---

FAQ for authors registered in RePEc

General RePEc questions

1. What is the purpose of the RePEc Author Service?

   The RePEc Author Service pursues several goals:

   • Provide consistent contact information for authors. If you move, update your information here and it will be reflected in listings for all your works
   • Link works with their authors' profiles, so that users can find other works by the same author.
   • Distinguish works of homonyms
   • Identify different versions of the same works as authors claim them as theirs.
   • Establish rankings of authors and institutions.
2. What is RePEc?

   RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) is a group working on the provision of electronic working papers and articles. We are concerned that individuals' working paper sites are not the efficient way to disseminate scientific information. We believe that joining forces is a good thing because we can learn from each other how to do things better and promote our work together. Check the RePEc website for details.

3. Is RePEc used?

   Quite a lot in fact. For details, see LogEc, which covers traffic at some of the RePEc services. In addition, data collected by RePEc is used in various other services, including Econlit and Google Scholar. And you can use RePEc for your bibliographic searches too: IDEAS, EconPapers.

4. What are RePEc services?

   RePEc services use the data collected through RePEc. For a listing of them, look on the RePEc website.

5. How can I get my department's working papers or my journal's articles listed?

   The publishing institution indexes all relevant publications itself. This is not done by RePEc, which has no funding to do so. This allows RePEc services to remain free for all participants. Detailed instructions on how to proceed are available.

6. How can I optimize the visibility of my works?

   Make sure all your works are listed in your profile. To do so, you should have a proper set of name variations listed (once logged in click on "names"). Indeed, publishers do not have a consistent way of refering to authors. For example, John Edgar Smith may be listed as:

   1. John Edgar Smith
   2. John E. Smith
   3. John Smith
   4. J. Smith
   5. J. E. Smith
   6. Smith, John Edgar
   7. Smith, John E.
   8. Smith, John
   9. Smith, J.
   10. Smith, J. E.
   not counting misspellings. If you fill the first, middle, and last name fields on the name variations page, and then click on the "suggestions" button, you should have a good set of relevant variations. Do not forget to "save".

   Also, make sure to have links to your profile on your homepage and/or email signature.

7. I want to help more with RePEc. What can I do?

   Check out the volunteers page. There are plenty of opportunities to help in the project whihc is entirely volunteer driven.

8. Who pays for RePEc and its services as it is free for all?

   RePEc is largely run by volunteers on donated or shared hardware. Various small projects have been covered by small grants.

9. How often is RePEc data updated?

   Most RePEc services update their databases nightly. This means that an item added to the database by a local RePEc archive maintainer should be listed in the RePEc Author Service within two days. After that period, log in, click on research and ask for an automatic search, if it did not start by itself.

Comments and additions about your own experience are welcome. Send them to Christian Zimmermann.