Researchers' uses of and disincentives for sharing their research identity information in research information management systems

Abstract

This study examined how researchers used research information systems (RIMSs) and the relationships among researchers' seniority, discipline, and types and extent of RIMS use. Most researchers used RIMSs to discover research content. Fewer used RIMSs for sharing and promoting their research. Early career researchers were more frequent users of RIMSs than were associate and full professors. Likewise, assistant professors and postdocs exhibited a higher probability of using RIMSs to promote their research than did students and full professors. Humanities researchers were the least frequent users of RIMSs. Moreover, humanities scholars used RIMSs to evaluate research less than did scholars in other disciplines. The tasks of discovering papers, monitoring the literature, identifying potential collaborators, and promoting research were predictors of higher RIMS use. Researchers who engaged in promoting their research, evaluating research, or monitoring the literature showed a greater propensity to have a public RIMS profile. Furthermore, researchers mostly agreed that not being required, having no effect on their status, not being useful, or not being a norm were reasons for not having a public RIMS profile. Humanities scholars were also more likely than social scientists to agree that having a RIMS profile was not a norm in their fields.

The structure and priorities of researchers' scholarly profile maintenance activities: A case of institutional research information management system

“…Haustein and Larivière (2014) found that the majority of Mendeley users in four disciplines (i.e., biomedical research, clinical medicine, health, and psychology) were junior scholars (i.e., doctoral students, postgraduate students, and postdocs). Stvilia and his collaborators (Stvilia et al, 2018a) also found that assistant professors and postdocs had higher usage in RIMS than full professors. However, this study considered only three seniority levels (i.e., assistant, associate, and full professors) that do not fully capture researchers' seniority range in academia.…”

“…Engaging researchers in the management of their RIMS profiles can bring the necessary knowledge of disciplinary context to the curation of their research information. To achieve that goal, however, a non-mandatory RIMS needs to make researchers' engagement with the RIMS low cost (Stvilia et al, 2018a). Hence, TAMU Libraries' Scholars project team slowly increased the number of curated faculty profiles in Scholars by going department by department and college by college and being guided by their feedback, needs, and comments.…”

“…University administrators see RIMS as an information system that can support their evidence-based decision-making processes; individual researchers use RIMS to distribute their scholarship, enhance their scholarly reputation, and/or identify their future collaborators; and students use RIMS to find advisors and monitor literature (Nicholas et al, 2015;Wu, Stvilia, & Lee, 2017). In this study, we broadly define RIMS as the type of information systems that manage and/or provide access to researchers' scholarly works, identity and expertise information, and related services (de Castro, Shearer, & Summann, 2014;Stvilia, Wu, & Lee, 2018a). This definition encompasses different types of research information management systems with different functions, use cases, and workflows in settings of global (e.g., ResearchGate, Google Scholar), national (e.g., NARCIS), statewide (e.g., Florida ExpertNet, Ohio Innovation Exchange), disciplinary (e.g., DIRECT2Experts), and institutional (e.g., VIVO, DSpace-CRIS, Symplectic Elements, Pure).…”

Mapping research activities and societal impact by taxonomy of indicators: uniformity and diversity across academic fields

“…The identified information-quality problems included five types of problems (inaccuracy, irrelevance, outdatedness, incompleteness and spuriousness) and twelve quality criteria that the researchers perceived to be important. In a later study, Stvilia et al (2018) refined the interview questions and developed a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was completed by 412 participants with a response rate of 25%.…”

Privacy and Research Information Management Systems

“…Concerns over privacy, in other words, were not identified as a significant issue. 18 Several existing case studies on RIM Systems focus on aspects other than privacy, such as integration with institutional repositories, 19 implementation to fulfill publications reporting needs, 20 motivations for engaging with RIM Systems, 21 and library roles. 22…”