This cross-sectional survey focused on faculty use and knowledge of author identifiers and researcher networking systems, and professional use of social media, at a large state university. Results from 296 completed faculty surveys representing all disciplines (9.3% response rate) show low levels of awareness and variable resource preferences. The most utilized author identifier was ORCID while ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Google Scholar were the top profiling systems. Faculty also reported some professional use of social media platforms. The survey data will be utilized to improve library services and develop intra-institutional collaborations in scholarly communication, research networking, and research impact.
This cross-sectional survey focused on faculty use and knowledge of author identifiers and researcher networking systems, and professional use of social media, at a large state university. Results from 296 completed faculty surveys representing all disciplines (9.3% response rate) show low levels of awareness and variable resource preferences. The most utilized author identifier was ORCID while ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Google Scholar were the top profiling systems. Faculty also reported some professional use of social media platforms. The survey data will be utilized to improve library services and develop intra-institutional collaborations in scholarly communication, research networking, and research impact. echnology has advanced at a remarkable speed for decades. However, scholarly publishing has not kept up with the rate of technological change for the past two decades, and traditional publishing models continue to prevail. 1 Although new scholarly communication methods such as open access and digital repositories have been evolving, there is no well-established and universally accepted communication model that can "define merit and provide rewards" for researchers. 2 This is exacerbated by the lack of necessary tools and services that enhance proper author identification for a scholar's output. 3 The rapid growth and development of researcher networking systems and social networking platforms plays an important role in improving the connection of researchers academically and socially. Researcher-or faculty-specific networking systems usually provide a professional profile to which the scholar can upload and display publication data, research interests, and educational and employment data. Some of these systems, occasionally nicknamed "Facebook for scientists," allow researchers to share knowledge, discuss shared interests, and comment on or criticize published work. 4 Additionally, some "general" social networking platforms can serve as a vehicle for sharing work and/or networking with professional colleagues. These may include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, MySpace, Pinterest, Tumblr, and MeetUp. In recent years, most, if not all, academic research institutions have been developing and promoting faculty profiling systems designed to fulfill a variety of purposes including departmental websites, faculty tenure and promotion systems, administrative reporting, credentialing, and facilitating research collaboration across disciplines.
The purpose of this study is to ascertain the suitability of GS's url-based method as a valid approximation of universities' academic output measures, taking into account three aspects (retroactive growth, correlation, and coverage). To do this, a set of 100 Turkish universities were selected as a case study. The productivity in Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and GS (2000 to 2013) were captured in two different measurement iterations (2014 and 2018). In addition, a total of 18,174 documents published by a subset of 14 research-focused universities were retrieved from WoS, verifying their presence in GS within the official university web domain. Findings suggest that the retroactive growth in GS is unpredictable and dependent on each university, making this parameter hard to evaluate at the institutional level. Otherwise, the correlation of productivity between GS (url-based method) and WoS and Scopus (selected sources) is moderately positive, even though it varies depending on the university, the year of publication, and the year of measurement. Finally, only 16% out of 18,174 articles analyzed were indexed in the official university website, although up to 84% were indexed in other GS sources. This work proves that the url-based method to calculate institutional productivity in GS is not a good proxy for the total number of publications indexed in WoS and Scopus, at least in the national context analyzed. However, the main reason is not directly related to the operation of GS, but with a lack of universities' commitment to open access.
This article underwent semi-anonymous peer review in accordance with JLSC's peer review policy.
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