnames if they are common, connecting them with a hyphen, such as: Ignacio Martínez-Pérez
Avoid particles or hyphenate them. For example: Evaristo Hernández Torre or Evaristo Hernández-de-la-Torre
Place of work or institutional affiliation. Standardization of institutional affiliation
This is very important as a factor for identifying homonyms and for effective bibliometric indicators by institutions and countries.
Include the following information in the vernacular language of the institution, in this order:
Name of the research group (if applicable) or department (if applicable)
Center or Institute (full name and acronym, if any)
Institution to which it is affiliated
Postal address, city, country
The correct referencing of the workplace favors the visibility of the centers and institutions in the international scientific community.
The lack of name standardization in scientific publications and in the main bibliographic databases reduces the visibility of authorship and that of the university. This is detrimental both for the identification and retrieval of researchers’ publications and citations received, as well as for their analysis for scientific policy purposes.
ORCID
ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor ID) is a nonprofit project that offers a system for the unequivocal identification of the authors of scientific publications, as well as a place to register their data and works and, if desired, to share them.
ORCID has become the world’s single author registry, in the manner of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). It will be linked to the production of the researcher(s), facilitating knowledge of their publications, identifying collaborators and reviewers and, in short, supporting the process of scientific discovery.
In Educación y Humanismo, it is mandatory that all authors have an ORCID. Authors can register on the following page: https://orcid.org/
