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Do ResearchGate Scores create ghost academic reputations?

Author

Listed:
  • Enrique Orduna-Malea

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

  • Alberto Martín-Martín

    (Universidad de Granada)

  • Mike Thelwall

    (University of Wolverhampton)

  • Emilio Delgado López-Cózar

    (Universidad de Granada)

Abstract

The academic social network site ResearchGate (RG) has its own indicator, RG Score, for its members. The high profile nature of the site means that the RG Score may be used for recruitment, promotion and other tasks for which researchers are evaluated. In response, this study investigates whether it is reasonable to employ the RG Score as evidence of scholarly reputation. For this, three different author samples were investigated. An outlier sample includes 104 authors with high values. A Nobel sample comprises 73 Nobel winners from Medicine and Physiology, Chemistry, Physics and Economics (from 1975 to 2015). A longitudinal sample includes weekly data on 4 authors with different RG Scores. The results suggest that high RG Scores are built primarily from activity related to asking and answering questions in the site. In particular, it seems impossible to get a high RG Score solely through publications. Within RG it is possible to distinguish between (passive) academics that interact little in the site and active platform users, who can get high RG Scores through engaging with others inside the site (questions, answers, social networks with influential researchers). Thus, RG Scores should not be mistaken for academic reputation indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrique Orduna-Malea & Alberto Martín-Martín & Mike Thelwall & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2017. "Do ResearchGate Scores create ghost academic reputations?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 443-460, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:112:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2396-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2396-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2015. "ResearchGate: Disseminating, communicating, and measuring Scholarship?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(5), pages 876-889, May.
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    3. Ortega, José Luis, 2015. "Relationship between altmetric and bibliometric indicators across academic social sites: The case of CSIC's members," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 39-49.
    4. Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2017. "ResearchGate articles: Age, discipline, audience size, and impact," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(2), pages 468-479, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Martín-Martín, Alberto & Orduna-Malea, Enrique & Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio, 2018. "Author-level metrics in the new academic profile platforms: The online behaviour of the Bibliometrics community," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 494-509.
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    3. Christophe Boudry & Manuel Durand-Barthez, 2020. "Use of author identifier services (ORCID, ResearcherID) and academic social networks (Academia.edu, ResearchGate) by the researchers of the University of Caen Normandy (France): A case study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-16, September.
    4. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    5. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2019. "ResearchGate Score, full-text research items, and full-text reads: a follow-up study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1255-1262, May.
    6. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Multi-criteria altmetric scores are likely to be redundant with respect to a subset of the underlying information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 819-824, July.
    7. Juliana E. Raffaghelli & Stefania Manca, 2019. "Is There a Social Life in Open Data? The Case of Open Data Practices in Educational Technology Research," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-17, January.
    8. Shannon Mason & Yusuke Sakurai, 2021. "A ResearchGate-way to an international academic community?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1149-1171, February.
    9. Ortega, José Luis, 2020. "Proposal of composed altmetric indicators based on prevalence and impact dimensions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    10. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2018. "A few remarks on ResearchGate score and academic reputation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 301-306, January.
    11. Maria Cláudia Cabrini Grácio & Natalia Rodrigues Delbianco & Fábio Sampaio Rosas & Antonio Perianes-Rodríguez, 2023. "Co-follower metric on academic-social media ResearchGate: similarities between Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal winners," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5545-5569, October.
    12. Yan, Weiwei & Zhang, Yin, 2018. "Research universities on the ResearchGate social networking site: An examination of institutional differences, research activity level, and social networks formed," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 385-400.
    13. Weiwei Yan & Yin Zhang & Wendy Bromfield, 2018. "Analyzing the follower–followee ratio to determine user characteristics and institutional participation differences among research universities on ResearchGate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 299-316, April.
    14. Łukasz Wiechetek & Zbigniew Pastuszak, 2022. "Academic social networks metrics: an effective indicator for university performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1381-1401, March.
    15. Zhang, Min & Zhang, Dongxin & Zhang, Yin & Yeager, Kristin & Fields, Taylor N., 2023. "An exploratory study of Twitter metrics for measuring user influence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    16. Vivek Kumar Singh & Satya Swarup Srichandan & Hiran H. Lathabai, 2022. "ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in publications, citations and different metrics and why?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1515-1542, March.
    17. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "Research Interest: another undisclosed (and redundant) algorithm by ResearchGate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 351-360, July.
    18. Lepori, Benedetto & Thelwall, Michael & Hoorani, Bareerah Hafeez, 2018. "Which US and European Higher Education Institutions are visible in ResearchGate and what affects their RG score?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 806-818.

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