Review, supervision, editorial work, data stewardship and infrastructure maintenance leave almost no trace in any system.
Which means if you do not record them yourself, they are simply gone — including from every application in which you will later be asked about them.
What goes unrecorded
- Peer review — anonymous by design.
- Editorial and board work.
- Supervision and mentoring, especially informal.
- Data, code and resources others use.
- Teaching and curriculum development.
- Community and infrastructure work.
Why it matters
- Assessment increasingly asks about contribution breadth.
- These activities are what makes a research community function — a system where nobody does them fails.
- They fall unevenly, and invisibility makes the imbalance impossible to address.
- You will be asked, usually with short notice.
Keeping your own record
- One file, updated as things happen.
- Date, activity, scale — how many, over what period.
- Outcomes where they exist.
- Ten minutes a month maintains it.
- Reconstruction from memory is always incomplete, and the gaps are systematic.
Using verification where available
- Review activity can be recorded through services that verify without breaking anonymity.
- Register datasets and software with identifiers.
- Link recorded activity to your persistent identifier.
- Verified records carry more weight than self-reported lists.
Presenting it
- Group by type rather than listing chronologically.
- Give scale — a number carries more than a mention.
- Connect to outcomes where you honestly can.
- Do not inflate — it is checkable and the reputational cost is disproportionate.
What registries can do
- Support recording verifiable non-publication contributions.
- Link to external verification rather than duplicating it.
- Display contribution breadth alongside publication counts.
- State explicitly that publication data is only part of a scholarly record.
One thing worth remembering
Start the file today, not when an application asks for it.
Everyone who has tried to reconstruct five years of review and supervision from memory has produced an incomplete list — and the parts that go missing are exactly the ones no external system recorded either.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Which contributions go unrecorded?
Peer review which is anonymous by design, editorial and board work, supervision and mentoring, data and resources others use, teaching, and community or infrastructure work.
Why does recording them matter?
Because assessment increasingly asks about contribution breadth, these activities make a research community function, and you will be asked with short notice.
How should the record be kept?
One file updated as things happen with date, activity, scale and outcomes — ten minutes a month maintains it, and reconstruction from memory is always incomplete.
How should contributions be presented?
Grouped by type rather than chronologically, with scale given as numbers, connected to outcomes where honest — and never inflated since it is checkable.
When should the file be started?
Today rather than when an application asks — reconstruction from memory produces incomplete lists, and the gaps are the parts no external system recorded either.
