Toward a homogenization of academic social sites: A longitudinal study of profiles in Academia.edu, Google Scholar Citations and ResearchGate

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution of profiles from academic social networking sites according to disciplines, academic statuses and gender, and detect possible biases with regard to the real staff distribution. In this way, it intends to know whether these academic places tend to become specialized sites or, on the contrary, there is a homogenization process. Design/methodology/approach To this purpose, the evolution of profiles of one organization (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) in three major academic social sites (Academia.edu, Google Scholar Citations and ResearchGate) through six quarterly samples since April 2014 to September 2015 are tracked. Findings Longitudinal results show important disciplinary biases but with strong increase of new profiles form different areas. They also suggest that these virtual spaces are gaining more stability and they tend toward a equilibrate environment. Originality/value This is the first longitudinal study of profiles from three major academic social networking sites and it allows to shed light on the future of these platforms’ populations.

[1]  R. König,et al.  Academia Goes Facebook? The Potential of Social Network Sites in the Scholarly Realm , 2014 .

[2]  Antonella De Angeli,et al.  Exploring the Virtual Space of Academia , 2012, COOP.

[3]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  Academia.edu: Social network or Academic Network? , 2014, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[4]  Steve Jones,et al.  Whose Space is MySpace? A Content Analysis of MySpace Profiles , 2008, First Monday.

[5]  Melissa Goertzen,et al.  Wired Academia: Why Social Science Scholars Are Using Social Media , 2013, 2013 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[6]  José Luis Ortega.  Social Network Sites for Scientists: A Quantitative Survey , 2016 .

[7]  José Luis Ortega,et al.  Disciplinary differences in the use of academic social networking sites , 2015, Online Inf. Rev..

[8]  Lutz Bornmann,et al.  Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics , 2014, J. Informetrics.

[9]  D. Neal.  Social Media for Academics , 2012 .

[10]  Alberto Dafonte-Gomez,et al.  Academic social networks: Presence and activity in Academia.edu and ResearchGate of communication researchers of the Galician universities , 2015, 2015 10th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI).

[11]  José Luis Ortega,et al.  Diferencias y evolución del impacto académico en los perfiles de Google Scholar Citations: Una aplicación de árboles de decisión , 2015 .

[12]  Richard Van Noorden.  Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network , 2014, Nature.

[13]  José Luis Ortega,et al.  Science is all in the eye of the beholder: Keyword maps in Google scholar citations , 2012, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[14]  Ángel Borrego,et al.  Use of social networks for academic purposes: a case study , 2013, Electron. Libr..

[15]  Amany M. Elsayed,et al.  The Use of Academic Social Networks Among Arab Researchers , 2016 .

[16]  Katy Jordan,et al.  Academics and their online networks: Exploring the role of academic social networking sites , 2014, First Monday.

[17]  Adam N. Joinson,et al.  Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: motives and use of facebook , 2008, CHI.

[18]  J. Blickenstaff.  Women and science careers: leaky pipeline or gender filter? , 2005 .

[19]  Omar Almousa,et al.  Users' classification and usage-pattern identification in academic social networks , 2011, 2011 IEEE Jordan Conference on Applied Electrical Engineering and Computing Technologies (AEECT).

[20]  Christian Pieter Hoffmann,et al.  A relational altmetric? Network centrality on ResearchGate as an indicator of scientific impact , 2016, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[21]  José Luis Ortega,et al.  Relationship between altmetric and bibliometric indicators across academic social sites: The case of CSIC's members , 2015, J. Informetrics.

[22]  Andrei Cimpian,et al.  Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines , 2015, Science.

[23]  Miriam C. Goldstein,et al.  An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists , 2013, PLoS biology.

[24]  Susanne Mikki,et al.  Digital Presence of Norwegian Scholars on Academic Network Sites—Where and Who Are They? , 2015, PloS one.

[25]  José Luis Ortega,et al.  Microsoft academic search and Google scholar citations: Comparative analysis of author profiles , 2014, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[26]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  ResearchGate articles: Age, discipline, audience size, and impact , 2017, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[27]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  Do highly cited researchers successfully use the social web? , 2014, Scientometrics.

[28]  Jutta Haider,et al.  Researchers’ use of social network sites : a scoping review , 2016 .

[29]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  Evaluating altmetrics , 2013, Scientometrics.

[30]  José Luis Ortega,et al.  How is an academic social site populated? A demographic study of Google Scholar Citations population , 2015, Scientometrics.

[31]  Daqing He,et al.  Changing communication on researchgate through interface updates , 2014, ASIST.

[32]  Katy Jordan.  Academics’ Awareness, Perceptions and Uses of Social Networking Sites: Analysis of a Social Networking Sites Survey Dataset , 2014 .

[33]  Darrell W. Gunter.  Social Media for Academics - A Practical Guide , 2013, Learn. Publ..

[34]  Daqing He,et al.  User participation in an academic social networking service: A survey of open group users on Mendeley , 2014, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[35]  Zeynep Tufekci.  GROOMING, GOSSIP, FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE , 2008 .

[36]  Denis Gillet,et al.  Identifying influential scholars in academic social media platforms , 2013, 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2013).

[37]  Viviana Fernández-Marcial,et al.  Promoción de la investigación e identidad digital: el caso de la Universidade da Coruña , 2015 .