Make sure you get credit for all your scholarly work. When researchers look for your publications in databases, such as Scopus, they could run into a problem called name ambiguity.

Name ambiguity occurs when it’s uncertain whether authors of publications appearing in a database and having similar names are one and the same person or not. It happens most often with authors who share common names, such as Smith or Chen, but it’s also seen frequently enough with unusual names. Scopus tries to solve this problem by assigning a unique numerical identifier to authors. Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect system yet, and multiple author IDs have sometimes been assigned to one author, which undermines the original intent.

If you would like us to determine whether you have more than one author ID number, or if you notice while searching Scopus that you have more than one author ID number assigned to your work, you can let us know through Ask A Librarian at MSK. We will contact Scopus on your behalf for correction.