Social Networking for Researchers

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Swansea University Library Guides: Social Networking for Researchers. BB CC .... manager and academic social network tha
Swansea University Library Guides: Social Networking for Researchers

Social Networking Sites for Researchers There are several sites on the web that encourage researchers to create a profile and publicise their publications. Each has its pros and cons. Whilst it is time consuming to set up a profile on different sites, the benefit is making yourself and your papers easier to find and therefore more likely to be cited. Academia.edu ResearchGate Mendeley Google Scholar Profile LinkedIn On all sites, uploading a photo makes your profile look active & professional – using the same photo and name for consistency across all sites is also recommended. For those sites that allow you to upload published papers, it is vital to check your copyright permissions – we have a PDF guide with easy steps to do this.

Academia.edu http://academia.edu Strapline: “Academia.edu is a place to share and follow research” The site has a social networking emphasis on “following” other people and a news feed based on your interest and connections. Anyone can join (you can declare yourself an unaffiliated “independent researcher”).  See Swansea researchers: http://swansea.academia.edu/ (1831 as of 10/06/14)  Sample profile : http ://swansea.academia.edu/KasiaSzpakowska Academia.edu has its own video playlist on how to get the most from the site: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuvYNk-74GVEtH6DhTc34gVUoTpAdgy1E Building your profile  Including your affiliation and department will enable others at your institution to find you.  Research interests will determine your news feed content. As you start to type, the site will suggest existing terms to add. You can click on a topic to see who else is interested in it.  Uploading a photo is recommended : it makes your profile look more professional and active. The sidebar on the left of your profile page lets you add more links and content:

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You can build up a portfolio of publications, talks, teaching materials – use the “Add Section” link to include different types of materials. You can click on the pencil to change the name of a section if you wish e.g. change “Papers” to “Journal Articles”. “Add Post” is similar to updating your status in Facebook – a way of communicating what you are working on to your followers. “Add CV” allows you to upload a CV in a separate document. Link to other social networking profiles.

Adding Papers You can add papers manually or search for your publications:  On the web (it uses Microsoft Academic Search)  PubMed  ArcXiv It also has an option to import them from your “home page” URL. Ensure that you are respecting copyright when uploading content to Academia.edu. The advice given on their FAQ page is extremely misleading - you need to check your rights for each journal using the Sherpa Romeo database and only upload permitted versions of a publication. Documents can only be downloaded by registered users of Academia.edu. Elsevier’s issue of take-down notices to academics in Dec 2013 generated much debate. This article on Scholarly Kitchen “Is this the end of an era for Academia.edu” (and the comments that follow) illustrate the complexity of the situation.

ResearchGate http://researchgate.net Strapline: “For scientists. Access scientific knowledge, and make your research visible.” In fact, all disciplines are represented. You can only join with a verified institutional email address. The site has its own “impact” scores.  See other Swansea researchers: http://www.researchgate.net/institution/Swansea_University (1419 as of 10/04/14, 5k+ publications)  Sample profile : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giles_Young/ Building your Profile ResearchGate will try to find your publications for you – note that you can « Skip this step » and also that unless you de-select the box, it will alert any co-authors on your behalf :

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Swansea University Library Guides: Social Networking for Researchers

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Including your affiliation and department will enable others at your institution to find you. The site insists on verifying your institutional email address. ResearchGate also fosters a community of asking questions and getting answers. These are public and indexed by Google. You can display your ResearchGate profile on our staff web pages.

Adding Papers The site encourages adding peer-reviewed research plus supplementary resources (such as research data) and non-peer-reviewed work. ResearchGate will suggest papers for you or you can import them from reference management tools or you can manually add items. It is harder to link to documents – ResearchGate wants you to upload them. Ensure that you are respecting copyright when uploading content. You need to check your rights for each journal using the Sherpa Romeo database and only upload permitted versions of a publication. There is also the option to have a “Request Full Text” link displayed so people can contact you to request a copy. Despite pop-ups that suggest the contrary, anyone can download a document from ResearchGate - you do not have to be logged in.

Mendeley http://www.mendeley.com Strapline: “It’s time to change the way we do research. Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research.” Mendeley is primarily a reference management tool like EndNote (you can download the software or use it online) and a crowd-sourced collection of research papers. It is now owned by Elsevier.  Mendeley does not provide an institutional overview but a Google search shows other Swansea users.  Sample profile: http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/christopher-jobling/

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Swansea University Library Guides: Social Networking for Researchers You can create a free account then, within the site, go to “My Account” / “Edit my Profile” to enter more information: contact information, CV and other biographical information. Mendeley has its own video channel to help users (http://www.youtube.com/user/MendeleyResearch) including a 2 minute introduction to creating your profile. You can add publications from your library or this blog post describes adding them in bulk from Google Scholar as well as showing how one academic is using Mendeley to full advantage. Adding your papers to Mendeley increases their chances of being discovered by Mendeley users and added to their libraries (Mendeley suggests “Related research” for any reference). You can view your “Readership Statistics” on Mendeley for each paper. PDFs can be uploaded using the desktop version of Mendeley and can be shared (check copyright as before).

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com LinkedIn is not specifically a research-focussed site but aimed more widely at “professionals”. Many researchers choose to maintain a presence there and it currently shows up high in Google search results (as does Twitter). LinkedIn does allow you to list your publications, as well as your CV, but they can only be added manually with a URL (no file upload possible). The site encourages users to make connections and “endorse” others’ skills. You can also use updates to disseminate your news. Sample Profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/charles-musselwhite/45/65a/853 Altmetric.com includes mentions of an article in LinkedIn groups when calculating impact.

Google Scholar Profiles http://scholar.google.com/citations Google Scholar is not primarily a social networking site, however it does allow you to create a public profile and list your publications. There is also the facility for others to “Follow” you via its alerting service. We discuss Google Scholar in more detail in our “Google Scholar for Researchers (PDF)” guide – it has additional advantages in tracking citations and metrics.

Further Reading and Opinion Blog post on “Mendeley and ResearchGate: profile sites and repositories used in tandem to raise research profiles”, 9 July 2012: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/libresearch/entry/mendeley_and_researchgate/ Blog post “I’m an academic and desperately need an online presence, where do I start?“, 10 Aug 2012 http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/08/10/im-an-academic-and-desperatelyneed-an-online-presence-where-do-i-start/ Blog post “Creating your web presence: a primer for academics”, Feb 2011 http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/creating-your-web-presence-a-primer-foracademics/30458 Using Social Media to promote your research – Professor Hazel Hall on Slideshare This document is online at: http://goo.gl/wqhwh BB CC, Jun 2014 SO