Academic Social Networking Sites: A Comparative Analysis of Their Services and

Tools
Fatima K. Espinoza Vasquez, Syracuse University
Carlos E. Caicedo Bastidas, Syracuse University

Abstract
In the last decade there has been an emergence of Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNSs). Each
site offers its own combination of tools and capabilities to support research activities, communication,
collaboration, and networking. Given their variety, it might be challenging for academics to evaluate and
use them. We conducted an exploratory inductive comparative study of the services and tools of a select
set of ASNSs. We argue that maintaining multiple profiles might be time-consuming and propose starting
a discussion about how we can make this process less cumbersome. We expect that our findings will
help academics and researchers make informed decisions about their choice of ASNS.
Keywords: Academic Social Network Sites, Social Media, Academics, Faculty Development, Professional Development, Academic
Career, Higher Education, Academic Impact
Citation: Espinoza Vasquez, F.K., Caicedo Bastidas, C.E. (2015). Academic Social Networking Sites: A Comparative Analysis of
Their Services and Tools. In iConference 2015 Proceedings.
Copyright: Copyright is held by the author(s).
Contact: [email protected], [email protected]

1 Introduction and Problem Statement

Peer-reviewed conferences and journals have traditionally been the focus of researchers’ efforts
to make their research visible. However, as social media becomes more prevalent, the way academics
disseminate their research is changing (Ovadia, 2013; Veletsianos, 2013). Academics are increasingly
using social media, and are expected to have a professional online presence (Gruzd, Staves, & Wilk,
2011; Gruzd, Staves, & Wilk, 2012; Markgren, 2011). Moreover, it is expected that social media
presence will be increasingly recognized as part of the tenure and promotion review processes (Gruzd et
al., 2011). Citation counts will no longer be sufficient to estimate research impact, and the social
importance of authors will become increasingly significant (Jabeur, Tamine, & Boughanem, 2010). Thus,
researchers are regarding social media as a new way to be more visible and to have their research
discovered by peers (Kelly & Delasalle, 2012).
In the last decade there has been an emergence of Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNS)
(Bullinger, Hallerstede, Renken, Soeldner, & Möslein, 2010, Ellison, 2007). Each site offers its own
combination of tools and capabilities to support research activities, communication, collaboration, and
networking. Given their variety, it might be challenging for academics to evaluate and use them. This
paper is a response to that challenge; we explore the services and tools of a select set of ASNS, look at
how they compare to each other, identify their commonalities and differences, in order to help
researchers make informed decision and study the characteristics and trends related to ASNS.

2 Literature Review
The literature discusses different ways an ASNS can support scholarly work. We have identified five
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broad services these sites provide: (1) collaboration, (2) online persona management, (3) research
dissemination, (4) documents management, and (5) impact measurement.
Methods to evaluate research impact as well as interactions between researchers and the
broader community are changing thanks to the emergence of tools, social behaviors, and cultural
expectations associated with social media (Veletsianos, 2013). Bullinger et al., (2010) report a
considerable increase in temporary scientific collaboration amongst scientists across departments,
institutions, disciplines, and countries in the last two decades. Velestianos & Kimmons (2013) argue that
research is becoming “networked” and “participatory”. Other researchers argue that ASNSs are somehow
“replicating the experience of socializing at a conference,” and in some cases even enhancing it, as they
help create and augment researchers’ professional networks (Curry, Kiddle, & Simmonds, 2009; Kelly,
2013; Nentwich, 2010), thus increasing collaboration chances (Codina, 2009; Darling, Shiffman, Côté, &
Drew, 2013).

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We define services as the provision of an information-based benefit through a social media platform.
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As managing online personae becomes more essential for researchers ASNSs are helping them
with this task (Barbour & Marshall, 2012). What’s more, researchers are increasingly showcasing their
expertise and achievements through multiple online profiles (Bukvova, 2011; Stewart, 2008).
ASNSs facilitate the diffusion of researchers’ work (Bullinger et al., 2010). The ability of finding relevant
communities of scientists and the ability to disseminate findings to a broader audience contribute to
researchers’ enrollment in these sties (Kalb, Pirkkalainen, Pawlowski, & Schoop, 2011; Kelly & Delasalle,
2012). Veletsianos (2013) suggests that social media sites can be viewed as places where scholars can
congregate to share their work, ideas, and experiences. Kellly (2013) adds that ASNSs maximize their
awareness of research output, thus increasing chances of document downloads (Kelly & Delasalle,
2012). Netwich (2010) calls ASNSs “tools for scientific marketing”.
An additional service ASNSs provide is to manage the large amount of information, references,
literature and documents researchers compile. They serve as information management systems
(Bullinger, 2010).
In addition, ASNSs can provide measures of academic impact. While scholarly publishing has
traditionally been evaluated in terms of citation counts and the quality of the journal in which a paper was
published (Goodyear et al., 2009), varied technology-informed metrics (altmetrics) have recently been
proposed in an attempt to more fully capture the influence of scholarly work (Velestianos & Kimmons,
2013 Wildgaard, 2014, Piwowar & Priem, 2013). What’s more, altmetrics are increasingly being used by
young researchers and are becoming accepted as measuring tools for research impact (Ovadia, 2013;
Kelly & Delasalle, 2012). Moreover, they suggest that as academics are interacting in new public arenas,
beyond the “ivory tower”, (Darling et al., 2013; Wildgaard, 2014), analyzing a researcher’s social impact
would complete their impact profile (Jabeur et al., 2010). To support the aforementioned services, ASNS
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provide a wide variety of tools (Table 2). In this paper we compare services and tools provided by some
of the most popular ASNS.

3 Methods
We conducted an exploratory inductive comparative study of ASNSs. We used a priori purposive
sampling, which allowed us to identify, differentiate, and compare features between the sites (Pickard.
2007). Selection criteria was drawn from the literature review and was based on the following ASNS
characteristics: (1) high popularity, (2) provides collaboration services, (3) provides online persona
management, (4) supports research dissemination, (5) provides document management capabilities and
(6) provides impact measurement services. The ASNSs selected complied with at least three of the
criteria. Data analysis consisted of a comparison of their services and tools (See table 2). We generated a
descriptive matrix of the ASNSs (Merriam, 2007).

Table 1. ASNSs’ selection criteria

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We define tools as an electronic feature within an ASNS that has a specific function.

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4 Findings
All sites offer collaboration tools including: discussion boards, emails, and a public network of contacts of
followers. However Mendeley is the only site that provides advanced group collaboration tools like, a
shared library, and collaborative document processing. The site least focused on collaboration is
ImpactStory.
All sites provide default online profiles that include a bio and list of publications. With the
exception of ImpactStory, they all show user’s interests, network of contacts and followers. Though
LinkedIn has more users, Academia.edu, Mendeley and ResearchGate are more scholarly focused.
LinkedIn, Academia.edu and ResearchGate pair users with job announcements. Moreover ResearchGate
and LinkedIn show researcher’s skills, which can be endorsed by other users.

Tools Provided by ASNSs

Discussion Boards
File Repository
Email
Instant Messaging
Citation Count
Altmetrics
Public/semi-public profile
Group collaboration
Reference Management
Collaborative document processing
Network visibility
Upload publications
Linking of information to social media
sites

Table 2. Common tools provided by ASNSs

With regards to research dissemination, Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley, provide more tools
for researchers to find communities and expose findings to a broader audience. They allow uploading
publication files, follow and being followed by peers. What’s more, Academia.edu and ResearchGate
allow linking users’ non-academic social media accounts like Twitter, and Facebook.
Out of all the sites analyzed, Mendeley is the only site that facilitates uploading and managing a
library of documents, it allows importing libraries and references from other services. It also offers a
reference and citation management desktop app.
When it comes to measuring impact, out of all the sites, ResearchGate and ImpactStory have
more tools. ResearchGate’s “RG Score” is a point system that combines publications downloads,
citations, participation in discussion board and number of views. ImpactStory provides citation counts,
and an overview of researchers’ impact in non-academic social media outlets.

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Table 3. Comparison of tools across ASNSs

5 Conclusions
Though the ASNSs we analyzed provide most of the services we evaluated (collaboration, online persona
management, research dissemination, documents management, and impact measurement service), they
tend to specialize in one or two.
While all of them allow keeping an online persona, LinkedIn focuses outside of academia. All sites
provide communication tools, but Mendeley provides the most collaboration tools. All ASNSs provide the
ability to upload researchers’ publications, make their networks visible to other users, and allow linking to
non-academic social media like Twitter or Facebook. While all sites calculate profile or document views,
ResearchGate provides academically focused metrics. ImpactStory on the other side, measures mentions
on Twitter.
Given that researchers usually have several profiles, it can become cumbersome and time-consuming to
manage all of them. We’d recommend researchers to strategically select the ASNS that meets his/her
goals, and hope that our work helps with that task.
We think future research could explore ways to facilitate managing multiple profiles across ASNS and the
actual impact their services have on employment, dissemination of results, and collaboration.

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