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

Abstract

ResearchGate and Academia.edu have been increasingly acknowledged as the most popular academic social network sites (ASNS) for scholarly communication. Along with their benefits for supporting communication and knowledge sharing within academic communities, concerns over quality and credibility remain a pertinent issue. In terms of research investigation, ASNS have attracted strong attention for new scholarly practice and their potential for building, maintaining and enhancing reputation. However, a thorough understanding is still lacking of how these sites operate as networked socio-technical systems reshaping scholarly practices and academic identity. This article analyses 39 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals with a specific focus on ResearchGate and Academia.edu. The aim is to describe the status of the research and to identify gaps and priorities in the areas of scholarly networked learning and shared knowledge. Results show that the number of studies focusing on ResearchGate was more than double those dedicated to Academia.edu. While both sites have attracted attention in the library and information sciences as deployments for reputation building and alternative ranking systems, such as ResearchGate metrics, there is a dearth of research investigating practices and new modes of communication in the light of a networked participatory approach to scholarship. Most of the studies analysed focused on the general uptake or impact assessment of alternative metrics, while very few investigated individual and collective scholarly practices. This study points to the need for specific research on open and distributed learning achieved in ASNS according to a networked learning perspective.

Changes in Teacher Training within the TPACK Model Framework: A Systematic Review

“…The total amount of works considered was 37, and the descriptors applied TPACK and TPCK, of which a high percentage of the publications in indexed scientific journals, in both databases, were reiterated. The study was designed following the structure and recommendations of other systematic reviews [22][23][24][25] regarding databases, searching strategies, limits, and filtered documents presented in Table 1. 2018 AND (LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, "ar")) AND (LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "SOCI") OR LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "COMP") OR LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "MATH")) AND (LIMIT-TO (LANGUAGE, "English") OR LIMIT-TO (LANGUAGE, "Spanish")) AND (LIMIT-TO (EXACTKEYWORD, "TPACK"))…”

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

“…Unlike Facebook and Twitter, social media like ResearchGate and Academia.edu, both for-profit companies founded in 2008, were designed to facilitate academic and research practices and have features that can promote open dissemination practices and knowledge-sharing within academic communities [19]. For instance, ResearchGate supports knowledge-sharing and research dissemination by allowing academics to upload research products, "follow" other academics, and get notified when academics of interest upload new scholarly products.…”

Whose Research is it Anyway? Academic Social Networks Versus Institutional Repositories

“…Manca published a review article focusing on Academia.edu and ResearchGate in 2018, which nicely summarized much of the research done to date (Manca 2018). The fact that there is enough literature to do a meta-analysis of this sort indicates the growth of scholarship on ASNs, legitimizing it as an area of research.…”