Academic social networks: Presence and activity in Academia.edu and ResearchGate of communication researchers of the Galician universities

Academic social networks emerge as an opportunity to facilitate research work, increasing the likelihood of dissemination, collaboration, knowledge. However, there are still many doubts, uncertainties and fears, ignorance generally derived from the budding of this phenomenon, which prevent from placing it at the same level of recognition or formality than traditional media. It will be through study of these platforms as we can move towards its consolidation as valid tools to fully work in academic work. This study analyzes the presence of teachers and researchers in communication of the Galician Universities in the two major academic social networks, Academia.edu and ResearchGate. It is found that the number of academics present at them is already more than 50%. In addition to this overview, this paper studies the presence, number of documents, followers, visits... by gender, university or departmental areas.