Researchers’ online visibility: tensions of visibility, trust and reputation

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand what role researchers assign to online representations on the new digital communication sites that have emerged, such as Academia, ResearchGate or Mendeley. How are researchers’ online presentations created, managed, accessed and, more generally, viewed by academic researchers themselves? And how are expectations of the academic reward system navigated and re-shaped in response to the possibilities afforded by social media and other digital tools? Design/methodology/approach Focus groups have been used for empirical investigation to learn about the role online representation is assigned by the concerned researchers. Findings The study shows that traditional scholarly communication documents are what also scaffolds trust and builds reputation in the new setting. In this sense, the new social network sites reinforce rather than challenge the importance of formal publications. Originality/value An understanding of the different ways in which researchers fathom the complex connection between reputation and trust in relation to online visibility as a measure of, or at least an attempt at, publicity (either within academia or outside it) is essential. This paper emphasizes the need to tell different stories by exploring how researchers understand their own practices and reasons for them.

Metasíntesis cualitativa sobre colaboración científica e identidad digital académica en redes sociales

“…La categoría principal definida es la visibilidad online (n=25). Los estudios ejemplares se centran en el rol asignado a las representaciones online en Academia.edu, Researchgate y Mendeley (Kjellberg y Haider, 2018), el uso de Researchgate y las jerarquías académicas existentes (Thelwall y Kousha, 2015), y el nivel de colaboración y difusión científica de las investigadoras de la Universidad de Salamanca en Researchgate y Academia. edu (Carreño, Frías y Ravieso, 2018).…”

Applying Rigor to Agile Research and Innovation Projects Guided by Product Development

“…The assessment of reputation is routinely done in research fields when it is linked to rewarding systems and funding allocation. Scholarly communication can be understood as "a communicative practice anchored in three dimensions: publicity, access, and trustworthiness" [22]. Recently, reputation has got another dimension linked to the used of social networks and Internet applications: it is linked to on-line opinions.…”

Scholarly reputation building in the digital age: an activity-specific approach. Review article

“…However, with all these alternative forms of impact measurement do allow for a degree of self-assessment (Wouters;Costas, 2012), and, indeed, scholars are growingly aware of the added value that altmetrics may have in their scholarly undertakings (Aung;Theng, 2017;Desrochers et al, 2018;Haustein et al, 2014;Sugimoto et al, 2017), their behaviour continues to be guided by traditional, productivity-and citation-based metrics (Kjellberg;Haider, 2018;Nicholas et al, 2018;Tenopir et al, 2015;Watkinson et al, 2016;Zheng;Theng, 2018). Inevitably so, of course, with academics typically still recruited, promoted and funded exclusively on the basis of their publication record and citation scores-based reputation (Alperin et al, 2018).…”