2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Connecting Digital Scholarly Researcher Identifiers & University Systems: Assessment of Engineering Faculty at a Major Research Institution

Presented at Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) Technical Session 3

At Virginia Tech, a unit within University Libraries is responsible for supporting institution-wide efforts to improve impact and visibility of campus research. Beyond providing consultations and workshops for growing research impact, the unit evaluated and improved the research data ecosystem to ensure more complete and accurate data capture. Part of this process involved assessment of how researchers use, if at all, researcher scholarly identifiers (ID). Digital scholarly researcher identifiers, such as the ORCID iD and Scopus Author ID, are important for disambiguating researchers’ works and helping to capture accurate global impact data. This is especially critical for our institution’s College of Engineering, which contributes a large share of campus research outputs.

The researcher IDs and systems involved in this project are Scopus Author IDs, ORCID iDs, Academic Analytics, Symplectic Elements profiles, and our institution’s Banner instance (human resources records). This paper will cover the process of finding, assessing, and integrating identifiers across systems for use in research impact reporting and benchmarking, including ways this can be applied to any research institution. The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech’s status of researcher IDs will be detailed along with related efforts by the University Libraries’ unit. Some surprising results included the number of duplicate IDs and incorrect institutions associated with IDs, leading to inaccurate reporting metrics. In the future, this work will be contained within an internal university data site for assessment by department heads and other leadership to improve Virginia Tech’s use of these key researcher IDs and their corresponding metrics.

Authors

Dr. Sarah Over http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2599-0050 Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University [biography]

Dr. Sarah Over is the Assistant Director for Research Intelligence at Virginia Tech, serving as their Engineering Librarian and representative for their new Patent and Trademark Resource Center. She is also part of a team focused on research impact and intelligence to support the College of Engineering and Office of Research and Innovation at Virginia Tech. Dr. Over’s background is in aerospace and nuclear engineering, with years of experience teaching engineering research methods and introductory coding.
Dr. Mengyu Yin Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Mengyu Yin is a Research Intelligence Data Scientist at Virginia Tech Libraries, where she supports research analytics and evaluation initiatives using data-driven approaches. She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Oklahoma State University (2021). Prior to joining Virginia Tech, she worked for nearly three years as a data scientist in the consulting industry, developing analytical solutions for clients across multiple sectors. Her expertise includes statistical modeling, machine learning, data visualization, and bibliometric and research analytics. At Virginia Tech, she works with research intelligence tools such as SciVal, Elsevier data products, and Overton to support research evaluation and strategic decision-making.
Emily Mazure Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Emily Mazure is the Research Impact Librarian at Virginia Tech University Libraries. She specializes in providing support to individuals, teams, departments, and others to increase the visibility of their work and thus their impact. Her expertise includes managing scholarly profiles online, exploring and analyzing scholarly metrics, finding strategic collaborators, and more.
Prof. Connie Stovall Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

As Director for Research Impact & Intelligence, I collaborate with campus stakeholders to translate information to insights. We utilize bibliometric, impact, institutional, funding, and industry data from sources such as Scival, Scopus, Web of Science, Mergent, NSF HERD, IPEDs, Funding Institutional and employ a variety of visualization tools such as Tableau and VosViewer to help identify research competencies, to understand collaboration networks and potential partnerships, and to demonstrate impact.
Shehryar Khan Virginia Tech [biography]

Shehryar Khan is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Research, Impact, and Intelligence (RII) at Virginia Tech, where he is currently pursuing an M.Eng. in Computer Science under the advisement of Dr. Sarah Over. His research focuses on the intersection of machine learning and systems, with specific interests in ML optimizations, post-training evaluations, and security. At RII, his work centers on the development of specialized Large Language Models (LLMs) for patent examination and the engineering of robust systems for the deduplication and organization of large-scale scholarly data. His broader professional interests lie in building high-impact software systems and improving the efficiency of data-driven intelligence.
Emma Jiren Wang Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Emma Jiren Wang holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. Her academic interests span Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), Engineering Education, and Library with Information Science. Her research explores interactive agent design, affective computing, computer science education, and social virtual reality.
Brian Craig Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Brian Craig is an associate, assisting the Research Impact and Intelligence team in multiple ways. With a background in liberal arts, SEO writing, social media, graphic design, printing, customer service, pet care, library collections management, illustration, and fine art, he has a diverse skillset.
Rachel Ann Miles Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Rachel Miles is the Research Impact Coordinator at Virginia Tech University Libraries. She specializes in research analytics and provides expertise in bibliometrics, altmetrics, research communication, and scholarly publishing. Rachel works closely with faculty, researchers, and administrators to manage the university’s Research Information Management (RIM) system, interpret research impact data, and support responsible, ethical research evaluation. She also advocates for awareness of how academic culture and incentive systems affect researcher well-being and behavior.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

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