ResearchGate is a commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers[2] to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.[3] According to a 2014 study by Nature and a 2016 article in Times Higher Education, it is the largest academic social network in terms of active users,[4] although other services have more registered users, and a 2015–2016 survey suggests that almost as many academics have Google Scholar profiles.
While reading articles does not require registration, people who wish to become site members need to have an email address at a recognized institution or to be manually confirmed as a published researcher in order to sign up for an account.[5] Articles are free to read by visitors, however additional features (such as job postings or advertisements) are accessible only as a paid subscription. Members of the site each have a user profile and can upload research output including papers, data, chapters, negative results, patents, research proposals, methods, presentations, and software source code. Users may also follow the activities of other users and engage in discussions with them. Users are also able to block interactions with other users.
The site has been criticized for sending unsolicited email invitations to coauthors of the articles listed on the site that were written to appear as if the email messages were sent by the other coauthors of the articles (a practice the site said it had discontinued as of November 2016) and for automatically generating apparent profiles for non-users who have sometimes felt misrepresented by them. A study found that over half of the uploaded papers appear to infringe copyright, because the authors uploaded the publisher's version.
Features
The New York Times described the site as a mashup of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[3] Site members may follow a research interest, in addition to following other individual members. It has a blogging feature for users to write short reviews on peer-reviewed articles. ResearchGate indexes self-published information on user profiles to suggest members to connect with others who have similar interests.[3] When a member posts a question, it is fielded to others that have identified on their user profile that they have a relevant expertise. It also has private chat rooms where users can share data, edit shared documents, or discuss confidential topics. The site also features a research-focused job board.[6]
As of 2020, it has more than 17 million users,[1] with its largest user-bases coming from Europe and North America. Most of ResearchGate's users are involved in medicine or biology, though it also has participants from engineering, law, computer science, agricultural sciences, and psychology, among others.
History
ResearchGate was founded in 2008[10] by virologist Ijad Madisch, who remains the company's CEO,[4][3] with physician Sören Hofmayer, and computer scientist Horst Fickenscher.[6] It started in Boston, Massachusetts, and moved to Berlin, Germany, shortly afterwards.[11]
The company's first round of funding, in 2010, was led by the venture capital firm Benchmark.[12] Benchmark partner Matt Cohler became a member of the board and participated in the decision to move to Berlin.
Reception
A 2009 article in BusinessWeek reported that ResearchGate was a "potentially powerful link" in promoting innovation in developing countries by connecting scientists from those nations with their peers in industrialized nations.[25] It said the website had become popular largely due to its ease of use. It also said that ResearchGate had been involved in several notable cross-country collaborations between scientists that led to substantive developments.[25]
Academic reception of ResearchGate remains generally positive, as recent reviews of extant literature show an accepting audience with broad coverage of concepts.[26] A 2012 paper published in The International Information & Library Review conducted a survey with 160 respondents and reported that out of those respondents using social networking "for academic purposes", Facebook and ResearchGate were the most popular at the University of Delhi, but also "a majority of respondents said using SNSs [Social Networking Sites] may be a waste of time".[27]
Although ResearchGate is used internationally, its uptake—as of 2014—is uneven, with Brazil having particularly many users and China having few when compared to the number of publishing researchers.
Criticism
ResearchGate's decision to not remove convicted sex offenders from its social networking site has been criticized by Canadian authorities. Many researchers world-wide deleted their account in protest as they refused to remove convicted child pornographer and registered sex offender in Canada, Ben Levin as a user. Identified on ResearchGate as "Research Ben", he had been a frequent user of ResearchGate, publishing over 80 papers of interest with the vast majority dealing with studies around child pornography and pedophiles.[31]
ResearchGate has been criticized for emailing unsolicited invitations to the coauthors of its users.[32] These emails were written as if they were personally sent by the user, but were instead sent automatically unless the user opted out, which caused some researchers to boycott the service[33] and contributes to the negative view of ResearchGate in the scientific community.[33] As of November 2016,[34]
External links
- ACS v. ResearchGate GmbH court case docket
References
- ResearchGate turns 12 ResearchGate, retrieved 2020-08-12^
- Office of Scholarly Communication. A social networking site is not an open access repository University of California, December 2016, retrieved 2016-12-03^
- Thomas Lin. Cracking open the scientific process