Researchers' judgment criteria of high-quality answers on academic social Q&A platforms

Abstract

PurposeThrough a two-stage survey, this paper examines how researchers judge the quality of answers on ResearchGate Q&A, an academic social networking site.Design/methodology/approachIn the first-stage survey, 15 researchers from Library and Information Science (LIS) judged the quality of 157 answers to 15 questions and reported the criteria that they had used. The content of their reports was analyzed, and the results were merged with relevant criteria from the literature to form the second-stage survey questionnaire. This questionnaire was then completed by researchers recognized as accomplished at identifying high-quality LIS answers on ResearchGate Q&A.FindingsMost of the identified quality criteria for academic answers—such as relevance, completeness, and verifiability—have previously been found applicable to generic answers. The authors also found other criteria, such as comprehensiveness, the answerer's scholarship, and value-added. Providing opinions was found to be the most important criterion, followed by completeness and value-added.Originality/valueThe findings here show the importance of studying the quality of answers on academic social Q&A platforms and reveal unique considerations for the design of such systems.

Evidence for Gastrointestinal Infection of SARS-CoV-2

“…From February 1 to 14, 2020, clinical specimens including serum, nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs, urine, stool and tissues from 73 SARS-CoV-2-infected hospitalized patients were obtained in accordance with China Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and tested for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA using the China CDC-standardized quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay [5]. Clinical characteristics of the 73 patients were shown in Supplementary Table 1 Gastrointestinal endoscopy was performed on a patient as described in Supplementary Case Clinical Information.…”

The spillover effects of different monetary incentive levels on health experts' free knowledge contribution behavior

“…However, the measurement indicators of answer quality are different because of the situational difference of the Q&A platforms. For example, Li et al (2020) found that, on the academic Q&A platform, providing opinion, completeness and value-added are the most important measurement indicators of answer quality. Calefato et al (2015) stated that, on Stack Overflow, presentation quality, affect and reputation are important factors to predict answer quality.…”

An Investigation on the Use by Academic Researchers of Knowledge from Scientific Social Networking Sites

“…Another, equally widespread point of view, underlines the use of SSNS as sources of scientific knowledge [21,[40][41][42]. Researchers passively consult documents uploaded by their colleagues [19]-sometimes, unconsciously infringing the copyright [43]-or actively seek the knowledge they need through the use of features like "question and answers" [40].…”

“…SSNS are by now widespread in the academic world and have become part of the work of researchers [35]. They have been studied as means for gaining visibility and reputation [36] but also as milieus for knowledge sharing [40][41][42]88].…”

“…Taking ResearchGate as a case study, our work investigated, in particular, the impact of the researcher's attitude towards SSNS on knowledge use [18,19,35]. Two possible attitudes have been considered: (1) researchers see SSNS as tools giving access to readily available knowledge [2,[40][41][42] researchers see SSNS as scientific communities [38,53].…”