TOMASZ PUGACEWICZ, PH.D. STUDENTJAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY IN KRAKOW,

POLAND

Specialized academic social media networks

scholars often use general/universal social media networks:

listed on Impact of Social Sciences blog: LinkedIn, Twitter (Poland: Facebook), Slideshare.

social media networks devoted specifically to academic communication

the most dominant: ResearchGate, Mendeley, Academia.edu (or simply Academia),

Google Scholar Citation portal, which is not a typical social media network, but has the potential to become one.

differences between a traditional university website and a social media network profile

the content of the traditional website is generated (usually over time) by the website’s manager,

the content of one’s social media profile is generated directly, and in a more dynamic fashion by the owner of the profile,

social media network profile enables us to see in one place, changes made on websites that we follow,

social media networks are better optimized than university websites on search engines

differences between a traditional university website and a social media network profile

social media is so interactive it takes more time to manage and maintain them,

the administration of a university website is not so time consuming,

on our own social media profile we can describe and show all our academic activities in one place,

usually on a university webpage we post only our CV and published papers,

on an academic social network we can also share e.g. unpublished manuscripts, conference papers etc.

Academia and Mendeley – common features

on both websites you can easily publish bibliographic data of your paper and tag it: we can do this with or without adding a file with full

text, access to this file is restricted only to registered

members of Academia or Mendeley, anyone can easily create a new account in order to

access your paper, we can link bibliographic data with other websites

(e.g. public repository), where there are no restrictions as to who can access your papers.

Academia and Mendeley – common features

publish your CV: on Mendeley it is primarily in HTML form, on Academia you need to attach a separate file,

follow the activity of people interested in the same topic: on Academia this takes the form of following tags (so

called “research interests”), on Mendeley it means following or becoming a

member of a particular group.

Academia and Mendeley – common features

we can observe the activity of chosen members of our network (their new papers, what they follow and notifications on their own board),

share via Facebook, Twitter and with members of Academia or Mendeley papers of another user that we found interesting,

we can’t directly comment on papers published on those websites: we can do this indirectly on Mendeley via group

discussions or comments on the newsfeed.

Academia and Mendeley – common features

some research tags and „discussion groups are empty shells and some profiles haven't been updated in a year or more”,

Google Scholar does not automatically import our papers’ bibliographic data, neither from Mendeley, nor from Academia,

the potential in the future to be used as a device to assess the relevance of scholars.

Mendeley - unique features

publish and share bibliographic data on other authors’ papers, inside public or private groups,

share not only bibliographic data, but even a file with another author’s paper, usually only inside private networks,

when we check details of the bibliographic record (with or without the file) usually we see other recommended papers associated with the same topic

Mendeley – unique features

discussions inside groups or in the form of comments to notifications made by other users,

paradoxically the level of activity around particular topics on Mendeley (that is around groups) is lower than on Academia around “research interests”,

after Mendeley was acquired by Elsevier this year, there has been ongoing discussion about the future commitment of this website to Open Access movement.

Mendeley and social networking

something more than just a social media network.

Mendeley is first and foremost an online and Desktop reference manager with built-in PDF reader,

social networking site second.

Academia – unique features

it’s easier to add a paper to Academia than it is to Mendeley,

usually papers published on Academia are more visible on Google than those published on Mendeley,

it’s easier to follow the activity of network members, because you do not need to be accepted by them, Academia is like Twitter: you just follow other people, Mendeley is like Facebook: you need to be accepted

in order to create a new contact.

Academia – unique features

collects data and notifies users of features of viewers of your Academia profile and papers: how they found them (e.g. Google query), their computer’s country of origin, Mendeley shows only how many people add a particular

paper to their private library, mentioned data is easily accessible and presented

in graphic form,browse scholars based on their academic

affiliation, the possibility for discussion is limited on

Academia.

Academia or Mendeley?

many people argue that these two do not compete but rather complement each other,

you can choose whichever is more suitable to your needs, Academia is a great instrument with which you can

promote your papers and follow others’ papers, Mendeley is good for sharing bibliographic data and

conducting discussions.

Reality

sometimes our choice of academic social media network is contingent on the one we start using first: we start using one of them and concentrate only on

this one, sometimes there are more people oriented

around a specific topic (e.g. international studies) on one network than the other: there are more people interested in international

studies on Academia than on Mendeley.

TOMASZ.PUGACEWICZ@UJ.EDU.PL

Thank You!