Exploring the Virtual Space of Academia

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to provide a view on how researchers present themselves in a social network specifically developed for supporting academic practices, how they share information and engage in dialogues with colleagues worldwide. We analysed data from 30,428 who have registered on a publicly available website to study the effect of academic position, university ranking and country on people's behaviour. Results suggest that the virtual network closely mirrors physical reality, reproducing the same hierarchical structure imposed by position, ranking, and country on user behaviour. Despite the potential for bridging and bonding social capital the networks has not achieved substantial changes in structures and practices of the academic context. Furthermore, our analysis highlights the need of finding new strategies to motivate the users to contribute to the community and support equal participation, as so far the community is mainly exploited as a static website.

Do highly cited researchers successfully use the social web?

“…Very few EHC researchers had profiles in Mendeley and Academia.edu. A previous study (Menendez et al 2012) found that more users of Academia.edu (for their dataset) worked in research institutions in North America (38%), than in Europe (21%; more than half in the UK). This suggests that Academia.edu is not so popular for European scholars, maybe with exception of these working in United Kingdom.…”

“…Nevertheless, few studies have investigated this tool (e.g., Menendez et al 2012;Thelwall and Kousha in press).…”

Academic engagement: Differences between intention to adopt Social Networking Sites and other online technologies

“…Likewise, SNS have been found to be used by academics as tools for forming digital identities and engaging in impression management (Veletsianos, 2012). Many academics use social media in order to increase the visibility of their research and discuss their ideas with their colleagues (Lupton, 2014;Menendez et al, 2012). We suggest that academics' need for selfpromotion, which is the manifestation of someone's abilities or accomplishments in order to be seen as competent by others (Bolino and Turnley, 1999) and enhancement of professional identity, affects their attitude towards using online technologies for engagement in a positive way.…”

“…SNS are used for information dissemination in academia too (Lupton, 2014;Menendez et al, 2012). More specifically, many academics use SNS in order to keep in touch with new developments and events and provide access to new or unpublished articles in their research field (Lupton, 2014).…”

“…More specifically, many academics use SNS in order to keep in touch with new developments and events and provide access to new or unpublished articles in their research field (Lupton, 2014). Also, it is not uncommon for academics to use SNS like Academia.edu in order to provide personal and contact information (Menendez et al, 2012). Thus, SNS and online technologies in general can be used as sources for information within academic community.…”