User participation in an academic social networking service: A survey of open group users on M endeley
Year: 2014
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Although there are a number of social networking services that specifically target scholars, little has been published about the actual practices and the usage of these so‐called academic social networking services (ASNSs). To fill this gap, we explore the populations of academics who engage in social activities using an ASNS; as an indicator of further engagement, we also determine their various motivations for joining a group in ASNSs. Using groups and their members in Mendeley as the platform for our case study, we obtained 146 participant responses from our online survey about users' common activities, usage habits, and motivations for joining groups. Our results show that (a) participants did not engage with social‐based features as frequently and actively as they engaged with research‐based features, and (b) users who joined more groups seemed to have a stronger motivation to increase their professional visibility and to contribute the research articles that they had read to the group reading list. Our results generate interesting insights into Mendeley's user populations, their activities, and their motivations relative to the social features of Mendeley. We also argue that further design of ASNSs is needed to take greater account of disciplinary differences in scholarly communication and to establish incentive mechanisms for encouraging user participation.
DOI: 10.1002/asi.23225
Authors: Wei Jeng, Daqing He, Jiepu Jiang
Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1776979188