Usage of academic social networking sites by Karachi social science faculty

Abstract

The last decade has seen the emergence of academic social networking sites as a vehicle for scholars to promote their research and communicate with other scholars in their field. Given the small number of studies on the use of such sites by Pakistani academics, the authors conducted an exploratory study of social science faculty members at five Karachi (Pakistan) public sector universities. Analysis of the 68 valid responses revealed that the primary reason for accessing an academic social networking site was to search for articles on the site. Results also showed that accruing citations was the main reason for which respondents uploaded their own publications. The findings validate a role for librarians to support academics in their creation of effective online academic profiles.

The Use of Academic Social Networking Sites in Scholarly Communication: Scoping Review

“…Some studies dealing with cross-cutting topics are assigned to multiple themes. (Agarwal et al, 2016;Ali, Wolski, & Richardson, 2017;Allahar, 2017;Asmi, 2018;Asmi & Margam, 2018;Baro, Tralagba, & Ebiagbe, 2018;Bhardwaj, 2017;Calvi & Cassella, 2013;Camilleri, 2017;Conole & Alevizou, 2010;D'Alessandro et al, 2020;Deng, Tong, & Fu, 2018;González-Solar, 2018;Goodwin et al, 2014;Gorska et al, 2020;Greifeneder et al, 2018;Gruzd, Staves, & Wilk, 2012;Hoffmann et al, 2016;Jeng et al, 2017;Jordan, 2019b;Kapidzic, 2020;Koranteng & Wiafe, 2019;Laakso, Lindman, Shen, Nyman, & Björk, 2017;Manca, 2018;Martín, Orduna, & Delgado, 2018;Meishar-Tal & Pieterse, 2017;Ortega, 2017;Ortega, 2016;Ostermaier-Grabow & Linek, 2019;Li et al, 2018;Ponte & Simon, 2011;Radford, Kitzie, Mikitish, Floegel, Radford, & Connaway, 2018;Salahshour et al, 2016;Salahshour, Nilashi, Mohamed Dahlan, & Ibrahim, 2019;Singson & Amees, 2017;Vasquez et al, 2015;Williams & Woodacre, 2016;Yim & Shin, 2013;Ali & Richardson, 2018;…”

“…Quantitative approaches using surveys are the primary research methodology used in these papers. The following factors stimulated users to join and use ASNs: (1) connecting with colleagues, (Calvi & Cassella, 2013;Gruzd et al, 2012;Salahshour et al, 2016;Yousuf et al, 2018) ; (2) sharing/disseminating published and unpublished research works, (Baro et al, 2018;Conole & Alevizou, 2013;Gruzd et al, 2012) ; (3) acquiring materials, (Calvi & Cassella, 2013;Gruzd et al, 2012;Salahshour et al, 2016;Ali & Richardson, 2018);…”

“…(4) knowing a number of accruing citations, (Rahmani & Asnafi, 2017;Ali & Richardson, 2018) (5) receiving more citations, (Conole & Alevizou, 2013); (6) collaborating with others, (Gruzd et al, 2012); (7) supporting openness, (Calvi & Cassella, 2013); (8) increasing one's visibility, (Baro et al, 2018) and 9self-promotion and egobolstering (Meishar-Tal & Pieterse, 2017).…”

“…The findings highlighted that ASNs are becoming useful in the entire research lifecycle for conception/discovery, information sharing/archiving, interaction, and other related activities (Meishar-Tal & Pieterse, 2017). Resource discovery is one of the major reasons that drive users to join ASNs (Calvi & Cassella, 2013;Ali & Richardson, 2018). Indeed, the importance of Web 2.0 for accessing scientific articles and educational materials was predicted a decade ago (Ponte & Simon, 2011).…”

Awareness of Social Media Tools Among Engineering Faculties and Students in Puducherry – A Study

“…Aleryani, Mofleh and Alariki (2017) found that more than 33% of researchers are not aware of academic social network sites. Ali and Richardson (2017) showed that accruing citations was the main reason for the respondents to upload their publications. The studies by Bardakcı, Arslan and U¨never (2017), Meishar-Tal and Pieterse (2017), and Mering (2017) proved that the use of social network sites enhanced the research collaboration and information development with researchers across the globe.…”