Information exchange on an academic social networking site: A multidiscipline comparison on researchgate Q&A

Abstract

The increasing popularity of academic social networking sites (ASNSs) requires studies on the usage of ASNSs among scholars and evaluations of the effectiveness of these ASNSs. However, it is unclear whether current ASNSs have fulfilled their design goal, as scholars' actual online interactions on these platforms remain unexplored. To fill the gap, this article presents a study based on data collected from ResearchGate. Adopting a mixed‐method design by conducting qualitative content analysis and statistical analysis on 1,128 posts collected from ResearchGate Q&A, we examine how scholars exchange information and resources, and how their practices vary across three distinct disciplines: library and information services, history of art, and astrophysics. Our results show that the effect of a questioner's intention (i.e., seeking information or discussion) is greater than disciplinary factors in some circumstances. Across the three disciplines, responses to questions provide various resources, including experts' contact details, citations, links to Wikipedia, images, and so on. We further discuss several implications of the understanding of scholarly information exchange and the design of better academic social networking interfaces, which should stimulate scholarly interactions by minimizing confusion, improving the clarity of questions, and promoting scholarly content management.

ResearchGate and Academia.edu as networked socio-technical systems for scholarly communication: a literature review

“…Only a couple of studies analysed the reputation mechanisms of Academia.edu (Niyazov et al 2016;Thelwall and Kousha 2014). Lastly, only two studies investigated scholarly practices and new modes of communication: one looked at whether authors comply with the publisher's copyright policies when they self-archive full-text versions of their articles on ResearchGate (Jamali 2017), while the other examined scholars' information exchange in the form of question answering and small group discussions on ResearchGate (Jeng et al 2017).…”

Motivations for self‐archiving on an academic social networking site: A study on researchgate

“…Interaction among researchers has improved their professional stance thanks to many of the built-in functions and interfaces in SNSs/ASNSs (Jeng, He, & Jiang, 2015;Jeng, He, Jiang, & Zhang, 2012;Jordan, 2017). The constant updates on ASNS interfaces such as RG and Mendeley successfully support informal scholarly communication and information exchange on Q&A, enabling a multidisciplinary comparison in the fields of library and information services, history of art, and astrophysics (Goodwin, Jeng, & He, 2014;Jeng, DesAutels, He, & Li, 2017).…”

Citizen-Scholars: Social Media and the Changing Nature of Scholarship

“…Perhaps most importantly, the integration of these social tools into scholars' lives is largely uncharted and unexplored territory which may have far-reaching, potentially negative consequences we have yet to understand. A recent review of the literature on ResearchGate and Academia.edu as tools for scholarly communication, for instance, found only two studies that actually investigated scholarly practices when using these academic social network sites [19]; one study examined whether authors comply with publishers' copyright agreements when uploading their articles to ResearchGate [22], and the other examined question-and-answers and small group discussions on ResearchGate [23]. On the other hand, scholars have theorized several advantages to using these academic social network sites for open, social scholarly practices: They help users to keep up with research trends, build communities, and engage in conversation; they improve open sharing of scholarly outputs at various stages; they stimulate alternate formal and informal forms of peer review; and they develop and enhance academic reputation and identity [19].…”