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PurposeThis paper aims to explore the usage of academic social networking sites (ASNSs) among the research scholars in Central Universities of Delhi, India.Design/methodology/approachA structured questionnaire was designed and personally distributed among 200 research scholars in Central Universities in Delhi in May 2016. Of this, 180 filled-in questionnaires were personally collected by the investigator, eliciting a response rate of 90 per cent.FindingsFindings of the study reveals that research scholars have knowledge of ASNSs. ResearchGate and Academia are the most used ASNSs among research scholars. ResearchGate is used the most for connecting to other research scholars, and Academia is used for sharing and following research. Additionally, ASNSs help research scholars in research and learning and to share research ideas and experience. Finally, research scholars find ASNSs time-consuming and have cited data security as main concern for using academic social networks.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the study show that potential uses of ASNSs in Indian libraries are slow compared to the libraries of developed countries and some of the developing countries. It is suggested that universities under study may realize the benefits of ASNSs and incorporate these tools in their websites to enhance faster transfer and retrieval of information.Practical implicationsThe results also stress upon the responsibility of research supervisors to accord knowledge of ASNSs among research scholars and encourage them to join and use ASNSs efficiently and effectively for building professional connections and collaborations in their research area.Social implicationsThe study is significant because it represents one of the earliest works to shed the light on the current level of use of SNSs and ASNSs by research scholars in Central Universities in Delhi, which are in primitive nature. They provide space for self-expression, research updates, expert advice, connecting with fellow scholars, creating and joining events and discussions, presenting their views on a particular topic, finding collaboration on projects, finding jobs and much more.Originality/valueASNSs have further promoted the open source movement. The paper apprises the academic stakeholders about the unique features, adoption, acceptability and usage of ASNSs for research work, exchange of information and collaborations, so that more productive and quality research is produced. The findings will also guide research scholars to find popular ASNSs, so that they can build more academic connections.

Social networking tools have become an integral part of our daily lives. Recently, a new type of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) namely Academic Social Networking sites (ASNSs) has attracted global users. There is perceived usefulness on the impact of ASNSs on patterns of academic research activities. However, it remains unclear why some researchers do not use ASNSs at all. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore the ASNSs usage among Malaysian academic researchers and to investigate benefits, specific purpose, drivers and barriers of using ASNSs. A total of 210 completed cases were collected through paper-based and online-based questionnaire. In order to show the outcome of the research, descriptive interpretation of data is performed. The overall findings of this research indicate that there is low rate of ASNSs usage among researchers. In addition, the results show that colleagues, attitude toward technology and communication benefits are the drivers to use ASNSs and trust, privacy and security are the common barriers regarding to use ASNSs.

Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNSs) play an important role for dissemination of knowledge especially within the academic community. Day by day Academic SNSs are gaining popularity among the students and faculty. The present study gives the current status of use of ASNSs among the Faculty and Students of Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad. This work looks at most frequently used Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNSs) along with the main purpose of using ASNSs along with the possibilities of looking at whether there are any collaborators for research projects Furthermore the major problems faced in connecting with the ASNSs are also looked at.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate motivators, mediator and moderator of users' sustained information seeking on academic social networking sites (ASNSs).Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon the expectancy–value theory and related information-seeking literature, the study developed a theoretical model to explain why and how users intend to continue seeking information on ASNSs. Thereafter, a field survey with 385 participants was conducted to test the model. Finally, a content analysis of participants' post-survey feedback was performed to complement the model test results by showing more fine-grained findings.FindingsResults suggest that information usefulness and information adoption (IA) are significant to users' sustained information seeking on ASNSs, while users' satisfaction with ASNSs may play a mediating role in the relationship between information usefulness and sustained information seeking. Additionally, self-efficacy for critical thinking (SCT) weakens the impact of IA on users' satisfaction with ASNSs. The post-survey feedback analysis indicates that information usefulness is more critical to sustained information seeking for users with high SCT, whereas IA becomes more crucial to users' satisfaction with ASNSs and sustained information seeking for users with low SCT.Originality/valueAlthough the extant literature has distinguished between information seeking and sustained information seeking, empirical research into users' sustained information seeking on ASNSs is limited. The study fills this gap by proposing and validating relevant factors and the boundary condition of users' sustained information seeking.

PurposeThis paper aims to establish a theoretical search model on academic social networking sites (ASNSs).Design/methodology/approachBased on the characteristics of ASNSs and a previous extended sense-making model, this paper first presented an initial model of searching on ASNSs. Next, an online survey was conducted on ResearchGate to understand the search processes and outcomes with the help of a survey questionnaire. In total, 359 participants from 70 countries participated in this online survey. The survey results provided a basis for modifying the initial model.FindingsResults showed that the theoretical model of searching on ASNSs included motives for searching on ASNSs, identification of needs, search triggered by information needs, search triggered by social needs and outcomes. The search triggered by information needs was significantly positively correlated with learning outcomes. Besides learning outcomes, searching on ASNSs could help user amplify their social networks and promote research dissemination.Practical implicationsUnderstanding users’ search habits and knowledge acquisition can provide insights for ASNSs to design an interface to support searching and enhance learning. Moreover, the proposed model can help users recognize their knowledge status and learning effects and improve their learning efficiency.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to establishing a theoretical model to understand users’ search process and outcomes on ASNSs.

Academic social networking sites are becoming increasingly popular. Several groups of academic people at different level of their career and from different disciplines are utilizing them for their benefit. This paper aims to explore usage patterns of an academic Social Networking Site (SNS) (namely Academia.edu) by different groups of academic users. It gains its importance because of the lack of academic social networking sites studies especially those concerning different user types and usage patterns of academic social networking sites.

Academic Social Network Sites (ASNS) have grown to become a preeminent location for sharing full text scholarly research articles. This paper examines ASNS within the context of open access by suggesting that the framework of “gray open access” best describes ASNS as sites for the dissemination of published research. To understand why authors share their work on ASNS, this paper reviews library and information science literature, finding trends around desire to expand their works’ reach, appreciation of the ease of using ASNS, lack of knowledge regarding copyright restrictions, and desire to share only the final published version of their work. The paper concludes by suggesting avenues academic libraries can take to address the growth of ASNS as de facto repositories.

The increasing popularity of academic social networking sites (ASNSs) requires studies on the usage of ASNSs among scholars and evaluations of the effectiveness of these ASNSs. However, it is unclear whether current ASNSs have fulfilled their design goal, as scholars' actual online interactions on these platforms remain unexplored. To fill the gap, this article presents a study based on data collected from ResearchGate. Adopting a mixed‐method design by conducting qualitative content analysis and statistical analysis on 1,128 posts collected from ResearchGate Q&A, we examine how scholars exchange information and resources, and how their practices vary across three distinct disciplines: library and information services, history of art, and astrophysics. Our results show that the effect of a questioner's intention (i.e., seeking information or discussion) is greater than disciplinary factors in some circumstances. Across the three disciplines, responses to questions provide various resources, including experts' contact details, citations, links to Wikipedia, images, and so on. We further discuss several implications of the understanding of scholarly information exchange and the design of better academic social networking interfaces, which should stimulate scholarly interactions by minimizing confusion, improving the clarity of questions, and promoting scholarly content management.

Research universities on the ResearchGate social networking site: An examination of institutional differences, research activity level, and social networks formed

As the world becomes more networked through social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc., the academic world has also developed its own online Academic Social Networks Sites (ASNS), such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar, Mendeley, Zotero, and Methodspace, just to name a few. Academics and researchers are using these platforms as alternative ways to share and disseminate their research to a wider audience to increase the visibility of their academic output, to support the sharing of data set and to connect with other scholars. However, ASNS are not only enabling researchers to form networks, but are also opening up avenues for them to interact, share ideas and knowledge, and engage in discussions that relate to research practices. The aim of this study was therefore to examine the use of ASNS by researchers and academics and its importance in knowledge sharing. Data collection was largely based on a critical review of literature relating to the use of ASNS for knowledge sharing by academics and researchers. The findings revealed that most academics and researchers are faced with many challenges that hinder the effective use of these network sites. The practice of uploading articles on ASNS has become a contentious issue with publishers claiming infringement of copyright agreements on the part of researchers. Copyright and intellectual property issues thus need to be addressed. The study also observed that, in some instances, academics and researchers were not fully involved in collaborative with other scholars. Collaboration amongst researchers is therefore recommended as it stimulates creativity and helps in addressing this complexity of research. This study, therefore, recommends that researchers can address some of ASNS challenges if they leverage on these factors because resolution of complex research problems issues can only be achieved through cross disciplinary collaboration and this can also pave the way for knowledge sharing in practice.

Researchers need to remove many traditional obstacles to disseminate and outreach their research outputs. Academic social networking and blogs allows you to connect with other researchers in your field, share your publications, and get feedback on your non-peer-reviewed work. Blogs are a vital tool for academics to publicly communicate about research developments and findings. The academic social networking, making your work more widely discoverable and easily available. The two best known academic social networking sites are ResearchGate and Academia.edu. These sites offer an instant technique to monitor what other people are looking at in your field of research. Both networks offer roughly the same features. ResearchGate is more closely focused on collaboration and interaction, while Academia.edu often functions more as an academic version of LinkedIn, with an online CV and as a place to share your publications.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to detect and describe disciplinary differences in the users and use of several social networking sites by scientists.Design/methodology/approach– Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) (Spanish National Research Council) researchers registered in the most currently relevant academic social network sites (Google Scholar Citations, Academia.edu, ResearchGate (RG) and Mendeley) were analysed. In total, 6,132 profiles were classified according the eight research areas of the CSIC.Findings– Results show that Academia.edu is massively populated by humanists and social scientists, while RG is popular among biologists. Disciplinary differences are observed across every platform. Thus, scientists from the humanities and social sciences and natural resources show a significant activity contacting other members. On the contrary, biologists are more passive using social tools.Originality/value– This is the first study that analyses the disciplinary performance of a same sample of researchers on a varied number of academic social sites, comparing their numbers across web sites.

Academic social network sites (ASNS) like ResearchGate and Academia.edu can be analysed as techno-cultural systems through which researchers perform a number of tasks and roles that can be collectively defined as digital scholarship. This study sets out to map empirical Spanish-language research studies on the use of ResearchGate and Academia.edu among scholarly communities. The aim is to verify possible research gaps regarding shared scholarly knowledge and networked learning supported by ASNS. The study is based on a theoretical framework which treats ASNS as networked socio-technical systems that encompass systemic dimensions and individual usage as strictly intertwined elements influencing each other. This occurs at three levels: 1) the socio-economic level, which includes components like ownership, governance, and business model; 2) the techno-cultural level, which includes components associated to technology, user/usage, and content; and 3) the networked-scholar level, which includes components related to networking, knowledge sharing and identity. The research reported here is an extension of a previous study of English-language scientific literature which was carried out with the same methods. The corpus of the study was collected from a search of leading databases of international scientific literature (Web of Science, Scopus and a number of Ibero-American scientific databases). The search yielded 12 papers, which were selected according to a set of criteria and analysed in terms of components of the aforementioned three-level framework. The results show that ResearchGate is attracting greater attention, with a particularly high proportion of studies dedicated to social science areas like library and information sciences and communication science. Analysis at the networked scholar level, encompassing forms through which scholars build their identities and reputation in social spaces, revealed that this was underused. The results highlight a need for more specific studies on open and distributed knowledge exchange generated in ASNS from a networked learning perspective, including both individual and collective scholarly practices. Moreover, increased use of qualitative methods could contribute to shed light on new practices among scholars for building reputation and professional identity.

Research on pathways of expert finding on academic social networking sites

Purpose This article aims to explore how intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact to shape scholars’ Q&A behaviour on an academic social networking site (ASNS). It seeks to understand the motivational dynamics underlying academic engagement in digitally mediated environments, with a particular focus on ResearchGate. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopted a qualitative methodology combining semi-structured interviews with non-participant observation. About 32 active ResearchGate users across diverse disciplines were interviewed during a three-month data collection period, supplemented by longitudinal observation of Q&A threads. Data analysis was guided by self-determination theory and motivation crowding theory, which were employed as interpretive frameworks to sensitively explore how intrinsic and extrinsic motivations were shaped, reinforced or undermined by contextual features of academic social networking sites. Findings The authors identified academic knowledge self-efficacy and altruistic orientation as key intrinsic motivations, whereas peer influence, domain knowledge visibility, status recognition and platform feedback function as extrinsic motivators. Importantly, the findings showed how extrinsic cues might either reinforce or undermine intrinsic motivations through crowding-in and crowding-out mechanisms. These effects were shaped by perceived alignment with academic norms, disciplinary cultures and platform affordances. Originality/value This article advances the theoretical understanding of motivations in digital scholarly practices by integrating motivation crowding theory with the logic of academic identity and content production. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding motivational interplay on ASNSs. The findings contribute novel empirical insights into the nuanced motivational dynamics of ASNS use through a qualitative lens.